The first time a tenant disputed my deposit deduction, I lost about 38,000 yen I thought was fair to keep. That was 11 years ago, and it taught me more about Japanese tenancy law than any textbook could. The concept at the center of that argument is called genten shugi, or the principle of original-condition restoration, and it governs almost every shikikin (security deposit) settlement I have handled across my 9 rental units since.
If you own or manage property in Japan, or you are a tenant trying to understand why your landlord kept part of your deposit, genten shugi is the rule you need to know. It sounds simple on paper, but the details around depreciation, normal wear, and tenant negligence are where most disputes actually happen.
What Genten Shugi Actually Means
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Genten shugi literally translates to original-state principle. Historically, it meant the tenant restores the unit to the exact condition it was in on move-in day, at the tenant’s own expense. For decades this was interpreted very broadly by landlords, and tenants often paid for re-wallpapering an entire room over a single cigarette burn or one scuffed wall panel.
When I bought my first rental unit about 15 years ago, the previous owner’s management company was still operating under that old-school version of the rule. I watched them bill an outgoing tenant nearly 80,000 yen for a full tatami replacement over a single small scorch mark near the kotatsu. That kind of deduction would almost certainly get reversed today if a tenant pushed back, and it is exactly the pattern the newer guidelines were written to stop.
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That broad interpretation mostly ended after the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism issued clearer restoration guidelines back in the early 2000s, later revised again in 2011. The core shift was this: normal deterioration from ordinary living, called keinen rekka, and reasonable use, called tsuujou no shiyou, are the landlord’s responsibility, funded through rent already collected. Only damage caused by the tenant’s negligence or misuse falls under genten shugi and can be billed against the deposit.
On my properties, this single distinction now decides roughly 70 percent of what I can and cannot deduct at move-out. I keep a laminated copy of the guideline summary in my toolbox because I reference it that often.
Normal Wear and Tear vs Tenant Responsibility
After managing move-outs for over 15 years, I have built a rough mental checklist. Items I almost never charge a tenant for include faded wallpaper from sunlight, small nail holes from hanging a calendar, and floor discoloration from furniture placement. Items that typically do fall on the tenant include the following.
- Cigarette smoke staining or odor soaked into wallpaper and tatami
- Pet scratches on flooring, doors, or fusuma sliding panels
- Mold caused by the tenant never ventilating the room, not by a structural leak
- Large stains or burns on carpet or tatami from spills or dropped items
- Broken fixtures, cracked glass, or holes punched in drywall
The line gets blurry with things like key replacement or minor scratches on kitchen counters, and that is usually where I end up negotiating directly with the outgoing tenant rather than automatically deducting.
I also tell new landlords not to confuse genten shugi with a general cleaning fee. Many Japanese leases include a separate hakuu clause, a flat cleaning charge agreed to at signing, often somewhere between 15,000 and 40,000 yen depending on unit size. That fee covers routine professional cleaning and is completely separate from any genten shugi damage assessment, so it should never be used to justify extra deductions beyond what is actually documented as tenant-caused damage.
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Even when damage is clearly the tenant’s fault, genten shugi does not let a landlord charge full replacement cost, because fixtures depreciate over time. Wallpaper, for example, is treated as having a useful life of about 6 years under the standard depreciation tables landlords use, so a wall the tenant damaged after occupying the unit for 4 years might only be billed at roughly 33 percent of replacement cost, not 100 percent.
On one 2LDK unit I own, replacing an entire wall’s cloth wallpaper after a tenant’s water leak damage would have cost around 92,000 yen. Because the tenant had lived there just over 5 years, depreciation brought the fair charge down to about 23,000 yen, which is what I actually deducted. I always run these numbers before I even talk to the tenant, because showing the math upfront cuts disputes dramatically.
A Real Settlement From One of My Units
Last year a tenant moved out of one of my older wood-frame units after a 3-year lease. The shikikin on file was 60,000 yen. Move-out inspection found ordinary wear throughout, but also a cracked bathroom mirror and heavy pet odor in the carpet that required professional deodorizing. I itemized the deduction at 14,500 yen for the mirror and carpet treatment, refunded the remaining 45,500 yen within 12 days, and sent a written breakdown by mail. No dispute, no back-and-forth, because every line item mapped directly back to genten shugi and the depreciation schedule rather than my personal judgment.
Practical Tips to Avoid Deposit Disputes
My biggest lesson after more than a decade of this is that documentation beats argument every time. I now photograph every unit in detail before a new tenant moves in and again the day they move out, and I keep both sets timestamped. I also give new tenants a one-page explanation of genten shugi at lease signing, in plain language, so nobody is surprised later.
That upfront clarity is honestly the cheapest dispute-prevention tool I have, and it costs me nothing but 10 minutes of paperwork per unit. That’s the approach I use across all 9 of my properties, and it has kept my deposit disputes close to zero for the past several years.
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