SUMISHO HOLDINGS, K.K. is an independent non-bank lender in Toyonaka, Osaka. We lend against real estate — including the inherited, the vacant and the awkward properties that a bank's checklist turns away, and to owners a bank considers too old to lend to.
None of these mean the property has no value
Who we are
SUMISHO HOLDINGS, K.K. is an independent, privately owned non-bank lender based in Toyonaka, north of Osaka. We are not a bank, take no deposits, and are not connected to Sumitomo Corporation or any company in that group — a point we make plainly because the name invites the question.
What we do is narrow on purpose: lending secured on real estate. A property is pledged, a mortgage is registered, and the loan is assessed primarily on what that property is worth rather than on the borrower's profile.
That order of assessment is the whole difference. Japan has a great many houses whose owners cannot borrow against them — inherited from parents, standing empty, held jointly between siblings, or owned by someone in their seventies whom a bank will not lend to on a twenty-year term. The property has value in every one of those cases. The obstacle is the form, not the asset.
An empty house in Japan is not an asset doing nothing. It is an asset costing you money every year you leave it.
The asset is assessed before the borrower
Older owners are not turned away on that basis
Total repayable and schedule, in writing
Serving the northern Osaka area
When we can help
These are the circumstances that bring people to a lender like us, almost always after a bank has already said no.
A parent's home passes to children who live elsewhere. Inheritance tax may fall due before anyone has decided what to do with the building.
An empty house still carries property tax, maintenance and risk. Financing can fund a renovation, a clearance, or simply buy time to sell properly.
Someone in their seventies with a paid-off house and a pension is often refused by a bank purely on the length of the term. The house has not changed.
An owner-operator whose company needs funding, where the family property is the only substantial security available. This is a serious step and we treat it as one.
Funds needed before a property sale completes — buying the next home, settling an estate, or meeting a deadline that will not wait for a buyer.
Replacing high-cost obligations with a secured facility — but only where the arithmetic genuinely improves, which is not always.
The risk
This is the part that belongs at the front of the conversation rather than in a clause. A loan secured on property means the property can be taken if the loan is not repaid. Not as a distant theoretical outcome — as the actual mechanism by which the lender is protected.
Most people who come to us are perfectly aware of that. What matters is that it is said clearly, considered honestly, and discussed with the family who live in the house before anything is signed.
Anyone living in the property should know before the mortgage is registered
What repays this — a sale, an inheritance settlement, business income?
If the property will be sold eventually anyway, borrowing against it adds cost
A judicial scrivener or lawyer, particularly where inheritance or joint title is involved
How it works
What the funds are for, and what will eventually repay them.
Location, registration, title and condition — including who else is on the deed.
What we can advance and why that figure, explained rather than asserted.
Written terms, time to read them, and a recommendation to take independent advice.
The mortgage is registered and funds are released.
Client feedback
My father's house stood empty for three years while my sister and I argued about it. The inheritance tax deadline did not wait. Financing bought us the time to sell the house properly instead of at whatever price we could get in six weeks.
I am seventy-four, my house has been paid off for two decades, and every bank told me the term was too long for my age. Being assessed on the property rather than on how long I am expected to live was, frankly, a relief.
They asked whether my wife knew I was considering pledging our home, and told me to come back after that conversation. I was annoyed at the time. She had things to say that changed what we did, and they were right to insist.
FAQ
Get in touch
Where it is, how the title stands, and what the money is for. You will get an honest read — including when the honest read is that you should sell it instead.