Caveat emptor or “let the buyer beware” is an apt warning for buyers in land acquisition transactions because of the various issues and problems besetting the Philippine real estate sector such as the absence of a central property registry, double titling, proliferation of fictitious titles and fraudulently issued reconstituted titles for sale, double sale of the same land, unrecorded legal easements, unrecorded legal setbacks and land use restrictions, unrecorded legal disputes on possession and ownership of land, encroachments, and undisclosed geohazards, among others.
Moreover, a complex system of laws, rules and regulations govern land ownership, land transactions, and land use in the country. Compounding such legal complexity is the current sad state of affairs where there is no centralized government office that would instantly provide the needed data and records on registered and unregistered land, land transactions and registered owners, and one is instead constrained to personally search and visit various offices of separate government agencies and local government units in custody of the pertinent data and records located in disparate sites in the country, to simply verify and secure the relevant data and records.
Hence, an integrated legal and technical due diligence investigation of a target real estate for acquisition, investment or lease is necessary to avoid disastrous outcomes or costly mistakes and ensure that the decision-maker can sleep well at night during and after the transaction.

RealtyPro’s real estate due diligence or title search services may either be limited or comprehensive, or even customized, depending on the client’s needs.

A comprehensive title search or due diligence usually includes the verification of the following matters: (i) the legal classification and actual use of the land; (ii) the actual possessors of the land; (iii) any improvements on the land; (iv) tax liabilities on the land and improvements; (v) the exact location, boundaries and area of the land and any encroachments thereon or diminution thereof by man-made or natural disruptions; (vi) overlap with other titled lands; (vii) title traceback up to the first issued original certificate of title covering the land and corresponding decree or patent; (viii) survey plan traceback up to the first approved original survey plan of the land; (ix) any claim of ownership, possession and other real rights over the land, including pending claims, complaints, cases or proceedings involving the land; (x) legal easements, setbacks and restrictions on the use of the land; (xi) authorized uses of the land, per zoning classification and other government and private regulations; (xii) geohazards affecting the land; (xiii) direct access to a public road; (xiv) coverage under agrarian reform program and irrigated land verification, if agricultural land; (xv) overlap with ancestral domain or mining tenement; (xvi) proposed or commenced expropriation or public auction of the land, or government projects directly affecting the land; (xvii) traceback of tax declaration up to the first issued predecessor tax declaration, if untitled agricultural land; and (xviii) verification if already covered by a title or pending titling application, if untitled land classified as alienable and disposable, among others.
A standard limited title search usually comprises items (i) to (vii) above.