house renovation expenses

hi all!

my husband's family was able to purchase an old house a few years back. now that we are the ones staying in the house, we would like to renovate it because it's so old and made of light materials.

the thing is, my husband's family is still paying monthly to the owners of the house because what they bought was the house only and the rights. i'm not so sure what he meant my "rights" but my husband explained it as rights to stay in the house. does that mean if we want to renovate the house, we need to pay the full amount of rent of the lot first before we can do anything?

can anyone give us a clear picture of what our rights are, what we can and cannot do to the house? can we make major renovations/extensions to the house?

thanks so much in advance.

Rights over the property vs. Title over the property

Rights over the property - it presuppose that the landowner acquired the property under any modes of acquiring ownership but without LEGAL TITLE (OCT-original certificate of title. Here, the landowner is the owner of the lot and ALLOWS another person to use the same or give a RIGHT to another person to use the property.

Title over the property - the landowner has a LEGAL TITLE whether an OCT or TCT (Transfer of certificate of title)over the property.

gretchg wrote:
the thing is, my husband's family is still paying monthly to the owners of the house because what they bought was the house only and the rights.

It may be interpreted as LEASE over the real property, the right to use the house under the property of another, basically, it seems they(hubby's family) are renting the lot, where the house was located.

gretchg wrote:
we need to pay the full amount of rent of the lot first before we can do anything?

2 scenarios here:

1. The monthly payment will served as rental fee over the property(LOT).

OR

2. An installment payment until the full amount of property(LOT) is satisfied.

** you must clarify first which among these scenarios fit to your querry because each of them have different effects with respect to your plan of renovating or doing some extensions of the house.

gretchg wrote:
what we can and cannot do to the house? can we make major renovations/extensions to the house?

This can be answered after clarifying the querries above.

thank you for your response!

here in my husband's province, most of the people living here do not have titles of the land, only the rights because what happened before was that big lots were owned by the rich families.

with regard to your query, we actually fall under #1 which is:
1. The monthly payment will served as rental fee over the property(LOT).

at this point, can we make renovations to the house? do we need to secure some form of permit either from the building officials or from the landowners?

gretchg wrote:can we make renovations to the house?

Yes because you have the rights likewise, youve said that your hubby's family bought the house.

**I assume this that your hubby's family bought the house payable on installment AS IF IT served as a monthly rental.

gretchg wrote:
do we need to secure some form of permit either from the building officials or from the landowners?

As far as i know, permit from government officials is necessary in constructing a building or a house but not in renovating a house.

For purposes of your security investment in renovating the house, i would suggest that you should make a clear agreement with the land owner in writing with respect to the following future problems that MIGHT arise:

1. Should the landowner retain its ownership over the land or In case you failed or defaulted the monthly RENTAL, what happen to the improvements?(renovation expenses)will the landowner reimburse you?

2. Who will shoulder the Payments of real property tax on improvements(renovations done)? Real property tax varies from the improvements(renovations) introduced over the real property, this includes renovation of houses, constructing an extensions.

3. In case the landowner MORTGAGE the real property, will your house be included?

4. Other problems that might arise in that situation.