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ROOCAS ONE`s Blog
ROOCAS ONE`s Blog
2019.03.03
Almost all apartments in Japan now require you to have a guarantor company, sometimes on top of having a Japanese national be your guarantor too. But what exactly is a guarantor company?
A guarantor company provides a guarantee that should you not pay rent or any other fees that you accumulate whilst renting an apartment, they will pay these fees and rent in your place. If they end up paying for you however, you must pay them back by the date the guarantor company decides.
Many people mistakenly believe that if they don't pay the guarantor company back that there will be no consequences, however this is not the case. Should you default on your payment the guarantor company can send people to collect the debt from you, which of course can cause unnecessary stress and worry. Continuing to not pay the debt will also result in a bad credit score for you, so should you want to rent another apartment or anything from a mobile phone contract to a credit card or car you'll probably be rejected once they look at your credit history.
There may be some people that think that if they move back to their own country without paying that they'll also have no consequences, but as stated above if they wish to return and live in Japan in the future, not paying the money they owe the guarantor company will make it difficult to live in Japan again with this "black mark" against their name.
So what should you do? You should always pay your rent on time and the fees stipulated in your contract. However most people do come into financial difficulty at one point in their life and at times like this it's okay to contact your apartments management company/the owner or the guarantor company and explain the situation, that way they are likely to be understanding and give you more time. Just don't bury your head in the sand because even if you ignore the problem it wont go away and can cause even more problems in the future.
