wife wants to buy land in the philippines

[82regal 0]

we are married and live in america and my wife wants to buy land in the philippines but she is worried about the taxes she says it is very expensive the land is in mangaldan pangasinan and we are buying it from her uncle it is over 1000 square meters does anyone have any experiance with land purchases there? thanks

[rlogan 2,036]

we are married and live in america and my wife wants to buy land in the philippines but she is worried about the taxes she says it is very expensive the land is in mangaldan pangasinan and we are buying it from her uncle it is over 1000 square meters does anyone have any experiance with land purchases there? thanks

Been looking for land some time now and have learned an awful lot over the years. We are most likely going to make an agreement with the indigenous people called the Aetes for a variety of reasons, but to your question...

First of all, the taxes. You need to contact whoever the local assessment office is and find out the local rate. Generally you have a huge difference between residential and commercial property. In the current region of our interest for example the assessment on residential land is 20% of market value and commercial assessments are at 50% of market value. The local rate is 3% per annum on the assessment. Some land is not even in a municipality and might be classified as agricultural/forest land and that can be very different too. So you have to first locate the local taxing jurisdiction and this is something best done in person. I have been to a number of municipal offices and it was the same kind of chaos you see on the streets with people driving. There is also what amounts to a capital gains tax on any land sales and I am not going to try spelling the tagalog name for it here. Just inquire with the local assessing office about it.

A more basic issue is guaranteeing title. There is going to be a local land office in the region you are interested in. I only know about the ones I am specifically interested in, but I can check to make sure a deed is bona-fide. If there are encumberances upon the property they are supposed to be on the back of the deed, so a slick way around admitting that is to photocopy the front but not the back side of a deed and the sucker who buys it does not realize that there is a loan against the property he just bought and if it isn't paid then title goes to the lienholder.

You need a damned good reason to be buying land, and not because it is the uncle selling it. We turned down fire-sale prices on land that relatives owned because there was no effective way for us to manage it properly and we were not going to become farmers just because a relative was dumping land. Philippines has a real problem with squatters and they do have what amounts to adverse possession ie "squatter's rights" if people just put a house on the land you have title to. Even government land has been taken over by squatters when you would think eminent domain would prevail, but that isn't what has happened. A former military base was taken over by squatters for example in the Manila area.

Unless you have a well thought-out plan with everything worked out in a business plan format, then you have no business buying land. I see properties less than a kilometer from each other with one guy asking 30 million pesos for 572 sq meters and another fellow asking for under 10 million for a lot twice as big - but I know where I can get 100 hectares for that kind of money so you really need to put the legwork in on knowing real estate values. Don't just rush out there and buy, and don't automatically trust relatives. Some of mine would be the very last people I would ever seek counsel from on a business transaction.

[82regal 0]

thanks riogan but this land is for her mother and sisters to live on we will be careful even if it is her uncle thanks for the reply

[DavenRoxy 1,073]

My wife pays 9,000 php for 210 sq m of raw land per year, and 22,000 php for her house and lot that is over 500 sq m. It's all based on the reported price paid for the land, of course, which is negotiable if dealing with an individual as opposed to a bank.

As a comparison, she paid about 500K php in a subdivision for that 210 sq m lot. This is in a province in Cabiao.

Edited January 11, 2014 by DavenRoxy