Property firm Leopalace21 starts asking 14,000 residents to move out due to wall defects

Construction companies in Japan can have links to organized crime so I am not that surprised at the evident graft suggested in this article....

And blanket statements can have connections to people without any ability to make a point.

@ rainyday, those houses you speak of are not so close to a station, or a market, or maybe even a gas station, and you'll need a parking spot near the station, and a car for the missus/master...

and the houses have zero creature comforts. No aircon, just cold n mould.

Boy oh boy! I think I’m gonna hire a private home inspector to squat if I ever build a house or get any serious remodeling done.

By reading the report. I don’t think it’s sosmthing that the construction company did or misleading architectural firms.

This sounds more like a typical practice scenario for LeoPalace. They were simply caught red handed. Also, one thing I haven’t read in this particular article was any mention of indemnification either from LeoPalace or the government to assist with the sudden displacement of 14,000+ residents.

I was looking at buying a LeoPalace apartment a little over ten years ago. I’m really glad I decided against it.

Construction companies in Japan can have links to organized crime so I am not that surprised at the evident graft suggested in this article....

No punishment. Just going to disrupt people's lives completely and cut massive salaries for a month or two (but will still give massive bonuses, likely with lost salary included). TIJ

This should be common knowledge by now, construction is probably the most obvious example of institutional corruption in Japan & there are MANY more industries doing the same.

This is why Japan is so expensive & people get so little value for money spent

I don't see much change happening though, politicians & the rich benefit too much from how things are to change

AKA: cutting costs and ignoring building standards to make a profit. That seems to be the modis operandi with Japan Inc.

I doubt that these same building companies only did this with Leopalace. They need to check all of these construction companies' clients, but I doubt that the clients actually want to know because they would be losing renters too!

Well, there will be some happy small real estate and private real estate investors making some money with all these renters moving around.

Japan Inc. at its finest! HAHA!

What I don't understand about Japanese is that, outside of a major city, land prices are dirty cheap, but people still choose to live in a 20+ sq meter apartments..why?

I've noticed that too. You are on a train passing through the middle of nowhere where land is so plentiful and cheap its almost free, yet all the apartments and even houses you see from the window are just as cramped and awful as the ones in the middle of big cities.

I think there are a few factors at work:

1) The residential construction industry is so standardized that it only knows how to make the same crap everywhere, so everybody gets the same crap no matter where they live.

2) Most of the land in rural areas is designated for agricultural or other purposes, so even though there is a lot of it (relatively speaking) the amount available for residential use is still small.

3) People living in those areas generally have lower incomes (not many jobs) and cramped housing is cheaper than spacious housing so that's what they have.

What I don't understand about Japanese is that, outside of a major city, land prices are dirty cheap, but people still choose to live in a 20+ sq meter apartments..why?

In Tokyo, I understand because rent is expensive. But even in suburbs and rural areas where there are endless empty houses and lots, people are still living in cramped spaces...

Leopalace21 is the place you rent bright, stylish micro cubicles with micro kitchens next to the genkan and a small loft as your bed 20min. away from the nearest station for +70.000 while you can get a spacious 1LDK 10min. from a station for even less that that.

If you've ever seen one, they look like stacked shipping container that have been funished. I've heard that some of the cheap ALT dispatch companies in Japan use Leopalace for their employees, as foreigners new to Japan don't know better. Maybe they get some sort of deal for forcing their employees to live in them. I don't know for sure though.

I lived in a Leo Palace apartment once back in the early 2000s and I am not surprised by this. Their buildings are the shoddiest pieces of garbage around.

Once I was standing in the outside corridor on the second floor of my Leo Palace and casually leaned against the external wall (about 1.5 metres tall, the upper half was open) and much to my surprise the metal part that ran atop the wall simply popped off and fell to the street below.

I looked at the now exposed top of the wall and could see inside - the metal part had popped off so easily because it wasn't attached to anything. The wood inside the wall which it had been screwed to had rotted away and nothing but moldy sawdust and woodchips was left, just being held in place by the plastic exterior sheets.

The building looked like it was no more than 7 or 8 years old.

Wow. I would expect major compensation. Probably lawsuit if not. Moving is one of the worst things in life. Stressful. Time consuming.

These builds are just shipped in on the back of trucks and bolted together, the are classes as temporary living spaces.

JeffLee @07:03am today

This news reporting is irresponsible. Disclosing the names would alert the industry and public that might have have used the same products or services, putting them at risk.

Precisely. The public is always left in the dark here from all sorts of frauds and criminal acts. We are NEVER informed of the REAL facts. What gives?!?

This seems to happen pretty often in Japan. I seem to read about construction fraud involving hundreds of apartments a couple of times a year. It would seem Japanese construction firms are unscrupulous criminals. It is actually quite well documented how grafting, bribing and fraud were commonplace in the construction and engineering industries from the 70’s to late 90’s. Everybody had a fingerbin the pie.

Also - where did the mistake occur - in design, materials specification, or in construction?  Were substitutions made, or was nothing specified?

Good opportunity to fleece the company. They will try to get away with paying only for moving costs, but are legal responsible for costs incurred in renting a new place as well as "sorry money".

Done right, you could get a couple year's rent back. You

What are the names of the companies that installed and manufactured the problem materials?

This news reporting is irresponsible. Disclosing the names would alert the industry and public that might have have used the same products or services, putting them at risk.