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Guide

When managing money and contracts becomes difficult

Two schemes cover this. Rights protection means the ward Anshin Centre visiting once or twice a month, from 1,250 yen a visit, but only while the person can still sign a contract. After that comes adult guardianship.

These two are not alternatives; they come in order. The daily-living support scheme can only be used while the person can still enter into a contract. Once that point passes, what remains is adult guardianship.

The difference

Daily-living supportAdult guardianship
When it can be usedWhile the person can contractAfter capacity has declined
How it startsThe person applies, and signs a contractAn application to the family court
Can it be stoppedYes — it is a contractAs a rule it continues
What it coversEveryday money, payments, safekeeping of documentsProperty, and cancelling contracts — far broader
Where to askThe ward Anshin CentreThe city's central body, and the family court

Guardianship has three levels depending on capacity, and there is also a voluntary form arranged in advance, while the person is still well.

Daily-living support (Yokohama)

The city calls this rights protection. The ward Anshin Centre (the ward council of social welfare) visits once or twice a month under a contract and helps with money.

What they do

  • Information and advice about using welfare services
  • Paying service charges, medical bills and utilities
  • Paperwork needed to receive a pension or allowance
  • Paying everyday expenses and withdrawing savings

What they cannot do is also set out: shopping, housework, personal care, nursing, accompanying someone to hospital, or acting as a guarantor.

Cost, per visit

HouseholdCharge
Receiving public assistanceFree (1,250 yen outside the support plan)
Exempt from residence tax1,250 yen
Taxed, income under 2.5m yen1,560 yen
Taxed, income 2.5m yen or more1,875 yen
Taxed, income 7m yen or more2,500 yen

Charged per visit. Holding passbooks and certificates in a bank vault is a further 250 yen a month (3,000 yen a year), and is only available alongside the money-management contract.

Asking costs nothing

Both the general consultation and the specialist one — Thursdays, by appointment, with a lawyer present, at the Yokohama Anshin Centre by JR Sakuragicho station — are free. Home visits are available where getting there is difficult. Start with your ward's Anshin Centre.

Adult guardianship

A scheme that protects the property and rights of someone whose capacity to judge has become insufficient through dementia, intellectual disability or mental illness. The application goes to the family court.

In Yokohama the Yokohama Adult Guardianship Promotion Centre is the central body, handling enquiries and publicity and training citizen guardians. Questions about the procedure can also be taken to your ward's Anshin Centre.

Costs (the application, and any remuneration for the guardian) and the documents required should be confirmed with the family court and the promotion centre. No figures are given here, because they vary case by case.

Moving earlier leaves more options open

Daily-living support exists only while the person can decide for themselves that they want it. Past that point, what is left is an application to the family court.

The stage that feels like "not yet" is the stage with the most choices in it. A community support centre, or the ward Anshin Centre, will talk it through at no charge.

This page sets out the outline of the schemes. Whether they apply in a particular case, and what they cost, should be confirmed with the Anshin Centre or the family court. Nothing here is legal advice. Counter staff answer in Japanese.

Find your support centre Official page (Japanese)

Source: the Yokohama Council of Social Welfare · Last verified 2026-09-13. Rules change. Check the source page before you act on this. This is a plain-English summary of public information, not an official translation.

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