Reward

The reward a person who gets back property they lost (遺失者) must pay its finder (拾得者): an amount from 5% to 20% of the property's value, or of the price it fetched where the police or a special-case facility occupant (特例施設占有者) sold it (Lost Property Act, Article 28, paragraph (1)). Where the finder handed it to the occupant of the facility where it was found (施設占有者), the finder and the occupant are each paid half of that amount (paragraph (2)). None is owed for another person's thing someone took by mistake (paragraph (1)), and the State, local governments and other public corporations cannot claim one (paragraph (3)). It can no longer be claimed once a month has passed since the property was returned (Article 29). Anyone punished for embezzling the property loses the right to it, and so does a finder who did not hand it in to the chief of a police station within a week of finding it, or to the facility occupant within 24 hours where it was found in a facility (Article 34, items (i) to (iii)). A facility occupant that did not hand it in to the police within a week of receiving or finding it loses the right too; a special-case facility occupant, which may keep found property itself (Article 17), has two weeks, or one week for high-value property and property that must go to the police, and loses nothing for property Article 17 lets it keep (items (iv) and (v)). The person who lost the property may instead give up their rights in it, and so need not pay (Article 31).