Q. Hi Atty. Rogie . I want to ask you about the property of my Aunt and Uncle. They are both single. The property is under their names . May nakatira po doon sa lupa na tinitirhan din nila.
They been there for 30 years na. Hindi ko po matawag na tenant kasi ay hindi naman nagbabayad sa upa sa lupa. They are getting their water from my Aunt and Uncle’s water motor pump at nagbibigay lang ng P300.00 pesos which is not enough because there are five of them in the household.
Ano po ba ang maganda at batas ngayon doon para mapa-alis ang nakatira sa nasabing property.
We need to sell the property kasi in the future , as my uncles and auntie are getting older, they need money especially if they will get sick. Ano po ang right namin na mga pamangkin nila in order na matulungan sila. My Aunt and Uncle need money now to spend until buhay pa sila and for the future living expenses. Hoping to hear from you and God bless you. Thank you and more power.
Ans. Hi there, what your uncle and auntie should do is to evict the people who are occupying their property at the earliest opportunity, more so as you said, they are not considered as paying tenants, as no rent is being paid by them to your relatives as property owners .
Despite of the fact that they have been living in the property for the past 30 years, they could still be evicted from the property. Even if there is no agreement as to the payment of rentals, the owner of the property (your uncle and aunt) have the very right to demand reasonable compensation from the occupants for the use of their property.
The occupants don’t have any right to indefinitely stay in the property of your relatives.
Thus, the first step that your uncle should do, is to initiate a complaint for eviction in their barangay. After the barangay proceeding and if the occupants refused to vacate the premises, then your uncle should now engage services of a lawyer to initiate legal proceedings in the Metropolitan/Municipal Trial court for their eviction.
Aside from a reasonable compensation in the used of your uncle’s property, the occupants could also be held liable for damages and attorney’s fees, more so if it can be established that the occupants are in bad faith and/or refused to vacate the premises after a demand to vacate was made upon them .
However, if the occupants are the owners of the building or housing structure that was built in the land and they have been there for at least ten(10) years and there is a written lease contract over the land to which they built their structure, then under the Urban Land Reform law, they have the pre-emptive right to buy the land. Please note that this right is only applicable, if: a) there is a written contract between the parties, b) the occupants are the owners of the structure or building erected in the premises ; and c) the occupants were in possession in the said property for at least 10 years.
But I think, this is not applicable to your case as you said the occupants are just being tolerated to stay in the premises and there is no contract between them and the land owners or uncle and auntie. Thank you for writing and good luck.
Hello, atty., once again I am seeking your advice re: parents’ property. I went home recently and found out that one of the properties of our parents has no cadastral number .
Our problem is the barrio where the property is located but we can’t definitely locate the exact or the proximate spot of this property . Sad to say that we are paying the annual property tax for it but the staff from DENR asked us if we know where in the barrio it is located.
The DENR suggested to talk to the people whose names were listed in the tax declaration (owner of the land within the parameters of the property). I tried to ask the staffs from the assessor’s office to find it based on the previous files out of the tax declaration in their records. However, they can’t find any, because the file for the cadastral lots were lost when it was borrowed by the provincial office.
Atty. Wong where can we look for the cadastral number aside from the municipio ? Sometimes I got this feeling that staffs from the offices where we went to know but then do not tell us so we will seek their help with of course monetary involvement at their price. Once again thank you and God bless. “W”.
Ans: Hi there, I assume that the DENR office that you referred to is the Land Management Services (formerly Bureau of Lands/Land Management Bureau), this office is tasked by law as the repository of Cadastral surveys/records of public alienable lands in the Philippines .
Without question , it is certain that the Land Management Services of the DENR has a record of the Cadastral lot number that you are searching . It is my view that the constraint in your case is the identification of the property in question. More particularly, the proximate location of the property and/or a reference point to start the search.
If you went to the Regional office of the Land Management Services of the DENR, perhaps you can try making the same representations with their Head/Central office in Metro Manila. To make the search job doable, you must at least know the approximate place in the barrio or barangay where the property is located. Without this basic information, a viable search cannot be undertaken.
If you have a copy of the Tax Declaration Certificate of this missing property and if someone knows the exact or proximate spot or boundary of this property, then this could be your lead in the determination of the Cadastral Number of the property for land titling registration purposes.
If you will be able to identify the proximate location of this particular property, then you can ask a licensed land surveyor or Geodetic Engineer to conduct the actual survey and prepare the necessary lot plan. This process could lead the determination of the Cadastral lot number of the property, as the lot plan will be subject to the approval of the Land Management Services of the DENR .
Another approach that you could try, is to take as reference point the neighboring, adjacent, contiguous or connecting properties of the land in question , and from there , the Cadastral number of these lot can be determined already by the land surveyor .
Another approach is if you have a copy of the Tax Declaration Certificate of this missing property, is to try the Office of the Register of Deeds having jurisdiction of the property where it is located and/or you could try the search with the Land Registration Authority(LRA). As a rule LRA deals only with registered lands under the Torrens System. But you could try.
You could also try with the Regional Trial Court(RTC) formerly referred as the Court of First Instance(CFI), in the province where the subject land may be situated, who may still have a copy of the Court order giving due course to the Cadastre proceedings allowing the disposition of alienable public lands for private ownership.
However, if you just go the offices that I mentioned above without any “lead or reference document “ with you, their ability to be assistance to you is very limited if not nil .
Looking forward you’ll the above in order. Thank you for writing.