Official depository

The office that holds money and securities deposited (供託) under a provision of an Act or other statute: a Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局) or District Legal Affairs Bureau (地方法務局), one of their branch bureaus, or a local office of theirs the Minister of Justice designates (Deposit Act, Article 1). Its work is done by an official of the bureau whom the bureau's head designates as a deposit officer (供託官) (Article 1-2). Under the Real Estate Brokerage Act, a real estate broker (宅地建物取引業者) must deposit its security deposit for operations (営業保証金) at the official depository nearest its principal office (Article 25, paragraph (1)), and a person who dealt with the broker in its real estate brokerage business, other than another broker, has the right to be paid a claim arising from that deal out of that deposit (Article 27, paragraph (1)). Before the contract is made, a broker must tell the other party that official depository and its address, or, if the broker is a member of a real estate guarantee association, the association and the official depository where the association lodged its own deposit (Article 35-2).