The Japanese government will allow application of a revised law expected to be enacted soon to condominiums damaged in the Great East Japan Earthquake to make it easier to demolish or sell them, sources said Saturday.

The government will soon issue an ordinance to that end, the sources said.

Legislation recently passed by the House of Representatives revises the law on disaster-hit condominiums, stipulating consent from 80 per cent of condominium owners would allow the demolition or selling of a condo, instead of the unanimous consensus required under the current law.

Because the revision bill is set to pass during the current Diet session, the government intends to issue the ordinance as early as by the end of this month, the sources said. The government concluded it was necessary to apply the law to the March 2011 disaster after Sendai, a city badly affected by the quake and ensuing tsunami, asked it to do so, the sources added.

The law on condominiums damaged by large-scale disasters was established in 1995 for reconstruction from the Great Hanshin Earthquake. But as it was found to be difficult in some cases to obtain consent of all the condominium owners for a condo to be demolished or sold, or for the land it sits on to be sold, a number of people complained the law hindered the sales of these land plots.

The revision bill was passed unanimously at a plenary session of the lower house on May 23, and it is expected to be enacted during the current Diet session.

The government designates by ordinances which disasters the law on condominiums applies to. It initially considered it would not be necessary to apply the law to the Great East Japan Earthquake even after the envisaged revision as only a small number of cases of serious damage to condominiums was reported after the 2011 disaster. However, investigations by the Sendai city government and others revealed that sales of former land plots for condominium buildings have been blocked in a number of cases due to opposition from land owners.

Sendai Deputy Mayor Nobuyoshi Inaba submitted a request to apply the revised law to the 2011 disaster to Justice Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki on Tuesday.