Japanese courts cancelled auction sales of houses where owners had died by suicide, and in 2021 the state set a three-year disclosure rule

Kind 1. Japan calls a property where someone died by suicide or murder a jiko bukken. When courts sell seized homes at auction, buyers have asked to cancel sales of such houses, and courts have ruled both ways. In 1986 the Sendai District Court revoked a sale of a building where gang members had lynched a man and his blood remained on the walls and tatami. In 1990 the Fukuoka District Court refused to permit a sale of a farmhouse where the former owner had killed himself about seven years earlier. In 1992 the Sapporo High Court refused a sale where the former owner had hanged himself about five years before. In 1992 the Niigata District Court refused a sale after the bodies of four infants, killed about 30 years earlier, were found in the building ten months before the auction. Courts upheld sales where no trace remained or the death happened elsewhere, including a co-owner who killed himself in woods 200 to 300 metres away over debts from buying the property. On 8 October 2021 the ministry issued a guideline that brokers renting a home need not disclose a non-natural death after about three years, with no time limit for sales. In 2025 Reuters reported a Chiba house priced about 20% below market because of its history.