Mitsubishi Jisho Residence announced on January 24th that the company will start full scale implementation of electronic sales contracts for condominiums and houses.  Mitsubishi Jisho has been trialing the new workflows since November of 2021.

According to Mitsubishi Jisho’s press release, “In anticipation of the revision of the Building Lots and Buildings Transaction Business Law in May of 2022, we have accumulated a track record of using online services…and have made preparations for completely non-face-to-face services.”

The company will use Musubell, developed by Digital Garage, as Mitsubishi Jisho Residence’s e-contracting platform. 

Musubell is capable of automatically selecting and generating necessary inputs for documents that differ from customer to customer when signing a real estate contract. 

The e-contract function is provided through an API link with Cloud Sign, operated by Bengoshi Dot Com.  Bengoshi is Japanese for lawyer and the company spells out “Dot Com” in their Japanese name.

Once full scale implementation begins, the electronic contracting procedure will be conducted face-to-face at first in order to carefully verify the identity of the customer, and the contracting procedure will be carried out using the customer's smartphone.

After an undetermined at present time of successful digital contracts executed in person, Mitsubishi Jisho Residence plans to execute the process virtually.

The trial workflows were conducted for four condominium complexes and one freestanding home.  89 out of 115 contracts were signed electronically and customer reasons for choosing e-contracts were that "stamp duty was not needed" (59%), "it is easier because there is no need for signatures or stamps" (23%), and "documents are stored in data format and are easy to store" (13%).

Further Reading

Mitsubishi Jisho Residence E-Contract Press Release (Japanese only; January, 2022)

GMO pairs with National Association of Real Estate Agents on joint dev of electronic contracting system (REthink Tokyo; January, 2022)