Documenting Your Japan Apartment on Move-In Day (So You Get Your Deposit Back)

There's a particular kind of frustration that lives in the final week of a Japanese apartment lease.

You give notice. You clean meticulously. You hand over the keys. Two weeks later you receive an itemized invoice deducting ¥120,000 from your deposit for "scratches on flooring", "wallpaper damage", and "tatami refurbishment" — half of which you're certain were already there when you moved in, and you have nothing to prove it.

This post is about the 30-minute job on move-in day that saves you that conversation.

The shikikin reality

A few facts worth saying up front:

• Shikikin (敷金) is your deposit. Typically 1-2 months in Tokyo, sometimes 0 in regional cities, sometimes 3 in premium buildings.
• Landlords are legally required to return what they don't spend, but the line between "wear and tear" (their cost) and "tenant damage" (your cost) is fuzzy and routinely abused.
• The 2020 Civil Code revisions tightened protections for tenants, but the burden of proof in disputes still falls on you.
• "Refurbishment fees" (原状回復費 / genjō kaifukuhi) are separate and contractual. Some leases pre-charge them. Some add them after the fact.

The single biggest determinant of how much of your deposit you get back is whether you have move-in evidence.

The 30-minute photo checklist

Set a timer. Don't think too hard. Be paranoid.

1. Tatami and flooring (5 minutes)

Photograph every floor surface, edge to edge:

• Tatami rooms: each mat individually + corner stitching + any existing dents, stains, or discoloration
• Wooden floors (フローリング): full overview + close-ups of any scratches, dents, water rings
• Laminate / vinyl: same — close-ups of seams and edges where damage hides

If you see anything that looks like damage, photograph it twice — once wide, once close. The wide shot proves where it is; the close shot proves what it looks like.

2. Walls and wallpaper (5 minutes)

• Each wall in each room, full height
• Around outlets, light switches, and any pre-installed fixtures (these are common dispute points)
• Behind doors when fully open (where wear is invisible until inspected)
• Any nail holes, marks, or pre-existing stains

3. Fixtures and appliances (5 minutes)

If the apartment came with anything pre-installed:

• Air conditioner (filter condition, exterior, the unit serial sticker)
• Washing machine if included
• Hot water heater / bath unit
• Range hood / kitchen fan
• Light fixtures

For each: a wide photo, a close-up of any wear, and the model number sticker if visible. The sticker matters — disputes about appliance condition are easier to resolve when the unit's age can be established.

4. Wet areas (5 minutes)

• Bathroom: each wall, the bathtub interior, the floor, the shower head, any caulking lines
• Toilet: bowl, tank, around the base, the wall behind
• Kitchen sink: basin, faucet, around the edges where mold starts
• Any visible plumbing connections

Wet areas attract mold and discoloration and are disproportionately likely to show up in deduction lists.

5. Windows, balcony, exterior-facing surfaces (5 minutes)

• Each window: glass, frame, screen, latch
• Curtain rails or blinds if pre-installed
• Balcony floor and railing
• Front door, front and back

6. The summary shot (5 minutes)

Walk through and take one wide shot of every room with the lights on. These are the photos that sell the "the room was in this overall condition" story when you're far from the unit and arguing by email.

The genjō kakunin-sho

Most Japanese leases include a genjō kakunin-sho (現状確認書) — a "current state confirmation form" you're supposed to fill out and return within the first few days of moving in. It lists pre-existing damages.

Three rules:

1. Fill it out. Even if the apartment looks pristine. Empty forms are routinely "lost" by management.
2. Be exhaustive. Don't be polite. List every scratch, stain, and dent — even tiny ones. If you don't note it, you'll be charged for it.
3. Photograph the form before you return it. Take a picture of every page, including the date and your signature. Email yourself the photos so they're timestamped.

Then keep your photos and your form copy together. Your future self in 3 years thanks you.

Where to keep all of this

Two rules:

1. In the cloud. Email it to yourself, store it in Drive, put it in a tagged folder. Not in a drawer in the apartment you might leave.
2. Tagged with the move-in date. When you eventually move out, you want to find these photos in 30 seconds, not 30 minutes.

Inventory by AllKeep has a "box" pattern that fits this perfectly — create a box called "Apartment condition: move-in" with the date, dump all the photos into it, set a tag like move-in-evidence. Three years from now, you search the tag and everything's there.

The day-of-move-out flow

When you eventually move out, the same photo pass — repeated in the empty apartment, with the same camera angles — becomes your evidence kit. Same room, same wall, same close-up, years apart.

If a deduction line item shows up that you don't think is fair, you reply with the matched pair of photos. Most agencies back down quickly when they see organized evidence. The ones that don't, you escalate to the National Consumer Affairs Center (国民生活センター) or to a tenant rights organization in your prefecture.

The financial side

The photo work is half of the protection. The other half is knowing what your initial costs and recovery should look like so you can recognize when an invoice is reasonable vs. out of line.

Run the numbers for your move:

• Initial Costs Calculator → — what you should expect to pay on the way in
• Monthly Budget → — what living in the place should cost
• The Japan Life Hub also has neighborhood notes for 78 cities now (see the coverage update post)

TL;DR

• 30 minutes of photos on move-in day saves a likely ¥50,000-200,000 in disputed deductions later
• Fill out the genjō kakunin-sho exhaustively, photograph it, keep both forever
• Cloud storage tagged with the move-in date, not a drawer in the apartment
• Same photos again on move-out day = matched-pair evidence that wins disputes

If you do nothing else: photograph the floor in every room today.

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AllKeep is a software company in Tokyo building tools that actually work. Japan Life Hub is the relocation side of the same team.