As many of you may have seen a few days ago, when I made a post on the blog about housing options the question came up about how to control squatters if you buy property and are not present in the Philippines. Well, I am certainly not an expert, but let me tell you about what we have done to control this problem.
First, I know that some people will ask what a squatter is, I have heard this question before. A squatter is a person who just comes and lives on your land. If you are living outside the country this is a particular problem, because you are not here to keep tabs on the property. The biggest problem is that once squatters take up residence on your land, it can be nearly impossible to get rid of them. You will have to go to court and get a court to order the squatters to leave, then you will have to force them off the land. When you do this, you will almost certainly gain a bad reputation for “kicking those poor folks off the land.” Believe me, the best thing you can do is to just keep the squatter problem from arising.
As many of you know, Feyma and I purchased a piece of land on Samal Island a few months ago. At first, we used to go over there maybe 4 or 5 times a week, so it would have been hard for a squatter to build a shack on the land and take up residence. Now, though, we are not going nearly as often, so we have to take precautions. There is a family who has a small house on the property behind ours. Although they don’t own the land, they are not squatters, because they haver permission from the land owner to live there. In exchange, they keep an eye on the property and don’t let squatters settle in. We have basically hired them to watch over our land too. We pay them P1,000 per month, and for that they work on clearing our land of weeds and brush, and also keep any problems with squatters and other problems from arising. P1,000 a month is a cheap price to pay to avoid the problem.
The first thing I would recommend for land owners (we have not been able to do this yet, since we just bought the property) is to put up a fence or a concrete wall around your property. Maybe put some signs on it that read “No Trespassing” – this may not stop the squatters, but at least it will clearly show that you are warning them to keep out. The wall or fence will do a good job for you too, probably eliminating 90% or more of the problem.
If you don’t wish to hire a person to watch your land, maybe you have family in the area or a friend who could swing by the property once per week or so to have a look.
Just use your common sense, and do whatever you can to have the property visited regularly to watch for problems. With some diligence you can avoid the squatter issue, even if you are living outside the Philippines!
Bob this is a subject that is dear to my heart, this occurred to us when we built our home, so what have we done about this ? quite simply, I have built a 6 foot security wall around the house, with spikes on top, with double security gates, then we have an arrangement with my wife's best friend who is a mature lady, she is the resident caretaker, she is to live in the house while we are overseas, the property cannot be accessed unless you go through a 6 foot high double iron b ar security gate, we pay all the bills, and that is her salary plus luxury accomodation, in other words she gets to live there 365 dayes a year which I think is a great deal for her, this also gives us peace of mind, that squatters will not be in the house, I can imagine how hard it will be to get them out, plus the sub division is a private gated community, undesirables are not allowed, I hope that does the trick, great subject as always Bob, in South Africa they use flame throwers on the gates, I trust it wont come to that.
Hi Peter – your strategy is a great one! With a friend living in the house that is real security!
Hello Bob, I was wondering did you buy your land on the hill in a subdivision type area or seperate from subdivisions? I would like your opinion on if it is best to buy land in a land subdivision area or not ??? How about the squater problem? for this problem is it best to buy land in a subdivision or out of the subdivision.
Hello Bob and Cleope – Thank you for your note. The land that we purchased in Samal is not in a gated subdivision type area. We did live in such an area in Davao at one time, and did not like it. We would not choose to live in such an area again.
Well, I had the same challenge twice over a six year period here in Cebu city. I was fortunate enough to see the initial preparatory building of the squatter shacks each time. I was petrified that if we tolerated one shack we would soon most likely have more. And all the problems that they bring, such as making toilet anywhere, stealing, noise, graffiti…
I decided not to confront them myself straight away as that would personalize the issue straight away and bring in powerful factors of face/honor and the resultant stand off and defiance. Best let the authorities deal with it, I thought. I immediately sat down and wrote four letters. I had to download a form from the Cebu City Mayor’s Office for one complaint. Within a few hours I had sent and hand-delivered all four letters. One each for our village homeowners’ association leader, Barangay Captain, police station and Mayor’s Office.
On each of the two occasions the response was fast. One or the other of the authorities I had written to had sent officers of SPEED (The Squatter’s Prevention, Encroachment and Elimination Division) who came out and asked the would-be squatters for their building permits. They didn’t have anything and they were asked to take a hike. Problem solved. But if I hadn’t been around none of the other residents in our building would have done anything. The “don’t know-don’t care-ke sera sera-bahala na” psychology is so strong here.
AL
Good job on having someone watch your land.
The thing about having squatters in your property is that they will be hard to evict as seen in squatter riots in the Philippines. Add to that the Lina law where it says you, the land owner, cannot evict the squatters in your property.
This law has been the major perpetrator in many “eyesores” in urban centers in the Philippines
We bought 1000 sq m on the highway at Calinan Davao. The farmer cut off 3 lots from his farm. We have a house half built there and a caretaker in place. Because the subdivision left a meter or so at the front on an angle the owner sold it off and we have two houses built on to our front fence. They have built in hollow block from our fence to the extent of the couple of meters and then in timber on main roads land out to the highway. Very annoying because they are relatives of the caretaker.