The most definitive proof of land ownership in the Philippines is a Torrens title. The title is issued by the Registry of Deeds, and it is the most reliable document that shows who the legal owner of the land is.
Types of inium Ownership Structures: Freehold iniums: Freehold iniums are the most common type of inium ownership structure. Leasehold iniums: Leasehold iniums are less common than freehold iniums. Common Elements iniums. Vacant Land iniums:
What is perpetual ownership? Perpetual ownership means that you have every right a inium unit owner is entitled to as provided in the inium Act, granting you full ownership rights to your unit and a proportionate share of ownership to all common areas of the building and the land itself.
Inium is a Latin word that means "Owning property together." That's what it is like when someone buys a condo unit. They have an "interest" in the land beneath the building, but the building's association owns the actual land.
To summarize, while a tax declaration might suggest possession or a long history of paying taxes, it does not confer ownership rights. In contrast, a Torrens title offers conclusive evidence of ownership, and courts generally prioritize it over tax declarations in property disputes in the Philippines.
Ownership of a inium unit is evidenced by a inium certificate of title. With respect to real property other than land and inium units, there is no system that is equivalent to the Torrens system for registration under which a document is issued to evidence the owner's title.
With regular iniums, the unit owner usually owns the internal unit space and a share of the corporation; the corporation owns the exterior of the building land and common area; in the case of a freehold inium the owner owns the land and building and the corporation owns common shared roadways and amenities.
The property ownership structures for iniums come in a variety of forms. So let's find the main differences between these two common types of condo ownership in the Philippines, namely: Freehold and Leasehold Ownership.