A DECADE OF REGRET

Once upon a time, a foreign investor was lured by glossy brochures and charming smiles. A team of sales agents—dispatched overseas by a Philippine property developer—pitched him the perfect investment: a pre-selling condo unit in a booming city, poised to appreciate in value. Flip it in a few years, they said. Easy money, they promised.

He signed. He paid. Sold.

Years passed. When the building was finally completed, he flew in for turnover—excited to see his new asset. But something felt off. The layout didn’t match the brochures. The orientation was wrong. Even the view was different. It wasn’t the unit he bought.

When he raised the issue, the developer gave a vague excuse about internal reallocations, construction changes, something about floor plans being "subject to revision." It didn’t make sense, but being unfamiliar with local processes—and living halfway across the world—he reluctantly accepted it and flew home, disappointed but hopeful.

That was nearly five years ago.

Since then, the unit remained vacant. No buyers. No renters. It sat lifeless, draining money year after year. He’d all but written it off—until one day, a letter arrived at his foreign address.

It was from the Philippine city government.

The tone was cold, final. He was being warned: Pay your real property taxes within 15 days… or the government would seize the unit and auction it off to the highest bidder.

Panic set in. He rushed to pay, but the LGU’s online system wouldn’t accept his foreign credit card. No PayPal. No workaround. No grace period. He was thousands of miles away with no way to settle the dues—and the clock was ticking.

The dream of a lucrative flip had become a slow-burning nightmare.

(What happens if he can’t pay? What does a tax foreclosure actually look like? That’s a story for another post.)