A lot of foreigners are attracted in buying beach front properties in the Philippines. For a price as low as Php 2,500 (US$ 50.00) per square meter, these properties are just so tempting to resist. Most especially if the property is located near a popular tourist destinations like Boracay island (Aklan), El Nido (Palawan) or Panglao (Bohol).

There will be locals who will be offering beachfront properties and present a bunch of documents to prove their ownership or authority to sell (if they are not the registered owners). Caution should be exercised as there are several fraudulent transactions that were uncovered and have succeeded to dupe foreigners of their hard-earned money.

The wise thing to do is to check all documents that are presented as ownership of the property. These are usually the land title of the property, its tax declaration (if there is a house or building already existing in the property, a separate tax declaration is usually issued for it), tax clearance (showing that all real property taxes due the property are paid) and evidence of identity of the seller (like a government-issued identification card). Take note that even if the person offering the property for sale can produce all of these documents, it does not mean that these documents can be trusted. The buyer has to verify the same by asking for a certified true copy from the government agency or office which has custody of the original document. For example, the Register of Deeds of a particular province has custody of all torrens title of lands located therein.

Even with the verification of any documents presented by the person offering to sell the property, the legality of the sale transaction, the transfer and registration of the property in the the name of the buyer should be ensured. This is because most of the properties sold are usually inherited or co-owned. The person offering the property for sale could be just a co-owner or in some cases an agent or broker of the registered owner.

Just recently, sale transactions of untitled properties (those which are not registered with the torrens system and only covered by tax declarations) have become riskier. This is because some locals have offered for sale properties which are part of forest land or the protective buffer zone (in case of beachfront properties). Under Philippine real estate law, land classified as forest land cannot be subject of a valid sale. On the other hand, properties within the protective buffer zone may be considered part of the unalienable shore land of the government. In addition, buildings are not allowed at the protective buffer zone.

Real estate buyers especially foreigners should make sure that the property they are eyeing should be legally registered and not actually considered as public land.