After Kimmi's Xmas gift - we got one too !

[ginapeterb]

Eureka ! finally after nearly a year we got a reply from the Halls of Justice


Well as Kimmi had some great news, we kind of thought we did, after 1 year of legal sculduggery, the Halls of Justice in our locality in the Philippines, have finally rubber stamped our house and lot title, I saw the title over internet web cam yesterday.

We now hold full and legal title to our house and lot, praise the Lord, it came through just before the Xmas, with all the fees, taxes and legal paperwork, something that should take about a month, has taken 12 months.

But I should add the wording is quite reassuring it says xxxxxxxx a Filipino Citizen married to xxxxxx a British Citizen, holding full title to xxxxxx lot and a dwelling known as xxxxxxx.


Allelujah !

[kimmi]

Congatz Kuya Peter and Miss Gina...

I am really really happy for both of u...God is really good..

Cheers Kuya, time to party...yehey...

[KeithD]

Great....will you be building a house for me as well?

[LEAHnew]

Wow Merry..merry Christmas...Congratulation Kuya Peter and Ate Gina

[andypaul]

Go pete the Phil uk propety developer congrats to the two of you.

[aromulus]

I am really pleased for you both.

Now that I realize that it can be done, albeit with a certain amount of difficulties, Jet and myself will be looking a little more vigorously for a place we can call our own.
Good luck.

[joebloggs]

good news pete

yes a house of straw for you scouser keith , i've been in a resturant on palawan which looked like it was just made of palm leafs

[walesrob]

Excellent news mate, must be a relief after all that hassle.

[joyce]

Congratulations Peter and Gina....

[eula mackay]

Brilliant news! Really pleased for you and Gina!

[mhynne]

thats really great news.. congratulations pete!!!

[love8888]

Congrat's Pete and Gina and sorry to hear it takes for year! everything in Philippines takes a long time grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....

[ginapeterb]

Thanks everyone for your very kind wishes, sometimes I wonder where the application to secure title for house and lot had gone, of course over my years of dealing with the Philippines, I am used to hearing that it all takes time.

Actually its not much different to the authorities here who seem to take forever in getting official documents back to you, take passports and indefinite leave to remain visa's they are just as bad, so we cannot have a go at the Philippines too much.

Fortunately as it would happen, we are not in the Philippines in desperation of having our title, its nice to have the official title, as you feel much better, its like the old British Railways before they were privatized.

"You know its coming but you don't know when it will arrive"

When you question educated people in the Philippines about why such a delay to get anything, they simply grin and shrug their shoulders, its almost as though they are saying this

"Hey look ! we know what happens, we have lived with it all our lives, it just happened to you once... welcome to the Philippines"

And of course they would be right.

When I look back at the whole process of building a house from start to finish, I have learned many invaluable lessons, from the time when we purchased the lot, and it was a rubbish dump for other peoples garbage, or when we purchased the 2nd lot, and found someone was growing sugar cane on it.

Or when we had purchased the lot and cleared it and made it flat, only to arrive back in the Philippines six months later to find someone had started growing vegetables on it.

These are some of the things that you have to cope with when dealing with the Philippines real estate industry.

Things that we all take for granted, don't quite work the way you would think, taking into account that Filipino's are incredibly smart and will turn their hand to anything when an opportunity presents itself.

As a foreigner one must remember that you spend most of your working year abroad, and of course when the foreigner is abroad, he is not there to watch his interests.

We also learned that having a trusted friend or member of the family is so important when dealing with Philippines, there are so many errands that must be ran, bills that must be paid by hand, I learned the hard way, and could in fact write a book on what I have learned, maybe I will do what Perry Gamsby did, and write my own e book one day.

My favorite tale is about the telephone service, when we first purchased our lot and then the 2nd lot, we found out, there was no telephone service into the sub division that we had secured our land in.

That disappointed us, as we wondered how we were ever going to have a broadband line for calls and internet.

Not to worry we were promised that at some stage in the future Globe would be installing the telegraph poles from the bottom of the road, up into the sub division, but at present, they did not have any subscribers to cover, and there was not enough interest in it.

I decided to go along with Miss Gina to the local Globe office in our locality, a very nice representative sat us down and offered free capuccino and generally treated us very nicely (was it because I was a foreigner I wonder)

He explained that at the present time, there was not enough interest in the sub division to do the necessary work to bring a telephone service to the area, but if I was interested they could install the service for a payment of Php 15000.00 this would he said pay for the additional telegraph poles and line work that was required.

Desperate to secure a broadband service for our new house, and feeling naked as one does without the use of internet, I said to Gina "Well we might as well get it paid and have the service connected, at least then we can browse the net and you can call your friends and family"

So over the next couple of weeks our telephone service was connected, the work was done - what a miracle.

A couple of weeks later, one of our relatives overhead some people having a conversation in the sub division, (a little chikka) going on at the side of the road, she overheard that the talk of the town at present was that telephone service was available in the sub division, and that lots of people were having new lines installed.

Naturally to provide service to my house, they had to install a junction box, this junction box was quite capable of course of supplying lots of other lines to neighboring houses, I accept that they would have done that.

What did not go down too well for me, although looking back it kind of does not surprise me, is that our relative overheard some laughter in a conversation that kind of went like this (In Tagalog/Illongo, translated into English)

"Hey Manong did you hear about Globe having a phone service into the sub division, yes boy you can have your telephone installed, they have on a special deal its P995.00 per month for broadband internet and telephone"

"No I would not do it, because they don't have the lines to the houses as yet, and its so mahal these days."

"No day, its all done, they got some foreigner to pay for it, funny di ba?"


This is the true record of a conversation that was listened in on, shortly after we had the telegraph poles installed.

I am not worried about the conversation, but it does give some insight as to how people think, admittedly the cost of having the service sent to their homes was prohibitive, I mean who is going to pay P15,000 to do that ? of course not, they cannot pay, that is clear, and even if they could pay, would they, its likely that they would not.

Actually looking back, I find it funny, because there is me, who thought he was just having telegraph poles installed for my house, and then they are used for everyone else's as well.

That is the Filipino at work I am afraid, I will give them 10 out of 10 for innovativeness.

[IainBusby]

Eureka ! finally after nearly a year we got a reply from the Halls of Justice


something that should take about a month, has taken 12 months.



Allelujah !

In my experience, everthing seems to move even more slowly when they think there's a Brit involved. I think they leave things as long as possible hoping that someone will offer a bung to get it done.
Iain.

[mavid]

Congrats Pete & Gina!

[IanB]

Congratulations, but . . . . "its like the old British Railways before they were privatized. "You know its coming but you don't know when it will arrive"". Cheap comment! Reliability is currently worse than it was under BR. And, yes, I used to work for BR!

I look forward to hearing of the construction of the first Filipino UK condominium!

Ian

[winner]

well done me and my wife not have to wait to long before she come uk we buy two lots and we start next year with house and other things again best of luck warren

[ginapeterb]

Congratulations, but . . . . "its like the old British Railways before they were privatized. "You know its coming but you don't know when it will arrive"". Cheap comment! Reliability is currently worse than it was under BR. And, yes, I used to work for BR!

I look forward to hearing of the construction of the first Filipino UK condominium!

Ian

Ian my intention was not offend, I didnt think that anyone went that far back on this forum, yes you are right reliability is worse thats why I love TGV in France, a proper railway system.