Inheritance Concerns Now Brought to Construction Companies: Inheritance Seminars Fully Booked for Two Consecutive Months, Approximately 60% Request Individual Consultations On-Site

LIFEFUND Co., Ltd. (Representative Director: Takuma Shirato), a construction company in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, opened its inheritance seminar to the general public for the first time in March 2026, and it was immediately fully booked. Due to the large number of applicants, the company offered to transfer interested individuals to the following month's seminar, which also quickly became fully booked, resulting in two consecutive months of full attendance. Of the 15 participants in the March seminar, 9 (60%) proceeded to individual consultations, and 87% of participants responded that it was "very good or good." Two years after mandatory inheritance registration, it has become clear that many families in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, face inheritance problems but cannot find appropriate consultation services, and that a construction company-sponsored inheritance seminar, not by a tax accountant or lawyer, was immediately fully booked.

■ From inheritance consultation to real estate consultation, then to construction consultation

In many cases, it is too late to think about inheritance only "after it occurs." Below are three scenarios that families owning real estate are likely to face.

[Case ①] After inheriting and selling ancestral land, approximately 2 million yen in taxes were incurred.

If the acquisition cost (price at the time of purchase) of inherited land is unknown, only 5% of the sale price is recognized as an expense for tax purposes. The remaining 95% is subject to taxation. If sold for 10 million yen, even if taxes could be zero if the acquisition cost was known, approximately 2 million yen in capital gains tax would be incurred if it is unknown. This is a loss that can be prevented simply by checking purchase documents while parents are still healthy.

[Case ②] The moment my father developed dementia, the family home became an "unmovable" asset.

For real estate owned by a person who has lost the capacity to make judgments, all contracts for sale, lease, or renovation become impossible. To move assets, the only option is to appoint an adult guardian through the family court, but the guardian's remuneration is 200,000 to 600,000 yen annually. Once started, it generally continues until death. Dementia is not self-perceived, and cerebrovascular diseases can occur suddenly.

[Case ③] Years passed without a decision on the inheritance of the family home among siblings.

According to the Supreme Court's "2023 Judicial Statistics," the number of mediation and adjudication cases concerning estate division reached 13,872 annually, more than 1.5 times that of 20 years ago. Of these, 77.6% were disputes over estates of 50 million yen or less. Since real estate cannot be divided equally like cash, time passes without agreement on the disposition of the family home—whether to sell, keep, or who will live there. A penalty risk is also added if registration is not completed by the end of March 2027.

(Source: Supreme Court "2023 Annual Report of Judicial Statistics (Family Affairs Cases)" https://www.courts.go.jp/app/files/toukei/515/013515.pdf)

What these three cases have in common is that they cannot be resolved simply by organizing legal matters. Tax accountants and judicial scriveners handle inheritance assets...