The Makati City Assessor has begun public consultations for the Schedule of Market Values (SMV) that will take effect in 2028 — and the increases are eye-opening. Example: Dasmariñas Village Lot values jumped from Php 13.5k/sqm (1997) to Php 220K/sqm. Surprisingly, this is still lower than BIR’s zonal value of Php 300K/sqm (issued in 2021) — which already tells us something important: RPVAR values are not automatically higher. They’re meant to be more accurate. So what’s real

When a property owner dies and leaves real estate to their heirs, most people — even brokers and lawyers — assume one thing: 👉 The new title must list every single heir by name. Sounds logical, right? I used to think so too. Until recently, when I came across a title that proved me wrong. The registered owner section listed multiple individual names… and then, in one line, simply stated: “Heirs of [Decedent’s Name]” No names. No breakdown. Just that. To be more specific, the

This is a MUST READ. This development is a continuation of Maceda Law. Good news for pre-selling buyers, bad news for developers. Last July 2025, the Supreme Court ruled on a case (G.R. No. 261877) involving a pre-selling condominium project that was not completed on time and not delivered as promised. Here’s the big takeaway (based on my reading of the case): If a developer fails to complete a project: According to the approved plans, OR Within the prescribed period the buye

Following yesterday’s post, “Check Writing Madness,” I’m sharing an old but trusted Excel formula I use to automatically convert numbers into words. Just update the cell reference A1 to match where your number is entered. This provides a way to automatically convert amounts into words accurately—especially useful for contracts and check writing, where numbers must be spelled out. Facebook readers, you can screenshot the formula and use text selection from your photos to paste

Ugh. This is starting to get irritating. What’s the proper way to write Php 154,238.85 in words? If your answer is: One hundred fifty-four thousand two hundred and thirty-eight & 85/100… Congratulations—your check may be rejected by the bank. This just happened to us. According to the bank teller (and, admittedly, I agree), the correct way is NOT to put “and” between “two hundred” and “thirty-eight.” The “and” should be reserved only for the centavos portion. But seriously—th

Let’s play a quick zoning-and-tax-base puzzle. In the photo is the iconic house from the animated movie “Up.” For those unfamiliar with the movie, Carl’s (main character) house in Up is a small, colorful wooden home that looks like it came straight out of a storybook. Over time, towering gray buildings rise around it as developers buy out the entire neighborhood. But Carl refuses to sell. His little house becomes the last remaining holdout, a lone splash of color in a sea of

Congress may have passed a bill to revive and extend the Estate Tax Amnesty until 2028—but don’t expect a full surge in estate settlements just yet. Two years ago, we invited Atty. Jojo Mejia to speak on Estate Settlement Taxation and Planning in the Light of TRAIN Law. His talk focused less on theory and more on the uncomfortable truth: the real bottleneck isn’t the tax. It’s the people. In practice, estates remain unsettled not because heirs refuse to pay, but because famil

Have you ever noticed how almost every Tax Identification Number (TIN) ends with “000”? It’s not a random set of zeros—it’s what the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) calls the branch code. A TIN has twelve digits. The first nine identify the taxpayer, while the last three digits tell the BIR which branch filed the tax return. For instance, if ABC Food Corp. operates three branches, the head office might be 123-456-789-000, while its other branches would be 123-456-789-001 and

Here’s a new development. We’ve always made manager’s checks payable to “Registry of Deeds of [City]” when settling registration fees. Apparently, not anymore. In a recent Makati title transfer, we discovered that the correct payee is now “Bureau of the Treasury.” I checked with our Documentation Services team if this applies to all cities — and the answer is no. So before asking clients to prepare manager’s checks for registration and IT fees, wait for the official computati

A notary public is an officer of the court empowered to verify that a document was signed voluntarily and by the person whose name appears on it. Once a document bears a notarial seal, it gains a presumption of authenticity. By law, notarization is an act of acknowledgment that the person appeared before the notary, presented valid identification, and signed the document in the notary’s presence–just like how PH documents are consularized abroad. In practice, however, notariz