Best Posts in Thread: Salutations

I will give you a leg up. Foreigners may not own land in the Philippines. It is the Law. The law also states that any attempt to get around or evade the law is illegal. Anything which goes against the intent of the law is illegal. That pretty much closes the loopholes.
Many people have bright ideas, but how are you going to beat the law when anything you do to own land is illegal? You can own a condo in a building that is at least 60% Filipino owned because you don't actually own any land, the corporation owns the land. You could incorporate and buy a place I suppose but since you can own a maximum of 40%, you just granted others 60% (thank you!) and what do you do if they want THEIR money? It's theirs, you gave it to them. You could refuse to sell and they can bring a partition suit because your refusal to sell denies them their natural rights to the property and a judge will order the sale.

The best one I have heard is the land will be in the wife's name and the Foreigner will lease from the wife. I think that if that lease was challenged by the wife in court, it wouldn't stand.

In any contract language can be declared surplusage, which means it has no meaning, it is just filler. There is no need to lease marital property from one's wife and I believe the entire contract would be declared void on that basis. Part two is a contract must serve some purpose or it is void on the face of it. A contract is an agreement in the exchange of value. What do you gain by leasing from your spouse? This is not to say that a lawyer will not draw up a contract to say absolutely anything you want it to say.

If I really wanted to try to own some dirt, I would try naturalization. There is a lengthy residency requirement and you need to learn a language I believe other than English. Still if you had children who were foreigners themselves they could inherit if you died without a will but it is against the law to will land to a foreigner, they can only inherit if you die intestate. The 50% compulsory heirs (unless you had a Filipino national child) would put them over the 40% ownership limit but the court would give them a reasonable time to sell. Has anyone mentioned that the Philippines doesn't want a foreigner to own land?

You might also want to look into the perils of title, inheritance as it bears on title and taxes. Land title is a mess in the Philippines because there is compulsory heirs for 50% of any estate. The rest can be willed.

Grandpa had clear title (1950) and 6 kids and died intestate. The second 50% is divided by the secondary heirs , wife, illegitimate children and the legitimate children get to double dip n the non-compulsory pool. Mom inherited 1/8 and remarried. To keep it simple, mom stopped having kids. When Mom passed her husband inherited 1/8 of mom's share and Mom's natural children inherited divided what was left. The six kids went on to marry and have 6 kids each and when they passed their 36 legitimate children inherited. There may be a few spouses, aunts, and so forth but they are superfluous to the point which I will get to shortly. The 36 kids averaged about 5 kids each. We are up to about 180 heirs for one piece of land that doesn't have updated title. Who do you buy it from? What if some don't want to sell? I think those who do want to sell will conveniently forget to mention the ones that don't. Don't worry though, you will be hearing from them in the future. They are actually your Co-tenants in the land with rights to use all and any part of it, albeit not exclusive right. Howdy neighbor! THERE IS NO TITLE INSURANCE IN THE PHILIPPINES.

 

Thanks everyone for your welcome messages, I live in sunny Queensland at the moment.
I have not been to Duma, however I have been to the Phils many times, including Manila, most of southern Luzon, Cebu and Marinduque.
Dumaguete will be a totally new experience for me, the fact that there's a growing expat community piqued my interest.
Cheers
Marc

 

Separation or Death Gives cause for disbanding the Company, I say Separation ( and this is Legal Separation) as there is no Divorce. Husband and wife Shares cannot be redistributed. Legally

 

DON'T DO IT !
There has been lots of legal advice from other forum members on the pro's & con's of property ownership but something not mentioned yet are neighbours, unfortunately neighbours are like a$$holes and we all have to have them, unless you are very lucky you will have neighbours that, block the access road with their cars, motorbikes funeral wake card tables or anything else, have loud karaoke and none of them can hold a note, let their dogs run wild and crap all over, have shouting competitions when they are only 2 feet apart and never seem to work so they are always staring at you as you go by.
So my advice / opinion is to rent as it is so much easier to move on and start again but if you really want to buy then go for the largest piece of land you can afford and put the house right in the middle so you are as far away from them as possible.

 

It most certainly should be concrete but until this Inheritance nonsense is sorted, nothing is safe. Fortunately the Title Law has tightened up quite a lot in that:
On "A's" death ( God Forbid or anything else) I will become the sole Owner until my death, I can't sell the Land but may live their For as long as I wish, Our Daughter will Inherit on My death but that is where the problem may Arise, This very Obscure Inheritance law may yeald something we non of us knew but it is Something we are dealing with Now.
When (TM) is 18 next Year the whole thing will have been sorted out (One Hopes) But...................

 

Yes, but I might get married someday anyway! Just kidding. Welcome to the new guy. Both new Guys.

 

Renting is better then buying IMHO, having tried the other way first. Live and learn.