Who I am

I am Noah, a professional real-estate consultant with specialities in foreclosed properties and renting for foreigners. I used to run a real-estate company in Tokyo and have helped more than 200 cases of foreclosed properties and renting processes since 2019. I speak fluent English and Japanese and am based in Tokyo, Japan.
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Overview 

When you try to bid a foreclosed property, you might find out that someone is still living in the property. This situation happens in about 20 - 30% of foreclosed properties and special procedures are required to fully move the authority to you after the bidding. There are basically 2 ways.

Court Enforcement 

The most certain way to eject the previous owner/tenant is the court enforcement. The court will sign an order of court enforcement upon a request from you and basically within 2 months, they eject the person. 

The issue of the court enforcement is high cost for recruiting staff and companies to execute the procedure. The average cost is from ¥200,000 to 10,000,000 depending on the size and condition of a foreclosed property. As you also need to find and recruit those staff and companies who help with the procedure, you might end up needing some Japanese real-estate professional as well. 

Offer to Pay Moving Fees 

The another way is to negotiate with the previous owner/tenant to ask them to leave by offering him/her to cover moving fees. If they agree with your offer, you might be able to kick them out by paying half of the cost required for court enforcement, which is actually usually the case. As this all depends on how the negotiation goes, it comes with a bit of risk but it might be worth trying anyway. 

Q&A

I hope this article makes the complicated process easier to understand and encourages you to bid if you struggle with finding right/updated information in English! Have questions or looking for help with bidding?
Please feel free to contact me at: propjp81@gmail.com