Pension question for the vets - legality of withholding pension refund?

[robred]

This isn't for me - I won't be bothering to file for my pension refund as I withheld a year's residence tax and kokumin kenko hoken payments for a year before I left Japan to give me some compensation for what I had excessively paid into the black hole known as the pension fund.

I have a mate who applied for the pension refund. He has his exit stamp in his passport and sent a photocopy etc along with his refund claim. He hasn't received anything yet (been 5 months) and he thinks they've decided not to give it to him because of some legal dispute he was involved in.

He left his old apato after owing about 7 months rent - withheld because of a dispute with his landagents over their breaking his contract and extra fees he said weren't legal. He lived in Tokyo and he's worried he was put on some kind of debt collection blacklist.

He asked me about it and I've got no idea - I never had debts in Japan and as I mentioned before I didn't pay my city hall deliberately over a principle and informed them anyway. Could my mate's pension refund have been garnished by debt collectors or his old landagents if they went bitching to the authorities?

I wouldn't think the Social Insurance Agency is allowed to do that - withhold pension refunds to pay the money elsewhere. But I spose if city hall could grab my Jp bank account (not that I was stupid enough to leave any money in it for them), then the Social Insurance Agency could pay that money to a business or individual or city hall.

Anybody know? Paul H, Ms Trip Hop?

[銕不死身]

This isn't for me - I won't be bothering to file for my pension refund as I withheld a year's residence tax and kokumin kenko hoken payments for a year before I left Japan to give me some compensation for what I had excessively paid into the black hole known as the pension fund.

I have a mate who applied for the pension refund. He has his exit stamp in his passport and sent a photocopy etc along with his refund claim. He hasn't received anything yet (been 5 months) and he thinks they've decided not to give it to him because of some legal dispute he was involved in.

He left his old apato after owing about 7 months rent - withheld because of a dispute with his landagents over their breaking his contract and extra fees he said weren't legal. He lived in Tokyo and he's worried he was put on some kind of debt collection blacklist.

He asked me about it and I've got no idea - I never had debts in Japan and as I mentioned before I didn't pay my city hall deliberately over a principle and informed them anyway. Could my mate's pension refund have been garnished by debt collectors or his old landagents if they went bitching to the authorities?

I wouldn't think the Social Insurance Agency is allowed to do that - withhold pension refunds to pay the money elsewhere. But I spose if city hall could grab my Jp bank account (not that I was stupid enough to leave any money in it for them), then the Social Insurance Agency could pay that money to a business or individual or city hall.

Anybody know? Paul H, Ms Trip Hop?

It would seem unlikely that a government agency would be notifying or notified by private bill collector types. Did your friend owe the government any other money? That would be the first black hole his refund would stumble over.

Has he written to them again to inquire?

From what I have heard, not too many of those are getting approved these days. A cheapass drinking buddy sent his in a while ago, but it came back becasue the dipstick had written all the supporting letters in English.

[robred]

Yeah, I thought it would be unusual for a private business like a landagency one to have the nouse to notify the Social Insurance Agency. I don't think the overwhelming majority of Jp people even know about foreigners getting pension refunds, let alone apply to seize the money to claim debts.

No, he doesn't have anything else owing. He paid up all his residence tax, kokuminkenkohoken payments etc. Your point about your mate who wrote the forms in English was interesting.

He might not have been wrong - there's an English form you can fill out by downloading from a website that somebody posted here on gaijinpot a while ago. It looks like the Social Insurance Agency in Tokyo is bending over backwards to help thru this form. It's simple and its documents requirement is simple.

I'm guessing that the bloke you know didn't have the pension booklet to attach or didn't know his pension number. But you have the opportunity to write your addresses while in Japan on the form in that case and I don't reckon it would be too hard to chase up the info through the various city halls.

I still think though that ward offices/city halls have the power to withhold refunds if something's not paid like residence tax or whatever. I can't believe they'd hand over the pension refund money if somebody still owes them money. Any other info about that?