Legal sources

Buying a home in Japan costs more than the price. The buyer pays registration and license tax (登録免許税) to register the land, the building and the lender's mortgage, a judicial scrivener (司法書士) to file those registrations, stamp tax (印紙税) on the contracts and, a few months later, the prefecture's real estate acquisition tax (不動産取得税). Most of these taxes are charged on the assessed value (固定資産税評価額) the city records for the land and the building, not on the price. On a resale, buyer and seller each pay their own broker, up to a fee the law caps. Each default below names its law or notice, the article and the date it was last checked, or is marked as market practice. Law names stay in Japanese so you can find the official text.