Best Posts in Thread: Local land prices, are they crazy?

THE latest ruling of the Supreme Court on the Feb. 29, 2016 It happened in Bohol when an Italian, Gino, entered into a romantic relationship with a local lass, Rebecca.

Gino then constructed a house on the land owned by Rebecca. They entered mutually and voluntarily into a contract of lease wherein Gino was to lease the land of Rebecca for period of 50 years and renewable automatically for another 50 years, for the price of P10,000. Gino had the right, through a special power of attorney and a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), to transfer ownership of the land to anyone he chooses and Rebecca cannot sell or transfer the land during the term of the lease.

After 17 long years, their romantic relationship soured and Gino filed an action for ejectment against Rebecca after she became pregnant and sired a child of another man. Gino lost in the municipal court but won on appeal at the regional trial court which judgment was affirmed by the Court of Appeals. Rebecca raised the issue of validity of the lease contract and MOA as being contrary to the Constitution’s prohibition of foreigners owning lands. Gino contends that the lease contract remains valid unless declared void by a court in a case directly assailing its validity.

Clearly, there is no legal issue as to the prohibition of foreigners from acquiring lands in the Philippines.

The Supreme Court, in clarifying this prohibition, ruled: “The prohibition, however, is not limited to the sale of lands to foreigners. It also covers leases of lands amounting to the transfer of all or substantially all the rights of dominion. In the landmark case of Philippine Banking Corporation versus Lui She ((128 Phil. 53, 1967 case), the Court struck down a lease contract of a parcel of land in favor of a foreigner for a period of 99 years with an option to buy the land for 50 years. Where a scheme to circumvent the Constitutional prohibition against the transfer of lands to aliens is readily revealed as the purpose of the contracts, then the illicit purpose becomes the illegal cause of rendering the contracts void. Thus, if an alien is given not only a lease of, but also an option to buy, a piece of land by virtue of which the Filipino owner cannot sell or otherwise dispose of his property, this to last for 50 years, then it becomes clear that the arrangement is a virtual transfer of ownership whereby the owner divests himself in stages not only the right to dispose of it — rights which constitute ownership. If this can be done, then the Constitutional ban against alien landholding in the Philippines, indeed, is in grave peril.” Foreigners, beware!

 

A snippet of info I stumbled on the other day about banks and mortgages.
The banks will under value a house for a mortgage in the ph so if anything goes wrong they can resell,they also will loan 85% of their valuation.
Here come the interesting bit,the title has to be in the prospective buyers name before the bank will release the money to the seller and in the bank.Not sure too many people would be happy with that one,it was a new one on me.