Selling 3000 sq.m property but faced with #1 problem

40 years ago, my father bought a 3000+ sq.m. residential land with a total of 13 titles. He is a foreigner so the title was named instead to his previous wife (Filipino, now deceased). Now my father and his previous wife had two sons. The sons are now presently living abroad for decades and do not care about the land here in Philippines and not claiming it.

We now want to sell the entire land (no house) but the titles are in my father’s previous wife name EVEN THOUGH we all possess the original titles. Besides, it's my father's money and he's the one taking care of the land ever since.

Since the previous wife is now deceased, question now is can me and my father sell the property directly to the buyer and can the title be transferred directly to the name of the buyer, too? With the above situation, what is the easiest, cheapest, and fastest legal remedy to handle this?

yes, you and your father can. it may even be transferred directly to the name of the prospective buyer. you need certain documents to be signed and of course publication before the name of the new buyer can successfully placed his/her name to the RD.

Thank you so much CPA-Lawyer. That informed helped us greatly and gave us hope.

Additional questions:

1. When you say certain documents to be signed, will it require the previous deceased wife's sons/daughter to participate on the signing or they can be bypassed? Because since they are already living abroad, it will only incur expenses if they fly all the way to Philippines just for these things.

2. You mentioned something about 'publication'. What do you mean by it?

1. yes they should sign the documents. they cannot be bypassed coz they are the legal owners of the lot. you cannot dispose what you dont owned. somebody else may sign on their behalf provided they possess the spa.

2. publication in the news paper. and lastly i forgot to mention taxes (bir and city assessor)....

Thanks for your reply. No. 2 should be easy already and no more problem. With regards to no.1, this Special Power of Attorney, is it correct that they can get this through the Philippine consul of their respective country without the need to fly all over here? And then they can e-mail this to us, and the rest can be processed by ourselves (me and my father)?

no, you have to have it in authenticated instrument bearing the seal of the philippine consul or embassy in the same location where they are residing. spa thru email is not recognized here in the philippines.

Oh, I see. If that is the case, will that spa document allowed to be shipped to us via a private courier like for example FedEx/DHL ? Can that be allowed?

yes. as long as the copy is authenticate... just a friendly reminder, do not attempt to tamper or falsify docs whether the docs itself or the signatures coz its a criminal offense.

Thank you for all your answers CPA-Lawyer. If I have other queries during the process, I'll post it here. Yes of course we will try to process everything as legal as possible.

CPA-Lawyer wrote:1. yes they should sign the documents. they cannot be bypassed coz they are the legal owners of the lot. you cannot dispose what you dont owned. somebody else may sign on their behalf provided they possess the spa.

I would like to follow-up about the above:

Question #1
What if one of the children can no longer be contacted? Is the SPA of the other children enough already? Is there a legal remedy?

yagami_kira wrote:

CPA-Lawyer wrote:1. yes they should sign the documents. they cannot be bypassed coz they are the legal owners of the lot. you cannot dispose what you dont owned. somebody else may sign on their behalf provided they possess the spa.

I would like to follow-up about the above:

Question #1
What if one of the children can no longer be contacted? Is the SPA of the other children enough already? Is there a legal remedy?

you cannot deprive that child's share and other siblings cannot dispose his share unless he expressed his consent thereto. the remaining children may dispose their share via spa but the absentee remains to have valid title to his just share. only legal remedy is presumptive death that he has no other legal heirs except his siblings. then the remaining siblings may execute a voluntary deed of partition.