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2026-09-09
How to read a certificate of registered matters ― the heading section, Section A and Section B tell you the "now" of a property
The certificate of registered matters (登記事項証明書, formerly the registry transcript or 登記簿謄本) is the identity document of a piece of real estate. The heading section gives the physical facts, Section A (甲区) the history of owners, Section B (乙区) mortgages and other security interests. This article covers how to obtain one and what it costs, the difference between a lot number and a street address, where to look for inheritance, sale and boundary questions, and what an underlined entry means.
About this translation ― This page is an English translation of an article originally written in Japanese by KuraLab's operator, a licensed real-estate transaction specialist (宅地建物取引士) and administrative scrivener (行政書士) in Japan. The Japanese original is the authoritative text; where the two differ, the Japanese version prevails. The article explains Japanese law and procedure in general terms as of the date shown. It is not legal, tax or immigration advice for your situation ― please confirm with a licensed professional in Japan. Japanese terms are kept in parentheses so you can search for them. Read the Japanese original
"There is still a loan on this house." During an inheritance consultation, a woman spread out a certificate of registered matters (登記事項証明書) and pointed at the mortgage entry in Section B (乙区). Claim amount 28,000,000 yen, mortgagee a bank. It was the home loan her father had taken out twenty years earlier. I looked just below that line. It was underlined. "This has been cancelled." The mortgage had been paid off twelve years earlier; the record remains, but it has no effect. She said, "I did not know what the underline meant." This article starts from that underline.
Any consultation about land or a building begins with obtaining the certificate of registered matters. It used to be called the registry transcript (登記簿謄本); after the Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局) computerised its records, the name changed to certificate of registered matters. Who owns it, whether security interests are attached, what the area and structure are. The "now" of that property is on one sheet.
There are three ways to get one. Request it at the Legal Affairs Bureau counter (600 yen per copy), request it online and receive it by post (500 yen), or request it online and collect it at the counter (480 yen). If you do not need it to serve as a certificate and only want to see the contents, viewing it online through the Registration Information Service (登記情報提供サービス) is cheaper and faster. Whichever method you use, the request needs the lot number (地番, for land) or the building number (家屋番号, for a building). These are different from the street address (住居表示) and appear on the fixed asset tax statement or on earlier registration documents. If you do not know them, the Legal Affairs Bureau counter can look them up from the address.
The certificate is divided into three parts. The first is the heading section (表題部), the physical information about the property. For land: location, lot number, land category (地目: residential, paddy field, field, forest and so on) and area (地積). For a building: location, building number, type (dwelling, shop and so on), structure (for example, wooden, tile roof, two storeys), floor area, and the date of construction. This is where you check how old a building is. It is used to estimate a sale price and to calculate the tax on a sale (depreciation). (The inheritance tax valuation of a building uses the municipal fixed asset tax valuation as it is, so it does not come from here.)
Here are the three parts at a glance. The heading section carries, for land, the location, lot number, land category and area, and for a building, the building number, type, structure, floor area and date of construction; in an inheritance you look here for the area and the year of construction (age of the building, and checking the registration and licence tax). Section A of the rights section carries the history of owners (priority number, cause, name) and entries such as seizures and provisional registrations; in an inheritance you check whether the current owner is the deceased and who owned it before. Section B of the rights section carries rights other than ownership, such as mortgages, revolving mortgages and leasehold rights; in an inheritance you check for remaining security interests and for cancellations that were never registered (an underline means it has already been cancelled).
The second part is Section A of the rights section (権利部 甲区), the record of ownership. Who became owner, when, and on what cause (sale, inheritance, gift) is listed in order of priority number. The bottom line is the current owner. In an inheritance consultation, you look at whether the deceased's name is still here (whether inheritance registration has been done) and who the previous owner was (whether there have been successive inheritances). Entries such as "provisional registration of ownership transfer", "seizure" or "provisional seizure" signal that a third party's rights are involved.
The third part is Section B of the rights section (権利部 乙区), rights other than ownership, mainly security interests. Mortgages (home loans and so on), revolving mortgages (根抵当権, a borrowing facility for a business), superficies, leasehold rights. A mortgage entry shows the claim amount, interest, debtor and mortgagee (the financial institution). When you take over a property by inheritance and a mortgage remains in Section B, you check whether the debt still exists or has been repaid with only the registration left behind. Even after full repayment, the mortgage entry does not disappear unless a cancellation registration is filed.
One key point about reading. Past records are not erased; they remain, and a record that has lost its effect is underlined. An underlined mortgage has been cancelled; an underlined owner is a past owner. Many people miss the underline and panic that "there is still a mortgage on it".
Where to look, by situation. For inheritance: the current owner in Section A, and the area and floor area in the heading section (to compare with the valuation certificate used to calculate the registration and licence tax). For a sale: whether Section A shows any rights other than the seller's, and whether the mortgage in Section B can be cancelled at closing. For a boundary: the area in the heading section, together with the cadastral map (公図) and the survey map (地積測量図) obtained separately. For co-ownership: the "share" (持分) entry in Section A, showing who holds what fraction. For a condominium: whether the heading section has a "description of the site right" (敷地権の表示).
That day, we read the certificates together, one sheet at a time. The heading section. Location, lot number, land category residential, area 165.28 square metres. For the building: building number, type dwelling, structure wooden with slate roof, two storeys, floor area 62.10 square metres on the first floor and 48.55 on the second, built in 1996 (Heisei 8). From this year of construction you can tell how old the building is. Section A. Priority number 1 is the father's acquisition by sale in 1996, and since that is the last line, the current owner is still the father; inheritance registration has not been done. Section B. Priority number 1 is the mortgage created in 1996, claim amount 28,000,000 yen, and priority number 2 is the "cancellation of mortgage No. 1" in 2014 (Heisei 26). The line for mortgage No. 1 is underlined. In other words, the loan has been repaid and the cancellation has been registered. The 28,000,000 yen the woman thought was "still there" remained only as a record.
In another consultation, the opposite happened. Section B had a revolving mortgage without an underline, maximum amount 30,000,000 yen, debtor the company that the deceased father had run. The family said, "All of the company's borrowing was repaid," but a revolving mortgage is a borrowing facility: repayment does not remove the facility unless a cancellation is registered. We checked with the bank: the balance was zero, but the facility was alive, and cancellation needed the bank's documents. After the inheritance registration we filed the cancellation, and only then was Section B clean. Underlined means finished; not underlined means alive. That one point is the whole of the reading.
The cost of obtaining one, with a real example. This woman's house meant two copies, land and building, 600 yen × 2 at the counter. If, on the same day, you only wanted to see the contents first through the Registration Information Service, it is about 330 yen per property; it cannot be used as a certificate, but it is enough to read. If you only want to see it before a consultation, this is sufficient. An inheritance registration application does not need the certificate (the Legal Affairs Bureau looks at its own records); you need it when showing it to a financial institution or a real estate company.
Finally, the certificate shows the "now" of the register, not a guarantee of the actual condition. The land category in the heading section may say "field" while the site is actually a car park; an extension may make the floor area differ from the register; a building may have been demolished with the registration left behind (an unfiled registration of loss of building). Such gaps are common. The rule is to look at both the certificate and the site.
The woman who had not known about the underline went home that day with one worry fewer: a debt she thought she would inherit. Learning one thing about how to read the certificate can make a worry disappear. The heading section for "what", Section A for "whose", Section B for "what security". Read the three parts in that order. And an underlined line is a past record. With these four points you can read ninety per cent of a certificate. The remaining ten per cent, as I wrote near the end, cannot be known without going to the site.
Written by: 長澤 湊（licensed real-estate transaction specialist, administrative scrivener, assistant surveyor） Content checked on: 2026-10-14
This article is a general explanation of Japanese rules and procedures, not advice on an individual case. Figures and rules are as of the date shown. For your own situation, consult a lawyer, judicial scrivener, tax accountant or administrative scrivener in Japan.