Vacant houses and role of local governments

Abstract

The social issue about vacant houses and lands in Japan need to be discussed from the following different aspects. First, the revised Basic act law for land in 2020 is not effective for solving the issue caused by vacant houses and lands because this law doesn’t mention the support system and penalties for them. As a result, the owners of vacant houses and lands keep them without managing. Second, the local government should focus more on training the staff on a regular basis. Extensive knowledge and experiences are essential to solve the issues about vacant houses and lands because these issues are relating to complicated things such as the law, construction, the human rights etc. Educating the staff on how to comprehend things from many angles and make important decisions will be effective in not only the issues about vacant houses and lands but also unprecedented situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic.