Fake titles, and how to read a real one

The title is the single most forged document in Philippine property, because it is the one buyers trust most. Knowing what a genuine Transfer Certificate of Title or Condominium Certificate of Title looks like is useful; knowing where to check it is what keeps your money. Get your own certified true copy. Go to the Registry of Deeds of the city or province where the property is and request a certified true copy using the title number. Compare it line by line with the seller's copy: owner, technical description, title number, the page and book references, and every annotation on the memorandum of encumbrances. A difference anywhere is the end of the conversation. Know the newer formats. Judicial form titles have been replaced progressively by electronic titles under the Land Registration Authority's computerisation. An old-format title is not automatically fake, but one that should have been converted and was not deserves a question at the Registry. A tax declaration is not a title. Many "cheap lots" are sold on a tax declaration alone, sometimes with a story about the title being "in process". A tax declaration proves that someone pays real property tax on a parcel; it does not prove ownership, and land without a title may be untitled public land that cannot be sold at all. Walk the land with the survey. The technical description on the title describes boundaries; a licensed geodetic engineer can relocate them on the ground. Buyers have paid for a titled lot and received a different, smaller or inaccessible one because nobody checked that the lot on paper was the lot in front of them. Ask who lives there. Occupants with a claim — tenants, informal settlers, relatives of a previous owner — are a problem a title search will not show. Visit on a weekday and on a weekend and talk to the neighbours. If the sale is handled by a practitioner, verify their license at /verify before relying on their assurances about the title. Practitioners with a PRC Verified badge on REACTIVE.PH have had a license document reviewed by our staff; that is the extent of the verification, and the document checks above are still yours to do.