For a family home in Toyama, plains and mountains need different answers.
Three ways out to know before you demolish

It rots from the sill up

Vacant houses on the Toyama plain are damaged by water more than by snow. Summers are humid; winters bring the heavy wet snow and rain typical of the Sea of Japan coast. Once nobody lives there, ventilation stops and damp collects under the floor and in the closets. The sill and the base of the posts, the post feet, rot first; then the tatami and floorboards sag. The surface can look normal while white fungal threads have spread beneath the floor.

Leaks usually begin with a blocked gutter. Leaves from the garden trees fill the gutter, water runs behind the eaves, and stains appear on the ceiling boards. Even at this stage, the house can be repaired if the frame is sound. After three or five years of neglect, water reaches the beams and it is a different story.

Designated hazardous vacant houses and property tax

On the plains, especially in the dense residential areas of Toyama City and Takaoka, damaged vacant houses really are being designated as 'poorly managed' or 'designated hazardous' vacant houses. Once designated and served with a recommendation, the residential land relief on property tax ends and the tax on the land rises several times over. Notices from the city hall go in stages, advice and guidance, then recommendation, then order, but the safe course is to start acting when the first letter arrives (When a notice about your vacant house arrives from the city).

Some lots will not sell even when cleared

'Clear the lot and it will sell' is only half true even on the plains. From the year after clearing, the residential land relief described above ends. The relief applied while the house stood; demolish it and the tax goes up. On top of that: a frontage road under 4 m, a non-rebuildable lot with less than 2 m of road access, a terraced row house sharing walls with the neighbours. Around Yatsuo and Iwase in Toyama City, along the Uchikawa in Imizu, and near Yamachosuji in Takaoka, such lots are not unusual. Land that cannot be rebuilt on even when cleared sits on the brokerage market for a long time (Can a non-rebuildable house with no road access be sold?).

For a family home on the plains, check first whether someone will take the house together with the land, before you demolish. With the contents still inside, even with the floor fallen through, we can appraise it as it is.

If you want a rough idea first of whether to demolish or keep, answer eight questions in Demolish or keep? A quick check. Whether the house is on the plains or in the mountains is part of the check.

We buy houses as they are, with the household contents inside. We do the clearing.

• Furniture and belongings: chests, bedding, tableware, clothes. No sorting or removal needed. Only look first for what your family needs: title deeds, bankbooks, seals, photographs. Send us one photo before throwing something away and we will judge whether it has value.
• Buddhist altar: have the closing-of-eyes rite (heigan kuyo, releasing the spirit) performed at a temple of your family's sect first; we then take the altar itself. If you are unsure how to arrange it, ask us.
• Farm machinery and farmland: tractors and combines we take as part of the property. If paddies or fields come with the house, Agricultural Land Act procedures are needed, so consult us about the house and farmland together (Selling a family home with paddies or woodland). Sometimes the house alone can be sold first.

Many people think 'let us clear the house first, then ask', but the order is the reverse. Paying for clearing up front does not raise the purchase price by the same amount. If you are considering renouncing the inheritance, clearing the house itself could count as unconditional acceptance, so touch nothing and consult a judicial scrivener.

What not to do before clearing is set out in Letting go of a family home that has become a hoarder house.

• Inheritance registration: mandatory since April 2024. Within three years of learning of the inheritance. The registration must be complete before a sale. If it is not, we can work through the procedure with you (we introduce a partner judicial scrivener).
• The ¥30 million special deduction for vacant houses: one of its conditions is that you sell by December 31 of the year in which three years have passed since the inheritance began, and the scheme itself runs until December 31, 2027. Other conditions apply, such as the house having been built on or before May 31, 1981 (The ¥30 million deduction for vacant houses).
• Acquisition-cost add-on special rule: if you paid inheritance tax, the sale must be within 3 years and 10 months of the death.

Even if you have not yet decided to sell, count back from the deadlines now. Details in The steps to selling an inherited family home.

1. Send photos on LINE or the form: the exterior, roof, interior and underfloor are enough. If you cannot get in, photos from outside will do.
2. On-site survey (free): we visit the house. You need not be present. We receive the key by post.
3. Written offer: within one week. An appraisal that does not assume demolition. Declining costs you nothing.
4. Contract and handover: the contract can be exchanged by post. As little as two weeks from the site survey. Liability for non-conformity after handover is waived.
5. We clear and restore: removing the contents, taking the Buddhist altar, and sorting out the farmland procedures.

You need to come home once, or not at all. If you want to let go before the snow comes, contact us in autumn and we will hurry the site survey (How to sell your family home without returning to Toyama).