Kengo Hashiba’s latest article in his series on Japan’s vacant housing problem has been published in the 1st April 2021 issue (No. 413) of Profession Journal. This article looks at problem of vacant “akiya” houses that are surrounded by other private property and do not have direct access to a public road. A preview of the article (in Japanese) is available at https://profession-net.com/professionjournal/law-465/.