The Japan relocation checklist: Coordinating Visas, Pets, and Property

I guess for most people the most stressful part of moving to a new country is what you are going to do once you get there. For me it's sheer number of moving parts to coordinate in just being able to leave New Zealand.

I've lost a lot of sleep over the last year on how to mesh this logistical nightmare together.

This point in time is significant though, we are about to head into a new year, of which we will then be able to say 'we move to Japan this year'. Things are about to start getting real. We are going to have to start making decisions and then come maybe March, things will start happening in earnest. Of course I'll keep you all posted.

Below is the various aspects and their mechanics, along with some of my thinking out loud as putting this all down on paper will probably help me somewhat.

Making the stars align

There's a number of aspects that have to align, and for most of them it's a chicken or the egg first conundrum. Here are the pieces of the puzzle:

House

A lot hinges on this. We have no idea how long it will take to sell. We want to maximize the sale amount and we don't want to sit around and wait either, so do you put on the market early, and how early? Do you try and negotiate a long settlement period so that we only vacate the house when we are ready to go? 

Alternatively we just sell as vacant, empty the house, fix and tidy up paint etc and hand the keys over to a real estate agent then just be patient. The downside to this is firstly, an empty house is less attractive in appearance - though with a toddler and 2 cats having our house nicely staged and having to vacate for open homes is not very practical for us. Secondly, we have to keep paying for a house we aren't living in. Move the mortgage to interest-only perhaps and then pay Body corporate fees, rates and utilities. This works out to be around $2000 per month. Expensive. But, if we have to hang on for 6 months to get a suitable price, and heading into NZ spring/summer is always a better time to sell, it could be worth it.

The Plan: I think perhaps the way forward is to list early and try for a private sale. We would have to pay around $26000 (!!!) in real estate agent commissions so can save big if selling privately. We can also organize viewings at our discretion and can negotiate directly. The fall back plan would be to vacate then let a real estate agent have a go after we have left.

Belongings

This one isn't as easy as it seems. We aren't taking everything with us, so the normal style of moving whereby a truck comes and empties your house and then you travel as a family to the new place isn't on the cards. The timing has to work around the house sale too.

In fact we plan to travel with very little. No furniture and nothing big. I will organize a single sea freight pallet to ship that will include clothes and personal items with everything else being what comes with us in suitcases, including all valuables such as camera gear and computers.

The complication comes with emptying the house. Things like the fridge, beds, kitchen stuff etc is all pretty much essential for living with until the last minute. Now personally I can survive slumming it for a week in an empty house if need be, but its simply not possible for my wife and especially our baby daughter. 

The car is another one. I sold my car last year in preparation and we've been a 1 car household since. Tomomi works from home and I work 4km away, so if Tomomi needs a car to go to a meeting, I just use an electric scooter to go to work. The issue comes that I pretty much need a car right to the last minute whilst Im sorting everything out. Selling a car privately even if stating that it needs to be picked up on day X is risky as what if it falls through - you don't have enough time to find another buyer and you may have to be on a plane tomorrow, so then you end up taking it to a company that will buy it on the spot and probably get $10k less than a private sale, which is a significant loss.

Just a note, personal effects aren't taxed when imported into Japan so long as the owner is in Japan already to receive them and nothing is less than 1 year old. On the latter point, I think if anything isn't in original packaging it may be difficult to prove its age so should be OK - at least I hope because I've been buying a tonne of stuff recently to take with me. 

The Plan: The reality is that my Wife and Daughter will have to travel first whilst they still have all the creature comforts of home. Then I can slum it whilst selling off all of our furniture, fix up the house and leave myself when ready. The car I'll just have to try and sell as late as possible with the backup plan of driving it into Turners to take it off my hands for much less than its worth.

Jobs

This is an easy one really. I let it slip a while ago to my boss that we would be moving overseas in the future and I've since clarified the situation with a time frame. In reality saying I'm possibly leaving in 6 months is not something an employer can take action on until I make it formal with my 1 month notice. It would take the company 4-6 months to replace me and would absolutely need me around to enable that so it's a tricky situation all-round. I proposed to go onto a part time fixed term contract that focuses on the part of my job which nobody else can do and that I can do remotely. That would give me an income and security for the first year in Japan at least, and buys us time to figure out what we want to do for work in the future. I would basically keep going to work right up until I leave, then take maybe a week off and then it's back to work but remotely from Japan.

Tomomi's is probably simpler. Her and my daughter travelling to Japan will be the trigger for a lot of things to happen so essentially she would just book the flights, hand in the notice and that's that.

The Plan: Tomomi quits her job based on when shes booking flights. I carry on as normal.

Visa

This one is a royal pain in the ass. I qualify for a spouse visa which is nice and simple. However the timing that everything needs to be done is not so much. For some reason it appears I cannot enter Japan on a 90 day tourist visa and then convert to a spouse visa, which means everything needs to be done before travelling, and I cannot do it too far in advance so it's all nicely sorted so I can focus on other things. 

I need a COE (Certificate of Eligibility) to be able to apply for the Visa. That can take time to get from Japan and yet it's only valid for 3 months and it must be valid when entering Japan. So I need the COE to get my visa and then I have to wait for my visa. The longer the Visa takes the less time left on the COE to be able to enter Japan (otherwise you need to get a new COE) You get the picture.

Although the Spouse Visa is a pretty safe bet, what if we sign the paperwork to sell our house and find last minute my visa is declined - I'll be homeless. I know that's not going to happen but the Visa is something I would like to have sorted and settled earlier rather than later, it just seems ridiculous that you have to enter Japan within that short time frame of the COE when you still have to get the Visa afterward too. It would make more sense for the 3 months to enter Japan to be tied to the Visa issue instead. 

The Plan: Try and time getting the COE right. Cant go too early as it might expire, cant go too late as might not be enough time to get Visa. If I was planning to enter Japan on the 1st June and allow conservatively 1 month to obtain COE and 1 month to get the Visa, then I would kick off the process perhaps mid March. But I will have to recheck COE lead times as if it's faster than I have to do it later.

Pets

We have two cats to send to Japan. Although Japan doesn't have particularly strict import rules for pets (unlike NZ which requires quarantine), the difficulty comes with the fact that they need two flights and will be flying unaccompanied.

Air New Zealand is the only airline which flies direct to Japan, to Narita to be precise. For shipping pets you must have it organized through their list of approved pet transporters, as I suppose they don't want everyday people making mistakes with paperwork. The worry that we have is that none of them seem to have a network much like I deal with in international logistics - no partner to seamlessly handover and coordinate with at the other end - they will put the Cats on a plane to Narita and that's it. We wont be there to collect them and put them on a connecting flight to Kumamoto the next day. 

Naturally this stresses me out. I've been in touch with a company called economovejapan that should be able to collect from Narita and delivery to the in-laws' house and hopefully they can coordinate with the NZ agents to ensure everything goes smoothly. Connecting flights to Kumamoto are often the next day, and the thought of our poor cats potentially being cooped up in carriers full of poos and wees for 48 hours is awful - I really hope somebody will take them out to stretch their legs, feed and water and clean their carriers, but nothing is really clear on that and so I'm quite concerned.

Couple of things to note regarding the pets, your pet transport company needs to lodge it with Japan no later than 40 days before arrival, though I think the actual arrival date can be flexible within that. Then it's just ensuring you have air cargo approved carriers and vet checks prior to ensure the vaccinations are up to date and their general health is all good.

The Plan: I would ship the cats shortly after Tomomi has left for Japan, so that she is at the other end to receive them. 

Chicken or the Egg?

Can you see the issues I'm having, where do we start and what kicks it all off? Here is the order that I'm thinking of so far:

1) Mid March / Early April I would apply to get the COE to kick start my Visa. This would also be around about the time we would put the house on the market if doing it this way.

2) Tomomi booking her flights to Japan is the trigger for a lot of things. She would then provide notice to her work and we can pack up what belongings to ship via sea freight and what she needs to take on the flight. At the same time we would have our pet transport people notify Japan about the cats, as it needs to be 40 days in advance.

3) I would then book transport for the cats so they would arrive in Japan a few days later. In the meantime I would get them to the vets to make sure they are all sorted.

4) I can start emptying and fixing up the house, selling off our stuff and leave once the house is empty. I can then hand over the keys to the real estate agent if doing it that way. 

What I can't figure out and plan around is if we decide to put the house up for sale first. If we were to get a great offer too early and they aren't interested in letting us stick around for a while then we are buggered - because Tomomi has to work a full year after maternity leave otherwise she has to pay back her company a lot of money, so we cannot leave until May at the earliest.

In closing

As you may gather this is a large undertaking that requires careful planning. I'm still very stressed out about it and will be for the next few months. Once the first Domino is pushed over though the course of action should just come quite easily and naturally.

Feel free to share or send me an email as I would love to hear about your experiences moving to different counties!