Landlord

Five years ago my landlord asked for access to our apartment in order to fix a water problem in another premises directly under ours. Damage done to this apartment during that work still has not been repaired. Recently we had a problem with our electrical system and the electrician discovered some very dangerous plugs. We have tried and tried to contact the landlord to no avail. We are very scared as we are a family of three people living on the fourth floor. We have always paid the rent on time during 14 years in this apartment. What should we do? To leave this apartment means paying money to the real estate agent and we can't afford it.

First, there was a major court ruling recently in Osaka which we believe has the potential to dramatically alter the "deposit" system. The ruling threw out the automatic assertion that the landlord could take out whatever he or she wanted from the deposit and eliminated "regular wear" repairs from being taken out of the deposit upon moving.

There is no charge for you to move, and with the recent ruling you should be able to recoup most of your deposit when you do so. This is now a much better alternative.