The Nagoya Municipal Government received a court order Monday to pay 30,000 yen each to seven members of Aum Shinrikyo because the Naka Ward Office rejected their applications for residential status.
Judge Yukio Kato of the Nagoya District Court also revoked the ward's decision to reject the applications, as the plaintiffs had demanded.
Many senior members of the cult, which now calls itself Aleph, have been found guilty of conducting the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 people and made thousands of others ill.
Kato said in the ruling: "The head of a municipality or ward is obliged to accept an application for changing address if such an application reflects the actual circumstances of residence.