She almost lost Php4 Bn

A buyer bought a prime property in the 1990s for a few million pesos. The buyer didn't transfer the title right away, thinking it was okay to delay the title transfer.

Mrs. Mapera bought a distressed, prime property from Mr. Tindero in the 1990s for a few million pesos. The sale was coursed through an unlicensed broker. Mrs. Mapera didn’t transfer the title right away, thinking it was okay to delay the title transfer. In the same year, Mrs. Mapera went to the US to treat an ailment and remained there for the next 3 decades.

In 2015, Mrs. Mapera planned to sell the lot, which is by then worth Php4 Bn. So to prepare for the sale, she planned to finally transfer the title to her name. She asked a relative in the PH to get a certified true copy of the CCT, which was still under Mr. Tindero's name.

When the cousin secured a certified true copy (CTC) of the title, they were surprised to find several annotations on it. One annotation stated that the title (which was in possession of Mrs. Mapera) was lost. The second annotation stated that a new title was printed and given to the Attorney-in-Fact of the original owner–which turned out to be the broker that closed the sale.

Mrs. Mapera also found that certain brokers were marketing the lot. So it seemed the broker who closed the deal was trying to sell her property.

A painful and expensive court case transpired. Thankfully, the court nullified the (new) title issued to the broker. Mrs. Mapera risked losing Php4 Bn simply because she delayed the transfer of the title to her name upon sale.

JPRE: Let's try and complicate the situation further. What if the broker was smart enough to stage a fake sale immediately after receiving the re-issued title?

The broker could have gotten an accomplice (who was willing to pay for the taxes) to be the new owner of the property. Once taxes have been paid and the title transferred, the accomplice would be holding on to a CLEAN title and they will be able to sell the property EASILY.

Let's assume these fraudulent folks were able to sell the property to a big developer. Mrs. Mapera would be then facing a BIGGER problem. She will be dealing with the expensive legal team of the developer who will fight tooth and nail over ownership–and why shouldn't they, they're buyers in good faith.

Key take-aways:

The first two (obvious) lessons are, transfer the title immediately upon signing a deed of absolute sale and always deal with a licensed broker. You may verify licenses in the PRC website. You just have to know the broker's complete name.

For buyers: do what banks do: get a "trace-back" of the title presented by a seller. A "trace-back" is simply getting the CTCs of the two previous titles of a seller. The annotations on these titles will show the whole story of the property and its current and prior owners. In the hypothetical case of the Developer, they would have been able to flag the re-issuance of the title. The cost of getting a "trace-back" is equivalent to getting a CTC, so I don't see why we should skip doing this.

The last lesson is (or maybe I'm being too paranoid): for untenanted land, get a CTC of your title once every so often. Chances are you wouldn't find any new annotations on it–but what if you did? To make it easier to get CTCs, have your old title (red border) converted into an e-title (blue border). Doing so will allow you to procure CTCs from the nearest Registry of Deeds (RD).