Teiki-shakka: the fixed-term clause in your Tokyo lease

The contract a Tokyo monthly furnished operator hands you almost always cites Article 38. It is not a generic clause. It is a switch in 借地借家法 (shakuchi-shakka-hō — the Land and Building Leases Act of 1991) that turns off the renewal protections you would otherwise get. Most midterm guests never read the statute it points at. The clause does specific work.

The clause is called 定期建物賃貸借 (teiki tatemono chintaishaku — "fixed-term building lease," shortened to teiki-shakka in operator copy). It exists to give residential landlords a clean exit. Stay ends on a stated date. No auto-renewal. No court fight over whether the landlord had good enough reason. That ability is the whole point of §38. The trade is two tenant rights, named below.

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Start with what a normal Japanese residential lease looks like, because §38 only makes sense by contrast. The default rules sit in 借地借家法 §§26–30. Article 26(1) is the automatic-renewal mechanism. Verbatim:

建物の賃貸借について期間の定めがある場合において、当事者が期間の満了の一年前から六月前までの間に相手方に対して更新をしない旨の通知…をしなかったときは、従前の契約と同一の条件で契約を更新したものとみなす。

In English: a stated-term lease auto-renews on the same conditions unless one party gives written notice to not renew. The notice window is 12 to 6 months before expiry. The default is renewal. Silence renews.

Article 28 then says the landlord can only block renewal or end the lease for 正当の事由 (seitō no jiyū — "just cause"). The statute names what the court will weigh: each side's need to occupy, lease history, building condition, and any settlement payment the landlord offered. In practice, Japanese courts read this against the landlord. "I want my building back" is not enough. "My family needs to live there and I will pay you key money to leave" is sometimes enough.

Article 30 makes those rules ironclad: any contract term that disadvantages the tenant relative to §§26–28 is void. You cannot sign your way out of these protections inside an ordinary residential lease. That is the regime your operator is paying §38 to escape.

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Now §38, the carve-out. The first paragraph is the operative sentence. Verbatim:

期間の定めがある建物の賃貸借をする場合においては、公正証書による等書面によって契約をするときに限り、第三十条の規定にかかわらず、契約の更新がないこととする旨を定めることができる。

In English: a stated-term building lease may stipulate no renewal, notwithstanding §30, if the contract is in writing (notarized public deed or equivalent). The §38 lease ends on the stated date. There is no auto-renewal default. The operator does not have to clear the just-cause bar to refuse a new term.

Two tenant rights lapse the moment you sign a §38 contract.

The first is automatic renewal (§26). On a §38 contract, the lease ends on the date in section 1. If you want to stay, you negotiate a new contract: new terms, new pricing, new approval. You are not "renewing." You are signing fresh paperwork on whatever the operator now wants to charge. On a Tokyo midterm 1K listing at ¥185,000/month, that means the operator can re-price your next term at ¥210,000. Your only word is yes or no. The default-renewal lever you would have had in an ordinary lease is gone.

The second is just-cause protection (§28). On a §38 contract, the operator can decline a follow-on contract for any reason or no reason. They do not have to argue building condition, family hardship, or pay you any settlement. They send the §38(6) termination notice, you leave on the date in the contract. Compare that to the ordinary residential tenant whose landlord must clear a court-tested standard before refusing renewal.

Those are the two rights the clause forfeits. Almost every Tokyo midterm furnished contract is structured this way for a structural reason. The operator's master-lease economics require unit turnover on a known calendar. They cannot run an inventory business if §28 forces every booking-team decision through a just-cause analysis.

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The clause is not a free pass for the operator. §38 has its own form requirements, and missing them voids the no-renewal stipulation. Three matter for a midterm guest reading their contract.

First, §38(1) requires the contract to be in writing. A notarized public deed or equivalent paper instrument. §38(2) extends this to electromagnetic records like signed PDFs, so remote-signed midterm guests are covered. An oral agreement is not. A casual email exchange is not. If your operator never sent a contract document with both parties' signatures, the §38 clause has no force.

Second, §38(3) requires the landlord to give the tenant a separate written notice. It must be distinct from the lease itself. It must explain that the contract is fixed-term, will not auto-renew, and ends on the stated date. The statute uses the verb 説明 (setsumei — "explain"), not just "include in the contract." This is meant to be a stand-alone document. §38(5) is the teeth. If this written explanation is missing, the no-renewal clause is void and the lease defaults back to the ordinary §§26–28 regime. A tenant whose operator skipped the §38(3) document ends up with a stronger lease than the operator intended.

Third, §38(6) requires the operator to give the tenant written notice of the lease's end between 12 and 6 months before the expiry date. This applies only if the term is one year or longer. For midterm contracts of 30, 60, or 90 days, the paragraph does not apply. The expiry date in the contract is the expiry date. If your operator wrote "60-night fixed-term," they do not owe you a separate end-of-term notice. The contract itself is the notice.

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For a midterm guest in particular, §38(7) is worth knowing. It is a small right tucked inside the fixed-term regime that survives even after the §28 just-cause protection lapses. Verbatim:

第一項の規定による居住の用に供する建物の賃貸借（床面積…が二百平方メートル未満の建物に係るものに限る。）において、転勤、療養、親族の介護その他のやむを得ない事情により、建物の賃借人が建物を自己の生活の本拠として使用することが困難となったときは、建物の賃借人は、建物の賃貸借の解約の申入れをすることができる。

Translated: in a residential §38 lease on a unit under 200m², the tenant may request termination if they cannot use the unit as their primary residence. The named triggers are job transfer, medical treatment, caregiving for a relative, and other unavoidable circumstances. The lease ends one month after the request.

Almost every Tokyo midterm furnished unit is well under 200m². A 22m² 1K is at the small end. A 50m² 1LDK still leaves 150m² of headroom. So this right applies to the residential midterm market by default. The catch: it only triggers for a stated set of reasons. The statute names job transfer, illness, and family caregiving, then leaves "other unavoidable circumstances" open. "I changed my mind about Tokyo" does not clear that bar. "My company suddenly relocated me to Osaka" does. Document the trigger. If you exercise §38(7), the operator's cancellation grid cannot charge you an early-termination fee. §38(8) explicitly voids any contract clause that disadvantages the tenant relative to (6) or (7).

This is also why operators sometimes draft the cancellation grid as a flat-fee policy rather than as a 借地借家法 reference. A grid that says "early termination = one month's rent" is enforceable in routine cases. If you can fit your departure into §38(7), the grid loses against the statute.

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The mistake midterm guests make is reading teiki-shakka as if it were universal across Japan. It is not. The §38 carve-out requires the operator to do the paperwork: written notarized contract, separate §38(3) explanation document, written termination notice for terms over a year. An operator who skipped any of those steps is running an ordinary §§26–28 lease whether they intended to or not. Some smaller furnished operators have lost §38 status this way and only learned at termination. That is rare in the Tokyo midterm furnished segment because the larger operators have legal teams. It does happen with one-off owner-direct rentals where the landlord writes the contract themselves.

It is also worth knowing that §38 is residential. A 27-night booking under hotel licensing (旅館業法) is a different statute entirely. The building's license tier decides which legal regime governs. Teiki-shakka clauses appear on residential paperwork, the 30+-night side of the line. Under hotel paperwork, the agreement you sign is a lodging contract, not a residential lease. 借地借家法 does not apply at all.

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If your contract cites Article 38, three reads are productive before signing.

Pull up §38 itself. The full text is on e-Gov under 借地借家法. Search the page for 第三十八条. Read the seven operative paragraphs. They take ten minutes in English translation and tell you what your operator's clause is actually doing.

Then check whether you received a separate §38(3) document. Not the lease itself. A stand-alone written explanation. If it never arrived, the no-renewal clause is void. You are operating under an ordinary lease and §28's just-cause requirement is back in play. Many operators send this in the same booking email; some bury it in the contract attachments; a few skip it. Skip means stronger tenancy.

Then plan the exit. A §38 lease ends on the stated date and there is no automatic continuation. If you want to stay past the date, raise it 30 to 45 days early and ask for new-term pricing. If circumstances trigger §38(7), document them in writing the same day they happen, and send the operator a termination notice with one month's lead time. The statute is on your side.

Almost every Tokyo midterm furnished contract is teiki-shakka. The clause does real work. The operator gets calendar certainty. You give up two protections, get one back if you fit §38(7), and end on the date in the contract. Read it as a trade, not a formality.

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— halfkey writes teiki-shakka contracts for 30-day to 12-month furnished Tokyo stays. Reply to this article's contact form to ask for the §38(3) document.