It has come to light that Kanazawa City’s Public Enterprise Bureau failed to collect sewage fees for 31 years from some residents and shops in a building within the city. The affected parties number 20 out of 28 households, and the city plans to bill them in a lump sum for the past 5 years — the maximum period covered under the statute of limitations set by the revised Civil Code. The sudden lump-sum billing has reportedly sparked backlash from the affected households. On 5ch, opinions clashed: some said “of course they should pay what they always owed,” others sympathized that “a lump sum is too harsh, it should be split into installments,” and still others were skeptical, arguing “there’s no way you wouldn’t notice 5 years of missing bills” — with views divided over whether the residents themselves were also at fault.
Published 9/15 (Tue) 19:04
Ishikawa TV
It has been revealed that Kanazawa City’s Public Enterprise Bureau failed to collect sewage fees — which it should have been charging — from some residents and shops in a building within the city, for a period of 31 years.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
Only having to pay 5 years out of 31 is actually a huge win for them.
The bill itself is issued as a lump sum, but you can pay it off in installments, you know.
They probably knew they weren't paying and just kept quiet about it.
Collect a penalty on top of it too.
Most people don't really scrutinize their water bill statement.
You wouldn't notice whether you're being undercharged or overcharged either way.
They knew about it — that's why other residents filed a complaint.
It's not that they were undercharged, they weren't charged at all.
There's no way they didn't notice that.
That's right for civil claims.
There was a major Civil Code revision in 2020.
Before that, there were shorter limitation periods for things like dining and lodging, starting from as little as 1 year,
but now it's whichever comes first: 5 years from when you become aware you can make the claim, or 10 years even if you never knew.
It's a mystery how they even found out, but that's a pretty small-minded complaint to make.
Did they figure that crying "unfair" might get their own fees waived too?
They said 20 out of 28 households in this building weren't billed, so maybe residents compared notes with each other and realized some households weren't being charged at all.
Well, a lump sum is bound to cause backlash.
It is the city's own screwup, after all.
Yeah, I kind of feel that way too…
apparently anything older than 5 years is past the statute of limitations.
That's exactly why it's 5 years this time too.
Hitting them with it all at once still seems harsh though.
Sewage fees are bundled into the tap water bill — the whole system calculates it based on how much tap water you use.
They were paying for their water usage, so they probably just assumed that was normal.
Since it's usually folded into the water bill, maybe they just weren't using tap water?
Even if you're on spring water, you still owe sewage fees, right?
that in itself seems pretty reckless.
Even so, the responsibility lies with the city.
I wonder what happens if you pay your tap water bill properly but fall behind on sewage fees…
Do they just shut the sewage line and it all backs up out of the drain?
Never once thought about it.
For a household in Kanazawa using both water and sewage service, not knowing that is pretty strange.
The reason is that the bimonthly bill lists the tap water charge, the sewage charge, and the combined total.
If you actually look at the bill, the breakdown is right there.
These people knew and kept quiet — and there were 20 households doing it.
They must have known this day would come eventually, so just pay up already.
Don't be so entitled.
I can't say for certain, but…
In Kanazawa, sewage usage requires registering with the city.
Without that registration, you only get billed for tap water.
So it's probably the case that they were only ever billed for tap water.
Can't say for sure though.
They'd still be getting billed for tap water.
Your "water bill" is the tap water charge plus roughly another 10% on top for sewage —
that's just common knowledge.
Do you think the tap water was 0 yen too?
It's only the sewage portion that went uncharged.
Background and Key Points of This Story
In many municipalities, sewage fees are folded into the combined water bill, so plenty of users never pay attention to the breakdown. This case stems from a 31-year-long administrative failure on the part of Kanazawa City’s Public Enterprise Bureau — likely a flaw in its billing system or in how registrations were processed — a management lapse on the government’s side, which is a different matter from any failure by residents to self-report. The focal point is the 2020 revision of the Civil Code, which unified the statute of limitations for debt claims at “5 years from when the creditor becomes aware of the claim”; the city is now billing retroactively for the full 5-year maximum this allows. In the thread, the detail that “payment can be made in installments” eased some of the backlash over the lump-sum bill, while skepticism that “it’s unnatural not to notice 5 straight years without a single bill” ran alongside a defense that “staying quiet even after noticing doesn’t necessarily make you at fault” — leaving opinions split over whether residents bore any responsibility. Though not stated in the article itself, there’s a notable skew in that only 20 of the 28 households in the same building were affected, and the original report never clarifies why only some households were missed.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “[Ishikawa] Unnoticed for 31 years… Kanazawa City fails to collect sewage fees from over 20 households, residents balk at sudden lump-sum bill for 5 years’ worth.”
