How would you safeguard your property in the event of a split with your other half.

[fillipino_wannabe]

I don't think you can realistically, if your wife is willing to steal 5-10 mil pesos from you then it's just as likely she'll make you disappear lol.
I wouldn't be buying a condo here as an investment, get something in the UK. Yields on condos are about 5% and they deteriorate, rent a flat out in the UK and you can get 10%, obviously safer owning a flat in the UK aswell.

[fillipino_wannabe]

double post.

Edited March 22, 2019 by fillipino_wannabe

[sonjack2847]

3 hours ago, fillipino_wannabe said:

Yields on condos are about 5% and they deteriorate,

I get 4.43% on average on bank time deposits which are covered by the PDIC up to 500k. There is no limit to the number of different banks you can use here. The only money you can lose is the interest if it goes pear shaped.

Edited March 22, 2019 by sonjack2847
wrong figure

[Snowy79]

After living here for a couple of years and talked to enough foreigners my opinions on protecting an investment has changed.

I struck lucky buying a titled condo on Boracay which has doubled in value thanks to the President. For me buying the condo was a no brainer. I've a solid investment that's protected and rented out will pay for itself in under 5yrs.

Renting is the second option as you have the flexibility to up sticks and move plus if in a relationship and it goes pear shaped there's nothing to fight over. 

Building is the next option closely followed by buying.  This brings the pit falls of the Philippines legal system and family pressures.  You could lose everything and even if you dig your heals in and move into the spare bedroom,  if it goes pear shaped you've got the pressure of being arround someone you don't get on with for the rest of your life. 

I'd hazard a guess that from my circle of about 20 friends.  Two have lost everything, 6 are living with someone they no longer like but won't leave as they'll lose everything, four are living as friends rather than husband and wife as the love has gone but they do their own thing without the grief and the remainder are living as loving couples. Not a great advert for buying if you ask me. I've not included those that want to sell and move but can't as houses take years to sell here.   

[manofthecoldland]

   Whether your initial bonfire of love eventually turns to warm, enduring embers or cold, problem-some ashes.... practical economic realities always have to be faced. 

   A retired friend wants to live here.  The older Pinay wife with whom he raised a family in his home country doesn't want to. Early in their marriage she had insisted on building a huge house (funded mostly by him) here for her parents.... whole family moved in.  He comes here in retirement and claims the upper floor which has its own CR. Closes off access to his chambers. Living separate lives now, the old wife takes on 'companions' in his home country. He divorces her. She kicks him out of 'her' house. He rents nearby. The last aged parent dies now and she is left supporting the extended family that now lives in 'her' house without him there to pay the utilities. She begs him to return to his upper story chambers and in return, foot the utilities. By now the heat of the divorce has ebbed, so he does. Making the best of his options. Now he is back to having the relatives run his errands, etc. and living rent-free again. Not too bad of an ending to the story in terms of economics, considering the tales of many other failed marriages to Pinay. Strange endings here  seem to be the rule when viewed from the normal types we witness in our own western societies where marital assets are fungible and legally divisible.

  

[Tukaram (Tim)]

I have a pretty safe view (if a bit negative).  Don't buy anything you are not prepared to walk away from.  

We built a small house on my wife's uncle's land (a 1 room house).  It actually does not belong to either of us ha ha.  But we have lived in it for about 4 years and as far as I am concerned it has paid itself off in rent savings.  I would not be happy to walk away from it, but would not lose any sleep over it either. 

At this stage of my life I really don't want to get into any business, or investments (and if I did - I would invest in the US).  I am happily retired. 

[Dave Hounddriver]

I only know a few facts on this one but it intrigues me.  A foreigner owned a resort on the beach near me by putting it under a corporation.  He was married to a Filipina but did not want to take the chance that the relationship would go tits up and he would lose his resort.

I just found out that he died of unknown causes last year and his widow wife know owns the corporation that owns the resort.  Details are hard to obtain.  But when people try to keep things secret in such circumstances I tend to think there is a reason for the secrecy.  

[RBM]

On 2/24/2019 at 9:06 AM, manofthecoldland said:

. Many ex-pats are living with the Sword of Damocles dangling over their heads supported more by faith and hope in the continued love and loyalty of their spouse and her vested kin than in other countries.  Nothing wrong with that, but your options that come with ownership are quite different here in the event of the need to reclaim your investment.  

I do very much enjoy reading your well thought out posts manofthe coldland, even without paragraphs.

However the above comments are not peculiar to this country. In all countries relationships do run out of steam, we all are aware of countless couples hanging in because of the financial implications or children involved.

Of course without having some form of protection, even in a primitive form foreigners here run a risk of loosing all, devastating sure, equally we are aware of situations in the west where the father moves out, further he is stuck with huge a huge financial burden, enforceable unlike here.

I also rented for some years before building, now some 4 years on no regrets in spite the ups and downs, after all not that many countries where a fat old guy can have so many young ladies tempting him.....

What use is it having surplus funds sitting if one has no plans to bequeath to his children of a western marriage, why not utilise to ensure comforts while one is able.

CAVEAT EMPTOR