Saturday, November 8, 2008

Supreme Court upholds

I am delighted after receiving earlier this week, a resolution by the Supreme Court which upheld its earlier decision in a case I handled.
I represented a client, a buyer of a condominium unit in Metro Manila.
We filed a complaint with the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board after we found out that the land where the condominium building was constructed, was mortgaged to a bank without written approval by the HLURB.
This Supreme Court decision upheld that provision in the condominium act P.D. 957 (Section 18) which says that "No mortgage on any unit or lot shall be made by the owner or developer without prior written approval of the Authority".
The lesson here is that as a condominium unit buyer, always check whether the land on which the condominium building where you are to buy a unit, is mortgaged or not. And if mortgaged, check if the mortgage has prior written approval by the HLURB.
We won in the HLURB, in the Board of Commissioners, the Office of the President, the Court of Appeals and in the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Corut decided in my client's favor last September, 2007.
The bank filed a motion for reconsideration.
The Supreme Court finally denied the bank's motion for recon.
End of the road.