Buying Land in the Philippines
One of the biggest dangers in the Philippines – for the foreigner, is to get the idea to buy land with money he can not afford to loose. Foreigners may not own land in the Philippines – he must find someone willing to put the title in their name when they pay for it.
Sometimes it does work out when it is placed in a spouses name – but if the relationship falters, the foreigner has no recourse or claim to that land. This scenario is played out on a daily basis in the Philippines.
One other scam is that the seller never hands over the title when the land has been paid for. What can the foreigner do – complain to the police? There is a good chance that the policeman is the brother-in-law of the seller and so is the recorder of the deeds at the land office.
Another scam is that the land is sold to several different parties at the same time. Everyone is out of luck!
Land in the provinces often does not have clear title and you will never be able to get 125 relatives to sign off on the deal.
What if you buy some land in the sticks and even have clear title. The squatters don’t want to move. What can the foreigner do? Evict them? They won’t move out anyway and you have a battle that will last you the rest of your life – possibly shortened with a little help from your friends.
What do you do if you buy in a very remote location and have no friends or relatives in the area? Need I ask?
The “business” that has been planned will not work anyway – better to throw away the money on a really big party!
The advantages of renting in the Philippines
It is in the owners interest to keep his tenant alive and healthy. He wants the tenant to stay there as long as possible.
He will make sure that no one poisons the well.
He will help keep an eye on things so they don’t go missing. (At least he will make sure that no one else gets them!)
…good luck : )
caveat emptor
Climbing Mount Apo
General Santos
Growing Orchids
Judy's Resto Bar
Logging with Motorcycles
Mount Mayon
Balabac Island
Biri Island
Calbiga Cave
Capul Island
Mangrove Swamp Palawan
Mikes's Resort
Wood Boat to Manila Philippines
Well dp u wrapped that one up good and proper, never a truer word spoken and anyone saying any different about this situation has a vacant lot ( between there ears). I like many tried to “buy” land here. Complete waste of good money. Dont even atempt it unless u are 200% sure that your partner is for life or u are 150 years old and realy dont care to sell the land in the future ahahah. U would be better off trying to buy 5000sqmtrs on the moon. Believe me. Great stuff mate . Keep up the good work. Internet cafe is now open ahahaha. BW Dave
I second Dave’s and DP advice on buying land over in the Philippines…
Hi DP
Well written. It never ceases to amaze me. The number of foreigners who meet the “girl of their dreams”, move to P.I, leave their brains at home and sink their life savings into property that can ONLY be owned by their “spouse”…. Not to mention the 1001 scams property “vendors” engage in.
Dave’s comment about buying 5000m2 on the moon and being better off is no idle observation.
I know a guy here in NZ living with a Philippine wife who sent a large sum of cash to to the wife’s family to buy “family” land in the sticks of southern Cebu. He then started forwarding cash to the family to pay for the construction of a house. As time went by and the cash flowed out (around $85,000) he began to wonder why there seemed to be no progress. Finally he went to see for himself…. a couple of rows of hollow blocks sheltering innumerable squatters and not a family member in sight.
Even more amazing, previously when he married this girl of his dreams he had sent money for the parents to fly over here for the wedding. The father promptly took the money to his local watering hole and drank the lot… Would that not ring any alarm bells?
I know Bruce can recite endless stories of a similar nature, many of them simply heartrending. But all of them have a common theme – pretty smile and a great body; brains go out the window.
Cheers
Lindsay
PS Bought the air tickets last week. Can’t wait for May. I’ll be on that XT and chasing you down for a few cold SMs.
Cheers
Lindsay