What are the odds and reason for your home/workplace being inspected?

Last week I had an evening coffee with my friend who is a public worker in the Nationality Section (国籍課 {kokuseki-ka}) of the Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局 {hōmukyoku}) in 九段下 {Kudanshita}. He's a fan of this site, and often gives me tips and clarifies things from an insider's perspective. He wanted to clarify a point on some of the past posts regarding home and work inspections.

Many people, especially those who have applied for naturalization in the 21st century (2001 and beyond) — including many of the contributors to this site — have told me they had no appointment for a home or work inspection, and have wondered why some get it, why some don't, and what the inspectors are looking for exactly.

Contrary to popular belief, 小林 {KOBAYASHI} said, the home and work inspections have nothing to do with assessing how assimilated you are into Japanese society.

The primary purpose of the home and work inspections is to make sure the residence and workplace one puts on paper is real and not bogus. For example, if you put an address on the paper and claimed to have lived there for a decade, yet when the inspector arrives it looks like hardly anybody has lived there in years, that will raise a yellow flag and invite further inspection. If they interview the neighbors and the neighbors look at the picture of you and say they've never seen you before, that will also raise a yellow flag. If they go to the address for your work place and it looks like a home (or vice versa) or the staff there has never seen or heard of you, that may also raise a yellow flag.

Another reason for the home and work inspection, in addition to verifying a bone fide residence and workplace, is to make sure the statements regarding assets and income are not out of place with the what is written on paper. For example, if they visit your home and it turns out there are many people living there and everybody is sharing the rent, they may check your living expenses statement and see if your statements about paying rent/mortgage and your income correspond to what they confirmed from being onsite.

So what are odds of getting a visit? He couldn't give me the exact percentages, but he did say it depends a few factors:

  • Technology. Compared to years ago, there are ways to verify aspects of a home or work address electronically. Either with internet maps, street views, or simple phone calls to the landlord or place of business. Nowadays they will even accept a printout of a Google or Yahoo! Map page instead of a hand-drawn map as part of the application. Thus, the need to inspect in person is reduced from years before.
  • Risk and anomalies. A calculation of the "risk" factor regarding certain types/addresses of homes and workplaces. For example, a workplace that is in a typically residential area and vice versa.
  • Workload. How busy the office is in terms of case work during certain periods of the year. The busiest office is obviously Tokyo, followed by Osaka. Rural offices that don't get a lot of naturalization cases may be able to inspect all the ones they get.

    It should also be stressed that the Legal Affairs Bureau and/or Nationality Sections do more than process naturalization applications. How busy they are with other matters may also affect prioritization.
  • Randomness. If an office can't inspect all the homes and workplaces, they will pick a few, up to the load they can handle, randomly.
It's possible that an inspector may have actually visit your home and work place and you won't be aware of it. They may come by and inspect the exterior without making an appointment or attempting to enter the premises.

Anyway you look at it, if you do * get a home or work visit, don't sweat trying to appear assimilated. As long as you actually live and work there and what you've stated about your home and work on paper matches what a reasonable person would assess from visiting, you should have no problem passing the home/work inspection.

* If you get an indoor inspection at all, that is — as the inspections have been decreasing in relation to the number of applicants over the years.

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