In Japan, will has the central role in estate planning, and trust is not commonly used. Since Japan does not have probate system, there is no need to make a trust in order to avoid probate. And Japanese trust does not have any favorable effects on tax worth to consider.
For these reasons, unlike in U.S., trust is rarely chosen as a tool of estate planning.
In Japan, there are two types of will, one is holographic will and the other is notarized will. Holographic will should meet the format, but oftentimes it is written incorrectly. And there is no way to guarantee that the testator truly understood the content and made it at his/her own decision. So it is often contested later and causes delay of inheritance procedure. To the contrary, in the course of making a notarized will, testator’s intention is checked by notary public so that it is almost impossible to contest a will later. For these reasons, even though making a notarized will is costly and burdensome compared to holographic will, still notarized will should be the first choice.
In case testator is non-Japanese, governing law is the law of testator’s domicile, so it should also be checked before making a will.