“70,000 Yen Fine” for Missing a Meeting… Residents of “Japan’s First Self-Managed Condo” Reveal Their “Mud-Slinging Battle with the Homeowners’ Association”

A 70,000-yen fine for missing the general meeting

Apartment Building A in Hirakata City, Osaka Prefecture. A vast number of notices posted on the door of a fourth-floor unit were filled with harsh phrases such as “Troublesome Tenant: Evict” and “Get out now.”Residents living in this apartment revealed to FRIDAY the numerous “mysterious rules” imposed by Building A’s homeowners’ association, as well as the quagmire of legal disputes.

At Building A, more than 10 civil lawsuits have been filed between unit owners and the homeowners’ association, and the situation has escalated into a class-action lawsuit brought by the unit owners.Attorney Yasuhiro Orita, former president of the Japan Condominium Society and lead counsel for the unit owners in the class-action lawsuit, sighs and says, “I’ve been involved in countless condominium management disputes and cases, but I don’t recall ever seeing a management system this distorted.”

Building A was constructed in 1995 and has a total of 47 units. Upon visiting the site, the exterior appears to be that of an ordinary, unremarkable apartment building. However, behind the scenes, a fierce battle was raging between the management association and the “Volunteer Group,” formed by a faction of unit owners dissatisfied with the association’s structure.

According to Yukio Hanada, representative of the “Group of Concerned Residents,” the conflict began with an incident around April 2024.

“The homeowners’ association hired a lawyer. What’s more, they agreed to pay an unusually high monthly retainer fee of over 150,000 yen to a rookie who had only just been admitted to the bar. Concerned that this money would come out of the maintenance fees, I consulted with one of the residents, saying, ‘That retainer fee is ridiculous.’

Perhaps word got out, because I was summoned late at night by ‘Manager’ B—who effectively runs the homeowners’ association—and on two separate occasions, he told me things like, ‘I’m going to beat you up.’ Then, the following month, I was billed 70,000 yen for a ‘cooperation fee’ and 11,000 yen for ‘administrative fees,’ and since then, I’ve been receiving bills for mysterious charges.

When I refused to pay these charges, a lawsuit was filed alleging that my maintenance fees and other payments were in arrears. The plaintiff is Administrator B, and the case is still pending. Three other unit owners who, like me, had objected to the homeowners’ association’s structure and refused to pay the unjustified charges are also facing similar lawsuits filed by B.”

While an external company had previously handled the overall management of Building A, the association transitioned to a system of “independent self-management” by the members starting in ’22. Since then, Building A has touted itself as “Japan’s first independent self-management” system, but it is said that increasingly baffling rules have been established. The following is one example.

◎ General meetings of association members—held to discuss the use of management fees and other matters—were convened more than 20 times a year from ’23 to ’25.In one year, 33 meetings were held under the guise of “extraordinary general meetings” or “emergency extraordinary general meetings” (typically, such meetings occur only once or twice a year). Unit owners who failed to attend the meetings were required to pay a fine of 70,000 yen.

◎ Meetings are held about four times a week in the evening. They start around 9:00 p.m., last about two hours each, and sometimes extend into the early hours of the morning.

◎If critical posts about the homeowners’ association appear on social media or elsewhere, a witch hunt begins, and countermeasures are discussed as agenda items at general meetings.

◎Those who voice dissent against the management association’s policies are required to pay “settlement fees” or “fines.”

It was supposed to sell for 20 million yen, but couldn’t even find a buyer at 5 million yen…

“It was my apartment door that was covered in notices. Starting two months after I refused to pay the ‘cooperation fee’ and ‘administrative fees,’ they were posted multiple times—about 130 in total. There are several other residents besides me who had notices posted on their doors.

I was truly terrified when I ran into a member of the homeowners’ association in the building and they chased me all the way to my door, shouting, ‘Pay your maintenance fees!’ There was even a notice posted in the entrance hall ordering me, ‘(People who haven’t paid their maintenance fees) are not allowed to use the elevator’” (Ms. Hanada, mentioned earlier).

Another man from the residents’ group expresses his outrage.

“Like Ms. Hanada, we had been refusing to pay the unjust charges—such as ‘special management fees’ and ‘cooperation fees’—totaling just under 40,000 yen per month. However, over the course of just under two years, we were billed 4 million yen under the heading of ‘uncollected carryover funds.’ No explanation of the breakdown was provided.”

After the transition to self-management, 12 unit owners moved out, fed up with the management system. One of those female unit owners considered renting her unit to a third party. However, she laments, “The bylaws prohibit renting.”

“I couldn’t rent it out, and since I didn’t want to have anything more to do with them, I tried to sell the unit at a bargain price, but every real estate agent turned me down, and I couldn’t find a buyer at all…”

Starting in April ’24, a legal battle began between the management association and the unit owners over issues such as unpaid management fees and defamation via posted notices.

Last year, a group of concerned residents was formed and filed a class-action lawsuit seeking a declaration that the rental ban is invalid. Attorney Orita, mentioned earlier, states:

“In addition to the rental ban, which has caused significant financial damage, we believe there are multiple issues with Management A’s operations, such as the methods used to collect special management fees.”

This series of troubles is reportedly affecting the condominium’s property value as well.

“Considering the building’s age and floor plan, the market price for comparable properties in the neighborhood is around 20 million yen. However, even if we lower the price to the 5 million yen range, this condominium won’t sell. Some owners have reluctantly had to sell for less than 3 million yen,” says a male real estate professional who is also a unit owner at Building A.

Are the claims made by Mr. Hanada and others—regarding opaque management fee billing, rental bans, and the holding of so many general meetings and gatherings that they disrupt daily life—true? Furthermore, how do they view the current situation, in which they are facing as many as 10 lawsuits? We sent a written inquiry to Mr. B of Building A’s homeowners’ association, but received no response by the deadline.I sent a text message to Mr. B’s cell phone but received no reply, and when I called, the call was hung up on me.

With the association embroiled in as many as 10 lawsuits against residents and property values plummeting, was this really the “self-management” the association had envisioned?