Is this the one?!

Yesterday, Tomo and I went again searching, this time in Nagano prefecture. We met an agent who showed us a couple of places. And there it was - a beautiful house. Could it be the one?

This house seems to have been extended over its life time. The Main structure uses a traditional straw roof, topped by a "crown" of metal. It looks as if the owner had made the house wider below the thatched roof, by adding a lower angled conventional shingle roof. Another extension is in the east with a lower metal roof. There is also a peripheral 2 floor building at the back. It looks like it was originally used as a agricultural store house, similar but not as sturdy as a "Kura". Now it has been converted into a bed room connected to the main building by simple stairs. The outside of this building is clad with - corrugated metal sheets (please see my earlier post as to what I think of this material). We also find two more external buildings: a shed stuffed with old rice cookers, TVs and other rubbish, and a shed/toilet, which is nearly falling down.

The location of the house is very convenient. It can be reached from Tokyo within 90 minutes of Shinkansen journey, and a further 30 minutes buy car. It is surrounded by many hotsprings, and in fact one is located just 5 minutes walk from the house. It is surrounded by fields and agriculture, and the forested mountains 200m behind the house invite to pleasant and peaceful strolls.

Included in this home are two fields, one smaller patch just in front of the house, and a bigger one around 300m distance. It means we could also start to grow things - great!

The inside is traditional Japanese and as expected needs to be completely replaced. However, it is in good condition and is absolutely dry. Because it is connected to public water and sewage system, only very little plumbing is needed.

We checked two more houses that day, but this one made a lasting impression, so we expressed our interest to the agent and ask him to inquire about it.

Corrugated metal - curse of the country side

This weekend again I went searching for a house. I drove up west towards Suwa-ko, and just checked out small villages for something that could fit our profile. Many houses in that area are dilapidated, but it looks like they are still occupied. Its a shame that they leave their houses to fall apart, or fix them with ugly corrugated metal sheets. I think corrugated metal is the true curse of the country side - its versatility and ease of use has made it tempting for people here to use it for anything: clad the sides of houses, sheds. Repair roofs, build garages. It looks so alien on a traditional building, and quickly turns into a rusty eye sore.

Nevertheless I had also a nice experiences today: In a small village I saw a bunch of kids and adults planting some flowers near the roadside, to make their village more beautiful. You can imagine their surprise when a foreigner stopped to take a photo! Its nice to see that such community spirit exists.

Keep searching ...

Tomo and I have been scouring the country side nearly every weekend and free day we have. Unfortunately its is much harder than expected. First of all Estate Agents are not interested in dealing with old buildings, as they make little profit with them, while having the same work.

Secondly often small things spoil a potential good candidate: Maybe a pachinko parlour nearby, or a noisy road in the distance, or someone build an incredibly ugly house just in front. We also must consider required repairs, and climate as well - a house in Niigata may experience up to 4 metres of snow in Winter, and may be difficult to access.

Many of such houses are not connected to public services, and require plumbing, electricity and gas connection, as well as structural improvements, insulation, a new roof and a cleanup of all the garbage that is dumped on the property.

So far we have found a few that may be considered, but we are not in love yet. So, the search must continue...

It is done!

Finally all registration procedures were completed successfully! Inaka Home Kabushiki Kaisha is now officially open for business!

Champagne! Champagne!

Of course now the hard works starts: Finding the ideal house in best location and most beautiful surroundings.

Race for Documentation

We have had numerous meetings, spoke to the lawyer and checked many websites. A lot of work and bureaucracy is necessary to register a company!
The latest snag we hit is with the articles of incorporation. We must state the purpose of our company clearly in it, but after seeing our document the lawyer had several criticism:

1. A company's purpose can only be profit linked, therefore objectives like "preserving Japanese architecture" cannot be accepted.
2. We stated that we would like to arrange "country side activities", however if we were to add this to our purpose, we would need a "Travel Agent license".
3. If we rent out a house for a long period we do not need any special license, on the other hand if we would rent it only for short term stay we need a "ryokan license".

I totally object to point number 1. A public company must not only serve the profit motive, but also has a mission to society, its workers and its customers, something that is commonly known as stakeholders! But we had to give in, and remove any non-profit statement from our Articles of Incorporation.

Why do we need a travel agent license to arrange simple events, like feeding new born lambs, helping harvesting a field, or cleaning up a river? Are they crazy? Nevertheless we wouldn't mind acquiring such a license, but unfortunately a large cash deposit of 3 million yen is required. At this stage we therefore give this a miss.

We really don't see what a rental apartment has to do with a Japanese Inn. We do not provide board, and we will only have self-contained house units, without elevators. Maybe there are safety concerns... I think we cannot escape this one, so we will apply for it. The good news is that such a license is inexpensive and is issued by the prefecture rather than from the central government. So I think it will be easier to comply with all requirements.

Now the last obstacles remains the registrations and various personal documents that all members have to obtain for submission. Everything must be stamped by inkan a hundred times, and then notarised. I hope we can make it before Golden Week!