Philippine property attorney

[rlogan 2,036]

Hey folks, we're probably going to save another three years or so for more property in the Philippines. We built a house already on land her family had but we've been looking pretty far and wide over the Philippines for more property and our main concern is this:

If you have looked into property ownership in the Philippines, there is very little of what we call fee simple title land. We are not interested in land in a city, that's the last place on earth we'd live so that puts us out where a lot of the land is in this forest or agricultural status. There's land with so-called "rights". lol. The right to pay taxes on it, anyway. We are definitely going to buy land that produces crops. Even fish farms - I visited a bunch of them last time we were there, in Sasmuan, the fish farming capital of the Philippines. Any transaction we get involved with is going to have a property attorney on our side looking at everything and to be our counsel.

There's just too many incompetent or even crooked people of just about every profession in the Philippines. We don't know a trustworthy property attorney. We would call them real estate attorneys here. If anyone has a recommendation, we'd take a look at him. We just now passed our minimum savings amount to go for it. We are in no hurry - we can sock away more money. But if the right property came along - a plantation at Craigslist prices - we'd like to be able to move on it with professional counsel at the ready.

[Hank_ 9,174]

The "right" attorney will vary with each city, barangay and/or province. Find the land, then find the attorney for that area that's known for getting it done.

Biggest thing with buying land in the Phils is getting ALL that may have an interest in the land to sign on the Extrajudicial releasing any and all rights/claims to the property. Which means knowing all about the family of the person selling it. Problem claims coming up later are because the seller "hid" the sale from a relative with a (possible) claim to ownership rights (even if just a small percentage)... greed don't ya know.