— Japan has nine million empty houses. Mine might be one of them soon.
Will my kids inherit my house? Probably not. Japan has nine million empty houses, called akiya, and mine could become one. My kids live in cities, with their own homes and lives. I built this house for them, but they may never live in it. Here is what I am trying to face.
The house was my whole working life
I bought this house in my early 30s. Two-story, four bedrooms, small garden, a 35-year mortgage that felt like a mountain when I signed the papers. I paid it off in my late 50s. The mortgage burning ceremony in my head, I never had a real one, but the feeling was real.
This house is my whole working life, made of wood and walls. Every nail I paid for with a shift at the factory. Every roof tile was earned. The garage door cost me three weekends of overtime in 1992. I remember.
And then the kids grew up and left
My son moved to Tokyo for work in his mid 20s. He never came back, except for New Year. My daughter married and moved to her husbands city, three hours away by train. She comes home maybe twice a year.
Now it is me and my wife in a four-bedroom house. Three of those bedrooms are storage rooms for things we do not use. The other one is where we sleep.
The house feels too big. We use the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom, the bath. The rest of the rooms have a kind of museum stillness. Old textbooks, old toys, old clothes in old cabinets. Time stopped for those rooms around 2005.
The question I have been avoiding
Will my children ever live here.
I have been avoiding this question for years. Because the answer is probably no.
My son lives in central Tokyo. His job is there. His wife is from there. Their kids go to school there. Coming back to my hometown would mean uprooting all of that. He would not do it for the house. He would not do it for me either, and I would not ask.
My daughter lives in her husbands family home. Same situation, mirrored. Her life is built where she is.
So my house, when my wife and I are gone, will sit empty. One of nine million empty houses in Japan, last I checked the number. Akiya, we call them. The empty houses problem.
What is the akiya problem in Japan?
The akiya problem is that Japan has about nine million empty houses, and the number keeps growing. Most of them sit in shrinking towns, owned by elderly people whose children moved to cities and will not come back.
The houses still cost money in tax and basic upkeep, but selling them in rural areas is slow. My house may become one of them soon. That is the honest answer I had been avoiding for years.
What an empty house really costs
I did not know any of this until I started looking into it. An empty house in Japan is not free. It is a slow leak.
- Property tax keeps coming, every year, until someone deals with it.
- If nobody is registered as living there, the tax can actually go up. Special rules apply to genuinely vacant homes.
- The roof leaks if nobody fixes it. The garden becomes a jungle. Pipes burst in winter.
- Neighbors complain. The city sends notices.
- If the house becomes dangerous, the city can order it demolished, at the owners cost.
And selling an empty house in a rural or shrinking town is not easy. Buyers want city houses. Country houses, even nice ones, sit on the market for years. Some sell for almost nothing. Some never sell at all.
What I am thinking about doing
I am not ready to do anything yet. But I am ready to think out loud. Here are the options I have been turning over.
- Sell now, while we can. Move to a smaller place, easier to maintain. Maybe an apartment close to a station. Less house, more freedom. Hardest for the heart, easiest for the practical part of me.
- Stay until we cannot. Keep living here. Deal with stairs and a too-big house. When we cannot manage, move to a care home, and let the kids deal with what is left. Easiest now, hardest for the kids.
- Talk to the kids honestly. Ask them, no pressure, whether they would ever want the house. Make a real plan, not a wish.
- Renovate to rent. Maybe split the house into two units. Make it income later. Complicated. Not sure I have the energy.
None of these are obviously right. Each one trades one kind of problem for another.
The conversation I keep almost having
I have been meaning to talk to my son about this for two years. Every time he visits, I think, I will bring it up tomorrow. Then tomorrow comes, and we have a nice dinner, and he is tired from the train, and the moment never feels right. Then he goes back to Tokyo and another six months pass.
The truth is I am afraid of his answer. I am afraid he will say no, he does not want the house. Not because that is wrong. Because hearing it out loud will make it real. Right now, in my head, there is still a small story where he comes back someday. A small story keeps a house alive.
But a small story does not pay the property tax after I am gone.
If you have a house and grown kids
Have the conversation. Even if it is awkward. Even if you are afraid of the answer.
Because the alternative is, you leave them a problem. A house full of memories, somewhere they do not live, attached to taxes and repairs and decisions they did not make. They will love you and resent the situation. Both. At the same time.
I have not had my conversation yet. I am writing this partly to push myself toward having it. Sometimes writing about a thing is how I trick myself into doing it.
Maybe at New Year, when my son comes home, I will sit him down. I will say, this house. What do you think. And then I will be quiet and listen to whatever he says.
Whatever it is, it will be the truth. And the truth is where any real plan has to start.
FAQ
What is akiya in Japan?
Akiya means empty house. Japan has about nine million of them, and the number is growing every year.
Why do adult children not inherit empty houses anymore?
Their lives are built in cities. Coming back to a hometown house means changing jobs, schools, everything. Most do not choose that.
How much does an empty house cost the owner each year?
Property tax, fire insurance, weeding, and small repairs. It is a slow leak, not a one-time loss.
Should I sell my house before my kids inherit it?
Have the conversation with them first. They may not want it. Better to know now than to leave them a problem.
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— Me-me
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