How long non-payment is enough to evict the tenant?

My tenant doesn’t pay the rent for several months. Can I cancel the lease contract and evict the tenant? How long arrearage is enough to demand vacation of the premise?: You can evict the tenant based on its arrearage by gaining court’s judgement. Two or three months of arrearage is basically enough to cancel the lease contract. However, several month’s arrearage may be deemed insufficient due to circumstances because significant breach that dissolves the relationship of mutual trust between the lessor and the tenant is required under Japanese case law.

C O N T E N T S

Cancellation based on non-payment of the rent

If the tenant breaches the lease agreement, the lessor may cancel the contract under the Civil Code.
As payment of the rent is essential duty of the tenant, the landlord can basically cancel the lease contract based on non-payment of the rent.
Even if there is enough deposit, it cannot be the reason to deny the cancellation.

”Non-dissolution of mutual trust” principle

However, significant breach that dissolves the relationship of mutual trust between the lessor and the tenant is required to entitle a lessor to cancel the contract under case law.
The validity of lease contract cancellation based on non-payment of the rent would be denied if there are circumstances that the non-payment does not dissolve the relationship of mutual trust between the parties of the lease agreement (”Non-dissolution of mutual trust” principle) (*1).
The court would consider various circumstances. The amount of the arrearage is important factor, but not the sole element.

*1 Case001: court denied the validity of cancellation despite 4 months’ non-payment: Judgement of the Supreme Court on July 28, 1964 (MINSHU18-6-1220)

Cases: cancellation was acknowledged

As it is usually provided in lease contracts in Japan that the tenant has to pay the rent of the next month by the end of the former month (one-month advance payment), the rent of one month becomes unpaid when the tenant delayed payment even for a day.
Therefore, if only one month‘s rent is unpaid, the lease contact basically cannot be validly cancelled. If there aren’t other factors to dissolve the relationship of mutual trust other than non-payment of the rent, at least two- or three-month’s arrearage would be needed for cancellation.
There are cases that the court acknowledged the validity of cancellation based on two- or three-months’ non-payment of the rent.

Cases: cancellation was denied

There are cases that the court denied the validity of cancellation based on one, two or more months’ non-payment of the rent due to circumstances of each case.

Case001: court denied the validity of cancellation despite 4 months’ non-payment: Judgement of the Supreme Court on July 28, 1964 (MINSHU18-6-1220)

Cases: cancellation based on 2 months’ arrearage was denied but that based on 3 months’ arrearage was acknowledged

There are cases that the court denied the validity of cancellation based on two months’ non-payment of the rent but acknowledged that based on three month’s non-payment.