Illegal settler families (ISFs) occupying private property create serious issues for landowners, with vacant, untended lands being the most susceptible to recurring occupation.
Understanding the best measures to address such challenges is crucial for landowners and real estate stakeholders. Here’s a short overview based on legal and extralegal remedies:
Administrative Remedies
- Summary Extrajudicial Ejectment: Utilizing Section 27 of RA 7279, landowners can invoke an administrative process to dismantle illegal structures erected by professional squatters or squatting syndicates without a court order. Landowners may seek assistance from the Urban Poor Affairs Office (UPAO) of their Local Government Unit and from the local representative of the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP). Any person or group identified as professional squatters or squatting syndicates shall be summarily evicted and their dwellings or structures demolished.
- Demolition Orders: With squatter dwellings classified as “dangerous buildings,” landowners can file a verified request with the Building Official to remove these structures.
Judicial Remedies
- Criminal Action: Investigating and prosecuting under RA 7279’s penal clauses provide accountability for professional squatters or squatting syndicates. Section 27 of RA 7270 imposes a penalty of six years’ imprisonment or a fine of not less than PHP 60,000 but not more than PHP 100,000, or both, at the discretion of the court.
- Civil Actions:
- Accion Interdictal: This summary ejectment proceeding is suitable for cases where dispossession has not exceeded one year. Under certain situations, it may also be used for cases where dispossession has exceeded one year.
- Accion Publiciana: For longer-term dispossession, this recovery-of-possession action binds named defendants, their families, and other trespassers.
- Alias Writ of Demolition: If the ISFs are repeat offenders, landowners can file for a second writ of demolition based on prior court proceedings.
Extralegal Remedies Based on Strategic Collaboration
- For properties wherein the landowner is no longer interested in physical recovery, the landowner can coordinate with the ISFs and the Social Housing and Finance Corporation (SHFC) to enter the ISFs into a Community Mortgage Program.
- However, there are many requirements for SHFC enrollment, with some requirements being impossible for the ISFs to meet for various reasons (perhaps due to physical limitations of the property itself that cannot accommodate minimum right-of-way widths, for example). In such a case, we successfully navigated the problem by proposing and implementing a seller-financed, deferred-payment acquisition by the ISFs on mutually beneficial terms, paving the way for compensating the landowner for the value of her land and simultaneously converting 100 ISFs (~500 individuals) into future private owners of titled land.
In sum:
Legal remedies are most effective when complemented by collaboration with local government agencies and urban poor organizations. Engaging these stakeholders creates a comprehensive approach to resolving property disputes while ensuring fairness and transparency.
The road to reclaiming possession of distressed properties may be challenging, but with the right combination of administrative and judicial tools, landowners can protect their assets and restore property value. And with careful guidance from experts such as TFA Commercial Realty, creative and peaceful solutions can be created and implemented for landowners and for ISFs.