JWH Netherlands JournalVol.6　　　We Decided to Buy. 　　　　　　　　But Could We Actually Send €680,000?

JWH Netherlands Journal

Vol.6

We Decided to Buy. But Could We Actually Send €680,000?

— The Nakamura Family’s once-in-a-lifetime international transfer. —

Our biggest purchase ever

Over the years, I had purchased several properties in Japan.

Apartments.

Shops.

Mixed-use buildings.

A traditional Japanese inn.

But this property in Delft was more expensive than any of them.

And this time, the property was not in Japan.

It was in the Netherlands.

A country where I had no real estate track record.

A country with different business customs.

A country where every contract was written in a language I could not read fluently.

Looking back, I sometimes think:

Or perhaps more honestly:

Still, I wanted to find out whether the experience I had built in Japan could also work overseas.

Could I identify value in a foreign market?

Could I judge the property rationally?

Could I turn the future I imagined into reality?

This was more than the purchase of a house.

For our family, it was a once-in-a-lifetime challenge.

Deciding to buy was not enough

Our offer had been accepted.

The purchase price was €680,000.

At that moment, I felt that we had finally secured the property.

But in reality, we had not bought anything yet.

The next challenge was very simple to describe and surprisingly difficult to complete.

And that process turned out to be far more complicated than I had expected.

The hardest part was proving the source of the money

I used Sony Bank for all of the international transfers.

The payments were divided into several stages:

• the deposit;

• notary and related costs;

• the remaining purchase price.

At first, I assumed the process would be straightforward.

Prepare the funds.

Register the beneficiary.

Send the money.

Wait for confirmation.

But before the transfer could even begin, the bank needed to verify a great deal of information.

Where had the money come from?

Was it business income?

Rental income?

Savings?

Proceeds from the sale of assets?

What was the purpose of the transfer?

Who was the recipient?

Why was the money being sent to a notary?

What was the relationship between the payment and the purchase contract?

Explaining it once was not enough.

I submitted documents.

Then I received more questions.

I sent additional evidence.

Then another request arrived.

The source-of-funds review was especially detailed, and the process continued through repeated exchanges.

The verification of the funds and the registration of the beneficiary alone took around three weeks.

After the transfer was finally approved and executed, it took roughly another week for the money to arrive.

That experience taught me something very clearly:

Would the money arrive before completion?

A real estate transaction has a fixed completion date.

The required amount must reach the notary’s account before that date.

The bank was still reviewing the documents.

More information was requested.

The beneficiary had not yet been approved.

Even after the transfer was made, the money did not arrive immediately.

As the completion date approached, one thought kept returning:

When our offer was accepted, I thought we had succeeded in buying the house.

But the reality was different.

The purchase would only become possible if we could move the money legally, correctly and on time.

Until the funds were confirmed in the Netherlands, I could not relax.

Every contract was in Dutch

While preparing the transfer, I also had to review the purchase documents.

Every document was written in Dutch.

I had bought many properties before, but signing a contract in a language I could not fully read was a completely different experience.

This was where AI helped me enormously.

I used it to translate the documents.

To organize the content.

To identify key clauses.

To compare the structure with the real estate contracts I knew from Japan.

To list questions that needed further confirmation.

Of course, AI did not replace professional legal or contractual advice.

Important matters still had to be confirmed with the relevant professionals.

But being able to understand the overall structure of the documents myself made a huge difference.

I could follow the transaction.

I could ask better questions.

I could understand what I was agreeing to.

I often thought:

A few years earlier, understanding a foreign-language property contract independently would have been much more difficult.

Financing foreign property is another challenge

I purchased this property using our own funds.

During the process, I formed the impression that obtaining a normal Dutch residential mortgage would have been extremely difficult while I was still living outside the Netherlands.

At that stage, I did not yet have a long local income history or an established Dutch financial profile.

So I did not approach the purchase in the same way as a typical local homebuyer.

For someone purchasing from Japan, other funding routes may need to be considered.

For example:

• borrowing secured against property in Japan;

• securities-backed lending;

• business financing;

• funding supported by existing assets.

The available options will differ significantly depending on the buyer, lender and transaction.

For me, however, the reality was simple.

We had to organize the family’s available capital, review our assets and gather the funds one piece at a time.

To be completely honest, the money was not simply sitting in one account, ready to be transferred from the beginning.

We had to make a real decision about what resources we were prepared to commit to this property.

This was the largest purchase the Nakamura family had ever made.

It was not an easy purchase.

It was a determined one.

The real cost was not only financial

An unfamiliar country.

A contract written in Dutch.

The largest purchase price I had ever paid.

A major international transfer.

A building constructed in 1848.

When I list those facts together, it sounds rather reckless.

And yes, there were moments when I wondered:

But I had spent months comparing properties.

I had walked through the cities.

I had built the spreadsheet.

I had examined the location.

I had considered the renovation.

I had negotiated the price.

And even after all of that, I still believed in the property.

I could see value that had not yet been fully expressed.

I could imagine our family living there.

I could imagine the store creating income or becoming something of our own.

The fear did not disappear.

But the preparation made it possible to act.

Courage is not the absence of fear.

It is understanding the fear, preparing carefully and moving forward anyway.

JWH Reflection

You need the ability to identify value.

The ability to understand the contract.

The ability to prepare the funds.

And the ability to move those funds correctly and on time.

This purchase required all of them.

For our family, it was the biggest financial challenge we had ever taken on.

A property in a country where I had no experience.

A contract in a language I did not speak fluently.

A purchase price larger than any previous acquisition.

Looking back, I still think:

But because we took that challenge, we are now living together as a family on Delft’s Markt.

The transfer was not merely a payment.

It was the moment our decision became real.

Next Story

We Received the Keys. But What Should We Do With the Ground-Floor Store?

The purchase was complete.

But the next decision was already waiting.

Should we rent the store out?

Should we use it ourselves?

Should it become a café?

An onigiri shop?

A community space?

A future JWH base?

In the next article, I will write about the possibilities—and the risks—of owning a mixed-use property.