Renewal Terms, Guarantors, and Serviced Office Options

A tenant can ask a landlord to renew a lease on the old terms while committing to a review at the next renewal, using a supplementary agreement (yo tokuyaku jiko / oboegaki) — a practical legal tool. The right not to sign a renewal and keep paying the old rate formally exists for a standard (ippan) contract, since evicting the tenant is legally difficult, but exercising it damages the relationship with the landlord. Rent increases usually happen at renewal rather than mid-term; a typical increase is a few thousand yen (2,000–3,000) for low-cost housing stock and around 50,000 yen for office space, and some landlords require a mandatory review every two years. For anyone without a Japanese acquaintance to act as guarantor, a paid guarantor service such as GTN (https://www.gtn.co.jp/) can stand in for a fee. When renting housing and registering it under a company, landlords have in several independent cases asked not only for the residence card but also for a company business card as proof of employment. For company registration, micro serviced offices are common: hello-office.net (Udagawacho, Shibuya) rents micro-office booths from 2.5 square meters for 50,000 yen a month with no deposit and the first month free; the total with management and guarantor fees typically runs 10,000–15,000 yen above the base price. Immigration lawyers recommend budgeting roughly 3 square meters per person to avoid visa scrutiny — some BM-visa holders keep windowless offices as small as 1.25–2.5 square meters, which is "pushing it." Alternatives include Tensho Office (recommended, reasonable terms, an English-speaking manager, willing to rent to foreigners, with a known case of successfully renting even to a student) and Regus (seen as less cost-effective, with many hidden fees, aggressive sales, and less foreigner/BM-friendly practices). Source: https://www.gtn.co.jp/ — GTN, a paid guarantor service for renting housing or offices in Japan. Source: https://www.hello-office.net/ — hello-office.net, a serviced office in Shibuya mentioned as an option for company registration.