So I bought a car from an auction in Japan…
Discussion
A truly fascinating read, thank you for taking the time.
I’ve been living in Brazil for 7 years and always thought the bureaucracy here was beyond a joke, a gift from the Portuguese.
Trading your account is making me think I should stop complaining.
Have to say that the two and a half weeks I spent in Japan a couple of years ago were truly amazing and I can’t wait to go back. But I have never deluded myself into thinking it would be an easy place to live. Hats off to you.
I’ve been living in Brazil for 7 years and always thought the bureaucracy here was beyond a joke, a gift from the Portuguese.
Trading your account is making me think I should stop complaining.
Have to say that the two and a half weeks I spent in Japan a couple of years ago were truly amazing and I can’t wait to go back. But I have never deluded myself into thinking it would be an easy place to live. Hats off to you.
I've done the registration process a couple of times now, it's a particular nuisance if you have issues passing the shaken. On my second time - a purchase through Turst Kikaku (TK) - the car was a manual swap vehicle which hadn't yet had the swap documented. The shakoshomeisho (parking cert) is only valid for a month but you need it to process the sale and then the shop will shaken (register) it. Of course TK couldn't get the documents for my driveshaft (R32 box in an R34) so my shakenshomeisho expired and meant two tedious trips to the police station. Before, at least for Nagoya, you had to hand draw the map for the location of your parking area (it's possible someone was just f*cking with me), you can imagine what that was like. Luckily, by the time I bought the Skyline I could use Google Maps and Microsoft Paint.
I guess it will be good for me to add the process for exporting your car from Japan as I'm going through the process now. I had a bit of a tough time with agents as they were too sloppy for my liking. I spoke with three western companies and a few Japanese companies before opting to export the car without an agent. The Japanese companies, while I suspect their service is good, the pricing was too high at between 600,000-1,000,000JPY (£3.5-6k), with the lower-priced one requiring me to obtain the de-registration documents myself; at which point it really negates their usefulness. Whilst the Western companies were priced at 100,000 (plus ro-ro costs at about $1.5k dollars) to 600,000 JPY (£3.5k) "all-in". Sadly, two of the westerner-run companies fed me BS and one, although a nice guy, was too unreliable with responses for me to be able to trust. So, after speaking with people here and there I learned that bypassing the agents is very easy.
Booking Ship Space
You need a Japan-registered company to do this, and fortunately for me I get on pretty well with my company's CEO so he let me use our company for this. You make an account with the shipping broker (Autohub in my case), create an invoice for your car(s), they tell you the shipping schedule (JP-NL for me, via Hoegh Autoliners) and you tell them the date for drop-off at the port.
Once you drive/transport your car to the port, you remove the license plates, sign off the vehicle on the provided form (chassis number, date, condition etc.) and leave the key with the office. It's at this point you will want to take pictures of the car to verify the condition.
De-registering Your Vehicle
With license plates in hand, you will need an inkanshomeisho (stamp certificate) and the original shakensho (vehicle title) and you go to the aforementioned MOT/DVLA center (Aichiunyushi Bureau for me). There you will apply for an export certificate which you will need to send a copy of to the broker and keep hold of for registration on the other side.
Cost
The cost for doing it this way: Autohub charges negligible fees for their services, 15,000JPY (£80) for the shipping fee (<20m3) and around 10,000JPY (£60) p/car for a month's storage - the first month is free. Then you have to pay for the boat space, I was quoted (as of 30/09/23) $116-181 p/m3. With the Skyline coming it at 8.6m3, the total was $1,448 (220,000 JPY / £1.2k).
Judging by the internet, many get shafted for this process when really it's not difficult at all - mostly by buying rusty turds from sketchy export agents. For the future, If I end up exporting a car from Japan and shipping it out west, I'll leverage my mechanic and my family over here to do the process and will likely never use a social media export agent.
I guess it will be good for me to add the process for exporting your car from Japan as I'm going through the process now. I had a bit of a tough time with agents as they were too sloppy for my liking. I spoke with three western companies and a few Japanese companies before opting to export the car without an agent. The Japanese companies, while I suspect their service is good, the pricing was too high at between 600,000-1,000,000JPY (£3.5-6k), with the lower-priced one requiring me to obtain the de-registration documents myself; at which point it really negates their usefulness. Whilst the Western companies were priced at 100,000 (plus ro-ro costs at about $1.5k dollars) to 600,000 JPY (£3.5k) "all-in". Sadly, two of the westerner-run companies fed me BS and one, although a nice guy, was too unreliable with responses for me to be able to trust. So, after speaking with people here and there I learned that bypassing the agents is very easy.
Booking Ship Space
You need a Japan-registered company to do this, and fortunately for me I get on pretty well with my company's CEO so he let me use our company for this. You make an account with the shipping broker (Autohub in my case), create an invoice for your car(s), they tell you the shipping schedule (JP-NL for me, via Hoegh Autoliners) and you tell them the date for drop-off at the port.
Once you drive/transport your car to the port, you remove the license plates, sign off the vehicle on the provided form (chassis number, date, condition etc.) and leave the key with the office. It's at this point you will want to take pictures of the car to verify the condition.
De-registering Your Vehicle
With license plates in hand, you will need an inkanshomeisho (stamp certificate) and the original shakensho (vehicle title) and you go to the aforementioned MOT/DVLA center (Aichiunyushi Bureau for me). There you will apply for an export certificate which you will need to send a copy of to the broker and keep hold of for registration on the other side.
Cost
The cost for doing it this way: Autohub charges negligible fees for their services, 15,000JPY (£80) for the shipping fee (<20m3) and around 10,000JPY (£60) p/car for a month's storage - the first month is free. Then you have to pay for the boat space, I was quoted (as of 30/09/23) $116-181 p/m3. With the Skyline coming it at 8.6m3, the total was $1,448 (220,000 JPY / £1.2k).
Judging by the internet, many get shafted for this process when really it's not difficult at all - mostly by buying rusty turds from sketchy export agents. For the future, If I end up exporting a car from Japan and shipping it out west, I'll leverage my mechanic and my family over here to do the process and will likely never use a social media export agent.
said: For that lot, not so much. In GBP, about 30.
However after buying the car from auction there was 10% tax and 200,000 (about 1,000GBP) fee to the auction agent)
200,000 to the auction agent! My mechanic charges 50,000JPY whilst I frequently see 100,000JPY advertised on social media (be wary of those companies though).However after buying the car from auction there was 10% tax and 200,000 (about 1,000GBP) fee to the auction agent)
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