A Manila councilor has asked the city council to suspend the building permits of a condominium project of a top real estate firm in Binondo whose buyers have yet to receive the titles for units worth up to P20 million.
In his privilege speech before the city council, third district Councilor Manuel Zarcal urged the Sangguniang Panglunsod to investigate Federal Land Inc. (FLI) and its Manila-based partner Central Realty and Development Corp., the builders of the Four Seasons Riviera Condominiums at the corner of Muelle Dela Industria and Prensa & Numancia streets in Binondo.
Zarcal filed on September 8 a resolution directing the Office of the City Engineer to revoke the building and zoning permits it issued to Four Seasons Riviera Condominiums in 2010 because of the developers’ ongoing legal dispute with another real estate company.
The councilor said many of the complainants were from his district, and he personally knows one of them who completed her payments years ago but has yet to be given her titles.
“I hope our city government will defer or order a total cancellation of the building permit, the construction permit, as well as the business permit of this development,” Zarcal said.
“I am protecting our constituents in the third district who might be duped, considering that the condominiums are not cheap,” he added.
A unit at the Four Seasons Riviera, the councilor said, costs from P5 million to P20 million.
In his September 8 resolution, Zarcal cited the July 26 decision of the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) suspending the license to sell of FLI and its partner pending the resolution of a civil case filed by Solar Resources Inc. before the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 6.
Solar is insisting that it is the lawful owner of the 7,350-square-meter land located at the corner of Muelle Dela Industria and Prensa & Numancia streets in Binondo where the four towers of the 30-storey Four Seasons Riviera Condominiums are being built.
“Under Section 458 (par. 4) of the Local Government Code, the city council is empowered to regulate activities relative to the use of land, buildings and structures within the city in order to promote the general welfare,” the resolution said.
In a ruling penned by arbiter Raymundo Foronda, HLURB said the reason it temporarily barred FLI and Central Realty from selling units of the Four Seasons Riviera Condominiums is to protect the buying public.
“As a precautionary measure for the protection of the buying public, there is a need to suspend the license to sell pending resolution of the issue of ownership over the property,” the resolution read, adding it would be more prudent to wait for the final results of the civil case filed by Solar for the protection of the buying public.
Solar accused Central Realty of misrepresenting itself as the legal owner of the property which the late Dolores Molina purchased from Central Realty way back 1993.
After buying the 7,350-square-meter lot, Molina opted to let the land title remain in the name of Central Realty after it promised to settle the huge taxes it owed the government.
When Solar bought the land from Molina in 2013 for P124 million, it had its deed of sale and adverse claim annotated at the back of the land title.
The HLURB explained in its decision that since the adverse claim of Solar is annotated at the back of the title, “it cannot be said that the land covered by TCT 198996 is free from all liens and encumbrances as required under Section 4 of PD 957” or the Subdivision and Condominium Buyer’s Protective Decree of 1976.
When Molina died six months later in 2013, Solar substituted her as plaintiff in the civil case she had originally filed against Central Realty and FLI.
It was only in 2010 that Molina discovered that Central Realty mortgaged the land for P257 million and that it agreed to a joint-venture agreement with FLI to develop a residential building on the property.
FLI is the real-estate company of GT Capital Holdings, Inc. of George Ty, a Chinese-Filipino tycoon and founder of Metrobank. He is the current group chairman of GT Capital Holdings, Inc.