Estate Planning in the Philippines: A Practical Guide to Protecting Your Legacy
September 16, 2026 - Narciso G. Reyes, Jr., LLM
More than just distributing your hard-earned fortune, estate planning is a tool to secure your legacy ultimately to secure the people you love. It ensures a smooth predictability in passing to your heirs of your assets...
Don’t Buy Blindly: How Property Due Diligence Saves Your Investment
September 15, 2026 - Narciso G. Reyes, Jr., LLM
More often, buyers of real property zeroed in terms of accessibility, environment, and future growth of their prospective homes. Unfortunately, buyers overlook issues in verifying the authenticity of title, or...
Defective property acquired in “As Is, Where Is” Sale, can I still go after the seller?
February 10, 2025 - Narciso G. Reyes, Jr., LLM
Oftentimes lower prices of properties sold in an “as is, where is” basis attract buyers. Unfortunately, after acquisition, some issues start may arise such as hidden property defects, and even an undisclosed potential...
Shouldering construction project cost escalation: liability of the contractor, or the client?
February 9, 2025 - Narciso G. Reyes, Jr., LLM
By itself, building your dream house poses innumerable challenges. From selecting a competent and trustworthy contractor to project cost estimation, clients are mostly faced with missed turn-over date caused by weather...
Tax Implications of Deed of Extrajudicial Settlement with Waiver of Rights
June 22, 2023 - Ralph B. Bodota
A client consulted me about the computation of estate and donor’s tax on her late father’s estate. Estate refers to the properties left by a deceased person. Her father died intestate (without a Will) in 2007 and was...
Reasonable Certainty of Conviction: The New Standard in Cases Cognizable by the First Level Courts
June 12, 2023 - Narciso G. Reyes, Jr.
On February 10, 2023, the Department of Justice issued Department Circulars No. 008 and 008-A, Series of 2023, requiring a higher standard of evidence required during a preliminary investigation from probable cause to...
When a warrant of arrest is issued against you, what do you need to do immediately? A practical guide on dealing with arrests.
May 8, 2023 - Narciso G. Reyes, Jr.
As a general rule, no person can be arrested without a warrant of arrest. Save for some exceptions, arrest can only be effected after the judge determines sufficient reasons to believe that a crime was committed by the...