Once upon a time, a prime property was leased out. The lease went smoothly for years, until the move-out inspection. The lessor found marks on the wood flooring. His contractor said that to fix them, the floors of the whole property would have to be sanded and refinished. The bill came to several hundred thousand pesos, and the lessor charged it against the security deposit. The tenant thought this was absurd. He went back to look at the marks and saw small round dents, proba

Once upon a time, the owner of a newly turned-over office unit noticed a chipped tile in the hallway, right in front of his door. It was an eyesore, and someone could trip on it. He reported it to the building admin. They agreed it was broken and said they would fix it. Months passed. Nothing happened. So the owner made an offer. He would replace the tile himself, at his own expense, using a matching tile. The admin turned him down and said they would handle it. More months p

Once upon a time, a buyer purchased a pre-selling condo and paid every installment on schedule. Then the pandemic hit, and turnover was delayed. When the unit was finally ready, the developer sent a surprise. The zonal value had gone up in the meantime, so the developer said the taxes on the sale had gone up too. The buyer was asked to pay the difference. Is that right? For the developer's own taxes on the sale, generally not. When a developer sells real property, its taxes a

In November 1998, Manny Pangilinan's First Pacific paid about US$749 million for a 17.5% controlling stake in PLDT. This was not an amateur buyer. MVP started as an investment banker. By 1998 he had spent 17 years building First Pacific in Hong Kong. He had the backing of Indonesia's Salim family and the resources to hire top advisers. If anyone could do proper due diligence, it was this team. And yet. Once they were inside, they found that Piltel, PLDT's mobile subsidiary, o

A leak in a kitchen cupboard. The engineer traced it… and went quiet. It was coming from somewhere no one expected...

Once upon a time, a seller was in the final stages of selling their house. Everything went smoothly until they requested a certified copy of the tax declaration. When agents of the seller tried to procure a certified tax declaration, the city assessor said they would send an appraiser to check on the improvements of the house. And so, the appraiser dropped by and started measuring. He discovered that the improvement stated in the original tax declaration was understated by ro

Once upon a time, a buyer decided to transfer his own condo title. No agent, no lawyer. He figured he'd save on professional fees. How hard could it be? Here's how the deal got there. The condo was P5 Mn. He wanted the unit, but his money was still tied up in the sale of another property. So he paid P2 Mn as a downpayment and had the seller sign a Contract to Sell. The balance was due within six months. Five months later, his other sale closed. He paid the remaining P3 Mn, th

Once upon a time, a Broker was having lunch with his family on a weekday. It was his mother’s birthday. In the middle of lunch, he casually glanced at his phone and noticed several missed calls from unknown numbers. Then he saw another missed call from the owner of a property he was handling. That got his attention. The owner was the type of client who almost never called, so the Broker stepped away from the table and called him back first. The client answered and said the bu

Once upon a time, a seller approached a Broker to sell his condo unit. Before accepting the listing, the Broker did some basic due diligence. The project had been turned over around 10 years earlier, but the developer was known in the market for significant delays in the issuance of condominium titles. So the Broker asked the obvious question: “Does the unit already have a title?” The seller said no. According to him, the title was still being processed by the developer. He h

In this week’s episode of what can go wrong in real estate... A deal was practically ready to close. The seller was a financial institution, the documents appeared to be in order, and the next step was routine: secure a Certified True Copy (CTC) of the title from the Registry of Deeds. Except there was one problem. The Registry of Deeds couldn’t find the title. Yep. The copy that was supposed to be on file was missing. Suddenly, what looked like a straightforward transaction