Photo/Illutration Many “for sale” signs have popped up around the Niseko ski resort area in Hokkaido. (Shin Matsuura)

KUTCHAN, Hokkaido—Many “for sale” signs have sprung up around the internationally famed Niseko ski resort here, an indication that overseas money has restarted development in the area after decades of stagnation.

However, other signs posted on a bulletin board at the Kutchan town office underscore a long-standing problem with many buyers of such properties.

The notices, containing more than 100 names, are aimed at property tax delinquents who have disappeared from the radar of the municipality. Some include detailed addresses outside Japan, while others only mention countries, such as China, Britain and Australia.

“Property owners in foreign countries must also pay the tax,” said an official at Kutchen’s taxation section. “If tax notices are returned undelivered, we will seize their plots and put them up for public auction. There is no difference in handling whether they are in or outside the country.”

Japanese people bought many of the plots around the ski slope from the 1970s through the 1990s and later sold them to foreign nationals.

In a recent case, a plot of land was sold from a person whose address was in New Zealand to a person with an address in China.

The Niseko ski resort with its powder snow has grown into a hugely popular destination for tourists from overseas. And land in the area is being developed for real estate properties.

In May, construction workers and vehicles were seen clearing forested areas around the Hirafu ski slope of the Niseko resort.

In the same month, the town office held a public auction for four plots of land in a holiday home area. The municipality had seized the properties after the owner failed to pay real estate taxes over an extended period.

Records show that the four plots were purchased by a real estate firm based in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward in 1988 during the asset-inflated period of economic growth.

The commercial registry shows the company has since been dissolved.

Two plots are located in a holiday home area about 2 kilometers south of the ski slope. They were subdivided from a forest and put up for sale around 1980, according to the land register.

One plot is now overgrown with mixed trees but surrounded by elegant-looking and newly built houses. The 205-square-meter site is worth an estimated 3.444 million yen ($23,800), according to the town office.

The two other plots are located in another holiday home area about 3 km northeast of the ski slope.

While they are mostly surrounded by woodlands, some spots have been leveled.

One of them, a 385-square-meter plot, is worth an estimated 492,000 yen.

Four other plots, ranging in size from 164 to 331 square meters, were auctioned off by the town office in September 2024. Located near a prefectural road and featuring many built houses, the plots had starting bids ranging from 5.3 million yen to 7 million yen.

One was sold to a person with an address in Beijing, while the remaining three were won by a person whose address is in Kutchan.

Both auction winners spelled their names in katakana, indicating they are non-Japanese.

The plots were originally owned by Sapporo residents who bought them between 1979 and 1983.

Eleven plots were put up for public auction in fiscal 2024, a town official said.

In 2022, a construction company seized a hotel near the ski slope for its unpaid bills. The town office, the Finance Ministry and the Hokkaido government then took it over.

The building is now owned by a Tokyo-based company, and the president’s name is spelled in katakana.

The land is owned by a company based in the Cayman Islands, a notorious tax haven.

Yusuke Yoshikawa, who has written books and recorded YouTube videos about the realities of desolate land plots and resort areas, has studied real estate speculation in the Niseko area.

“Because Japanese people learned the hard way about land speculation, especially in resort areas, those who buy land plots in such areas are mostly non-Japanese,” Yoshikawa said.

“If no measures are taken, it will be a repeat of Yuzawa in Niigata Prefecture where there was a drastic decline in prices of resort condominiums.”

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