Useful Informatmion of Administrative & specialized procedures in Japan

When a parent passes away, the important procedures that come to mind for many people are likely settling the estate, filing inheritance tax returns, and inheriting the assets. This is only natural, as it involves significant financial matters. However, there are other procedures that should be handled as well. These include the deceased parent's funeral and burial, sorting and disposing of the family home, and managing the family grave, among others. While people may have a general understanding of how to handle these procedures, since they are unfamiliar with them in everyday life, few likely have a thorough grasp of the correct process.

Therefore, this time we will introduce various procedures to be carried out after a parent's death in Japan, focusing on matters beyond inheritance: funerals and memorial services, sorting and disposing of the family home, and the family grave. (This will be covered in two parts: this installment and another later.) 

1. Funeral

The important point is that these procedures involve specialized tasks like transporting the body, cremation, burial, and the funeral service itself. Therefore, it is standard practice to engage a professional funeral service provider. Crucially, you must carefully select this provider. Since fee disputes can arise during funeral-related procedures, it is advisable to acquire a certain level of knowledge before choosing a provider.

2. Burial (Graves)

If the family already has a grave where ancestors or grandparents are buried (family grave), the father (or mother) will be buried in the same grave if they are the eldest child. (For children other than the eldest son, the decision is made through consultation.)

Here's a brief introduction to graves. Burial plots (cemetery plots) are a type of property registered under a named owner. However, they are classified as ancestral property and are not subject to inheritance tax like savings or real estate. Graves are categorized based on burial location and method as follows:

1) Classification by Cemetery (Burial Site)

● Temple Cemetery
Burials take place on temple grounds. Generally, restrictions apply based on religion or sect. A family temple (Bodaiji) is the temple where a family's ancestral graves are located; the family belongs to that temple and sect as parishioners.

●Private Cemeteries
Cemeteries managed and operated by private companies commissioned by religious corporations or similar entities.

●Public Cemeteries
Cemeteries managed and operated by local governments such as prefectures, cities, towns, or villages. Fees are lower than private cemeteries and there are no religious or sectarian restrictions.

2) Classification by Burial (Memorial) Method

● Family Grave
A common type of grave where the remains of ancestors are interred.

● Perpetual Memorial Services
This refers to the act of providing long-term memorial services for the deceased. In practice, when bereaved families are unable to perform memorial services due to circumstances, cemeteries or temples take over the management and memorial services for the remains on behalf of the family. This includes the following types:

・Columbarium: A structure where urns containing remains are placed on shelves or in lockers indoors. There is a time limit for urn memorial services; remains are later placed in a communal burial.

・Communal Burial/Communal Memorial: Remains are removed from urns and buried together with other remains.

●Natural Burial

A form where ashes are returned to nature by being buried in a location other than a traditional grave or scattered at sea. Examples include tree burial and sea burial.

After cremation, the ashes are interred at an appropriate time. Interment is not merely placing the ashes in the grave; it is a formal ceremony. Therefore, preparations must be made in advance by requesting a stonemason to engrave the Buddhist name on the gravestone, arranging for the temple to perform the memorial service on the day, and inviting relatives and others. For those who have lived overseas for a long time, it is often the case that they did not hear from their parents during their lifetime about the temple or the stonemason they used. Even just making these preparations can be quite a hassle.

3. Disposing of the Family Home

Regarding the family home where your parents lived, you must first complete the real estate inheritance registration (transferring ownership to the heirs). After that, if there are no other cohabitants or relatives wishing to live there in the future, you will need to dispose of it by selling, renting out, or demolishing it if it is old.

At that time, household belongings must also be disposed of (sold, taken by relatives, or discarded). However, if the home contains a Buddhist altar or memorial tablets, the heir to the household (such as the eldest son) will take them. If you reside overseas and have no siblings in Japan who can inherit, you may take them yourself. However, if this is difficult, or to prevent future generations living abroad from facing difficulties, you can choose to dispose of them now. While Buddhist altars and memorial tablets can be treated as regular waste, it is customary to follow Japanese tradition by performing a memorial service before having them ritually burned.

Temple cremation services are available at the temple where the family grave is located or at the cemetery (through affiliated temples). Recently, services have become available nationwide where you can pack the Buddhist altar and memorial tablets into boxes and mail them via the internet to temples other than the one housing the family grave.

Furthermore, when dealing with the family home where parents lived for many years, it's not uncommon for the house to be 30 to 40 years old. If deterioration is severe and the possibility of sale is low, demolition work will be necessary. However, it's important to be aware that this can involve unexpected time and costs due to issues like handling asbestos, which was used when regulations weren't strict, and surveying land boundaries that weren't precisely defined at the time.