Day 16: Legal Advice

As soon as this whole mess started going down, I asked for advice from friends and colleagues living in Japan. What followed was a slew of suggestions. Most leaned to the side of, 'You should take a giant poop on the floor, that'll show em!'

Of course, there was the expected 'Break everything!' tidbit. The most evil award goes to 'Milk-chicken-bomb.' Tempting.

But the one universal piece of advice was to seek legal council. Surely, when someone breaks into your apartment and illegally evicts you, a law may have been broken, and civil retribution is possible.

The Tokyo Bar Association provides 30 minute legal consultations 4 times a week. They will provide an interpreter to translate the difficult Japanese legal jargon into English. Gotta make a reservation in Japanese though.

My 30 minute, $50 consultation went as follows:

0:00 to 0:15 - Explain the situation. I wrote out a timeline with major dates and parties involved. The lawyer was pleased that I came prepared.

0:15 to 0:20 - The dreaded doshio... what do we do? Yeah, the lawyers were shocked that something like this could have happened in Japan.

0:20 to 0:30 - Advice time!

Basically it comes down to who was the legal landlord of my apartment at the time of the break in. My landlord is involved in a court battle with another landlord, the one, I'm assuming, who perpetrated this whole deal. I've been looking at it as theft this whole time, but it could also be seen as some sort of shady eviction. Shady... yet not so illegal. Anyways, if it is someday decided that my guy was the owner on June 23rd, 2011, then I can take legal action against the bastards who did this to me.

If it is decided that my guy was not the legal landlord at the time of the... eviction... then tough shit. I could potentially take legal action against him for giving me a false contract. But... it can be shown that I was aware of the situation, and not tricked by my landlord into signing false documents.

Let me try and explain. My rent was so low that only an idiot would be unaware that something was up. I know that the c'mon... is this guy serious defense is full of holes, but it was pretty obvious that something was up. How low was my rent? Facts and figures at a later date, but somewhere below 50% of the normal rent in my building. When explaining myself to police, or lawyers, or random dudes on the train, I always lose credibility when I mention the rent I was paying. Truth be told, I had a good run. I estimate that over the 2 years I was there, I saved enough to buy a new KTM 990 SM touring edition with the optional anodized luggage.

Funny though, I'm still driving the 20 year old Honda CB1000 with the bag-and-bungee-cord luggage option.

So now it's just a waiting game. How long? Probably forever. Court cases like this have been known to drag on for decades in Japan. And since I have left the apartment, I don't have much of a connection to the going-ons. I doubt I will ever have contact with that landlord again. And I need to wait until his thing is over before my thing can begin.

Is that the end of this story? No violence? No retribution? Just a pfffftttt (sound of a balloon deflating)? Could very well be. I'll be away from computers in general for over a month, doing my seasonal summer camp in the countryside. The police told me that they will start their investigation now, but my lack of confidence in their abilities towards this matter are probably with merit, and I may have heard the last of them.

Thanks for listening. Of course, advice is always welcome (non-poop advice I should clarify).

And here's a video of my new home:

Read more of this saga at Day 1, Day 2, Day 5, Day 6, Day 12, and Day 16.