Asset Planning & Inheritance Preparation

When someone dies in Japan, the family often does not know where to begin: which banks, which branch, whether there is a safe-deposit box, whether a loan is outstanding. Accounts that exist only online leave no passbook in a drawer. Property may be recorded in a parent’s or even a grandparent’s name. Insurance policies sit in different envelopes.

We help you build one inventory that a relative could read without you. It lists each item, roughly where it is held, and where the papers are kept. It does not need to contain balances, passwords or PIN numbers, and we advise against putting them in. The point is to make everything findable, not to hand over the keys.

The list also has a practical use. A family generally has a limited time after a death to decide whether to accept an inheritance or renounce it, and a record of debts as well as assets makes that decision less of a gamble. A licensed professional can tell you the exact periods that apply to you.

Blue Rain Harbor does not calculate inheritance tax, advise on how to reduce it, draft wills, register property or represent anyone before a court or tax office. Those tasks belong to licensed people, and the rules are changed from time to time.

What we can do is make your first meeting with them productive. If you walk into a tax accountant’s office with a tidy inventory and three clear questions, the appointment is shorter and usually less confusing than starting from a pile of envelopes.

The table below shows, in general terms, who normally handles which step. It is an orientation, not a rule for your case. Ask the professional you choose what applies to you.

The first conversation is free. It is a chance to describe your situation in your own words and hear which parts are likely to be straightforward and which are likely to need professional help. Nothing is signed during it.

We usually begin with what is on your mind, not with a form: a parent’s house, a business you want to hand on, an adult child living abroad, a second marriage. Then we look at what you already have on paper. If you would like us to continue after that, we give you a written quotation with the scope and the fee before any work starts.

If you are in the middle of a dispute, or a death has already occurred and deadlines are running, please speak to a lawyer or other licensed professional first. We are not the right starting point for that.

The hardest part of inheritance planning is usually not the money; it is the feeling that a decision says something about who was loved. “Fair” and “equal” are not always the same. One child may have cared for a parent for years, another may have moved away and received help buying a home.

Japanese law gives certain close relatives a minimum share (遺留分), so a plan that ignores it can create problems later. This is one more reason to check any written wish with a lawyer or notary before relying on it.

What we can help with is the human side: putting your reasons into plain words, deciding who should hear them and when, and drafting a short personal letter to go with your formal documents. In a notarised will, this kind of closing message is often written as a 付言事項, a note of explanation that sits beside the legal provisions.