Buying land

[stevewool]

Just wanting to ask if buying some land for say 1 million peso what are the chargers on top of this like , documentary stamp tax 1.5% then transfer tax .75% and registration fee and finally notarail fee.

[Mike J]

There is a 6% capital gains tax which the seller is supposed to pay but is often passed on to the buyer.   Land is often priced as "net" by the seller meaning they get the million, any other fees, taxes, etc. are born by the buyer.  Buying land here is fraught with difficulties, gaining title can be a years long task, and fraud is endemic. 

[Lee]

Squatters can be a problem whether they are family or not.

[Gator]

Before doing anything get copies of whatever paperwork the seller has; especially the deed. Make sure the name(s) on the deed exactly match that of the seller. Check with the municipal LGU land office for any taxes or assessments due. Check with the BIR for any taxes due and while there you can get an assessment of taxes that will be due when you finalize the purchase. Check with the LRA to make sure there are no other assessments or liens against the property. 

If the property does not have road frontage you will need to obtain a right of way from any other landowners between the property and the road. Yes, it’s legal to sell land locked property here. Sounds crazy, but it’s true.

Presumably you plan to build a house, so you need to check how accessible are electric and water connections as well as sewer lines and / or a septic system.

As a side note: the BIR may or may not agree with the purchase price of the land. They have their own system of valuing land. The property the wife and I recently purchased was valued significantly higher than what we actually paid for it. We had to “negotiate” with (read that as bribe) a manager at the BIR to get it lowered. Even then it wasn’t lowered to our purchase price, but it did cut the cost of the capital gains tax by quite a bit. 

[stevewool]

Been trying to locate this land by using google maps and going up and down the many roads in the area where they say the land is , well after a lot of time I could not find it , but I found a place that looked similar, so I check google street plan again but changed the date from 8 months ago to 8 years ago and there it is , and it seems they are advertising this land from a picture taken many many years ago , boots on the ground seems the only way to go as they say 

[Lee]

47 minutes ago, stevewool said:

boots on the ground seems the only way to go as they say 

Certainly.

The family was trying to sell a piece of property and at one point had  a buyer from England (supposedly). Buyer said that he wanted to put a gas station on this property as it sits on a national highway. He had looked at Google maps and was certain that the property would well suit his needs.

The property drops off about 5 meters or so almost immediately from the edge of the road and would take tons of fill to bring it to grade. If you looked at a Google picture everything looked fine but what you saw in the background was the trees, etc to the next property which gave the illusion that the property was flat and up to the grade of the road. The future buyer wasn't to be told of any of this of course.

I objected to this sale vehemently and had to weather their scorn by doing this. To them a buck is a buck no matter how you get it. The sale later fell through for unknown reasons.

[stevewool]

Well no reply from the person selling this lot , even got the family over there to try to make contact but to no avail, that’s unless they are telling me porkies and it’s such a great deal and they have brought it themselves , it could be there time to get back at me for saying NO to all there requests, just kidding . 

[Jack Peterson]

3 minutes ago, stevewool said:

it could be there time to get back at me for saying NO to all there requests, just kidding . 

 Are you sure Mate? When it comes to Land, it seems the Gloves come off 

Edited March 31 by Jack Peterson
added a little

[stevewool]

1 hour ago, Jack Peterson said:

 Are you sure Mate? When it comes to Land, it seems the Gloves come off 

Who knows Jack , as long as no cash is leaving my wallet I’m happy either way 

[Snowy79]

On 3/31/2024 at 6:35 PM, stevewool said:

Well no reply from the person selling this lot , even got the family over there to try to make contact but to no avail, that’s unless they are telling me porkies and it’s such a great deal and they have brought it themselves , it could be there time to get back at me for saying NO to all there requests, just kidding . 

When I first arrived in the Philippines I was looking at land on Palawan, setting up a corporation with a very good friend who has lived here almost 40 yrs and has a few very successful businesses. I was warned about an attorney in Puerto Princesa not to use as he had a reputation of buying land from underneath his clients if the land had potential.