UPDATE: On September 12, 2013, I received an email from HLURB clarifying this issue. Kindly read my post about it.
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I have discussed Maceda Law in my previous post. It has generated so much attention from several distressed buyers who are qualified for at least 50% refund because they can no longer continue payment for the property they bought after making at least 2 years of installment payment.
This post shall seek to clarify from the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (or HLURB) a provision of the Maceda Law for those who are qualified for a refund but are not given what is due them. Note that more than 80% of all cases filed at the HLURB involve refund sought by real estate buyers.
Again, click the following link to see the full text of the Maceda Law.
At the risk of being redundant, here are the most important provisions of the Maceda Law for buyers who can no longer pay for their monthly installments:
Section 3 …where the buyer has paid at least two years of installments, the buyer is entitled to the following rights in case he defaults in the payment of succeeding installments
(b) If the contract is cancelled, the seller shall refund to the buyer the cash surrender value of the payments on the property equivalent to fifty per cent of the total payments made…
Down payments, deposits or options on the contract shall be included in the computation of the total number of installment payments made.
The following is the section of the law that has become the source of confusion among those who qualify for a refund under the Maceda Law:
Section 7. Any stipulation in any contract hereafter entered into contrary to the provisions of Sections 3, 4, 5 and 6, shall be null and void.
Section 3 clearly states who are entitled to a refund and how much they are entitled to.
Section 7 clearly states that a buyer is entitled to a full percentage of refund allowed under the Maceda Law regardless of whatever contract he entered into with the developer.
However, based on the feedback of many readers, this rarely happens. Developers unilaterally make several deductions on their refund that buyers usually end up with net refund that may be as low as 25% or even 20%. These provisions for deductions are inserted in the fine prints of the Reservation Agreement or Contract to Sell.
If Section 7 of the Maceda Law is to be strictly implemented and for it to fully serve its purpose, shouldn’t the HLURB declare these contracts that allow for onerous deductions by developers on refunds to be considered null and void?
Thank you
jun sanchez
PRC Licensed Broker
Registration Number 4562
0915.965.1389
0923.594.4460
The post HLURB should clarify Section 7 of the Maceda Law appeared first on Philippine Real Estate and Construction.
