re: Me and My Family
 

Friends/relatives are the worst. We are still owed money after many years on land deals where here's half now and I'll give you the rest when such and such is sold/arrives etc.

re: Me and My Family
 

Greetings.

Lovely lady has just sold a pair of shoes locally for 5,500 peso. Bought for 3,500. Nice little earner.

We went and viewed the house for sale and she took a few photos and sent to her friend in Norway. That's where that story rests for now. I have to say it was a nice house.....better than I expected.

Had another invitation for a trip to hell. This was to attend a relatives daughter who is celebrating her 18th birthday. An important day in someones life I am told. I declined the invitation. She explained that she had found a nice hotel for the one night overnight stay. Because I declined she said she will go (this Sunday) with her family but come back the same day. I have no problem with that and look forward to a day of peace and quiet. But....I cannot see how she can realistically do that in one day. At best, 3.5hrs by minicab, 1 hour ferry trip and then travel to wherever it is on the island of Iloilo...party...then return trip. And then of course waiting time. Unless the party is in the morning. I didn't ask too many questions. NFI.

This invitation coincided with the news that her uncle (a pastor) who lives at Iloilo has rice to sell. 5 sacks actually. Apparently, he cannot get a good price there and my lovely lady wants to have the rice sent here where she can get a better price. I was not aware of great price fluctuations of rice in the Philippines but even then, I am told rice can be stored indefinitely in which case it could be stored until better market conditions prevail. But as most things I do not understand, spawns a conspiracy theory. It is this.....

Last year, I mentioned on these exalted pages that this Uncle wanted to buy rice then being harvested to sell. My lovely lady wanted to help finance this and asked me for a 10k investment which I gave. He would buy the rice and profits would be shared. True to form, despite many enquiries to her, I never saw any return on the 10k investment. I vowed that he would not get another investment. But I have been half expecting another request now that the harvesting season is again under way. I suspect that I will be told that this 5 bags of rice is our share of last years investment.....and another 10k investment would be nice. But that is a conspiracy theory which I dream up every now and again.

Forgot to mention that this Xmas will be spent at her relatives house in Iloilo.....another trip to hell on the horizon. Guess that's one trip that will be difficult to escape from. Happy days.

Regards

re: Me and My Family
 

I would be careful of storing any rice products in the near future. According to ASEAN regulations, next year the Philippines can not impose tariffs on imported rice, amongst other items. Which means that rice from Thailand/Vietnam that is normally 60% cheaper than locally grow rice will be on sale in the Philippines at cost plus with no import tax.

Tesco's in UK are able to sell Asian rice at £0.4 a kilo, here in the provinces it is about P55 or ( £0.92 ) a kilo.

re: Me and My Family
 

10kg sack of rice in SM is 450 pesos, 75 pence a kilo

re: Me and My Family
 

Greetings!

Looks like the house we looked at the other weekend for my lovely ladies friend in Norway has fallen through. Why? I can hear you ask. Simples. It is situated 30 metres from the sea and therefore susceptible to tsunamis. So, last Sunday we went to see a plot of land for sale in the same village and she took lots of pictures of this plot of land complete with trees and dog pooh. This is 100 metres from the sea and therefore completely safe from tsunamis. I say no more.

Had a rare visit from the family yesterday. Joy of joys it was. Kids running around terrorizing the rabbits (the rabbits are tame but for some unknown reason they leg it as soon as the kids arrive). Because the rabbits hide, the kids like to find a stick to prod them out of their hiding places.... (not for insertion up the rabbits backside so they wave them around). I had a word. In fact a loud naughty word.

The father didn't come. I think he is actually shy because he owes me money. But he got his brother to tell me he WANTS some more e.juice. Not a question of "please may I have"....or "please may I borrow". Obviously a language problem.

Lovely lady said she was going to go on the trip to hell I mentioned by herself because I declined the polite offer. She didn't. Funny that.....maybe it was because the weather looked overcast or she forgot.

Heard nothing more about the 5 bags of rice. In conversation she mentioned that the new President is going to personally visit any store in the Philippines that is overcharging rice and he will close them down. I nodded sagely. But I am astonished at the micro-management of the new President.

Off to the town hall tomorrow to try and dig out the title deeds to the land. Ok, its only about 1.5 hrs away but last time it took about 3 times that long to get back. Why I here you chorus. Because we get to the bus terminal as a bus toSipalay was about to leave but she didn't want that one....because it did not have ac. Saw a minicab and jumped on that and they don't leave until they are full. But they have ac. After waiting about one hour still waiting for the final few passengers, I saw another bus about to go to Sipalay. But no ac. Another 30 mins passed awaiting one more passenger for the minicab to leave and then we saw a bus with ac going to Sipalay. So we hopped on that and eventually arrived home. The mini cab driver was a bit miffed because 5 of us got off the cab to get the bus. Serves him right for trying to squeeze 16 people on a 12 seater. Sadly for us, we got caught up in a storm when we arrived home and got slightly wet. Now, if only we had got the first bus out...... I really love these trips out.

Regards

re: Me and My Family
 

Well , that made me laugh ! Thank you. I'm sure father's message was purely a misunderstanding of language mate. It's our fault as we don't speak correct English.:)
Re the President and rice. what I read was that he said if you know of people overcharging for rice, let his office know and he'd ensure they had a visit from the local authorities. So, the usual little "present" will take care of that then!

Keep 'em coming - PLEASE!!!

re: Me and My Family
 

Yep, the usual outing turns into the day trip from "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest"

re: Me and My Family
 

Greetings!

Well we went to see about the title deeds last week and it wasn't to the town hall. The land does not have a "clean" title. We went instead to see a wizened old boy of about 100 who has the power of attorney over the land. Met in a café and I left my lovely lady to it. I saw the documents which were double dutch to me and we have a copy. I don't think she verified that the old boy was the same name on the documents. No idea how long the process takes but I just hope the old boy will still be around when and if the transfer will take place. But I am keeping out of it. The less I know, the less I have to worry about. When I saw them chatting, I visualized that the paperwork they were studying was a bulging can of worms. But...I should have more faith in her to be honest. The selling price was 600 peso per square metre, but she got the price down to 450 after offering 400. This will make her a profit of 300k if it all goes through. Enough for her to buy her own business.....or a stack of gold jewelry. I will applaud her nonetheless.

Might have mentioned some time ago why I doubt if I will buy a car here. We don't really need one is the main reason, but yes...it would be nice to go for an impromptu visit or shopping. Or whatever. But I just know what will happen. Her family and relations here seem to number in the hundreds. And the car will always be out on loan because uncle willy wants to nip to Manila, or uncle Fred has 2000 chickens he wants to take to Cebu for an outing. You get the idea. And then when I say to the lovely lady....lets go for a ride out in the country but find that no.....the car has been promised to Auntie Gertie that day so she can visit her family for a couple of weeks. What brought the subject up again was I was chatting to a foreigner friend who has just bought a car and he had the same fears as me. And his worst fears came true. But with a slight difference. He lent the car to someone for a day and on return, this fellow asked my mate for 500 peso. Why? Because this person had to put fuel in the vehicle. A loud Anglo Saxon phrase of 2 words was used. Doubt if I would get the backing of my lovely lady on this issue. After all, she says that whatever God has gifted us we must share. I would assume this would apply to cars as well as money. Fortunately, I am not religious.

Regards

re: Me and My Family
 

Unregistered land takes a long time to process unfortunately. Usually the seller does all the paperwork. However make sure that the interest is registered as soon as you pay any money. You will be advised of any encumbrances thereto. It also prevents the land being sold to somebody else as well. Say by a near relative of the owner. Thankfully my wife did that, when she bought a smallholding, being part of a larger plot. The sons of the owner, tried to register all the land in their name, and sell it on. When their father was away. My wife was notified. One person got scammed though.

re: Me and My Family
 

watch out for the deliberate spelling mistakes that will be the reason for the sale to be undone, Of course you will never get your money back. Sad to say a common practice and the attorney will be the one who does it and then prosecutes the case in front of his friendly judge:eek:

re: Me and My Family
 

I bought a car,but before doing so I really did my homework. I spent hours checking the prices of used models on OLX. Having looked at a couple that were 'forced' on me by people 'in the know' I decided to buy a car no older than 18 months, CASA maintained ,and low millage.
I researched several cars on OLX from the UK then asked my nephew to view them in Manila.I should add my Nephew served an apprenticeship as a mechanic so knew what to look for. Manila seemed to be the only place that had cars I desired. The provinces generally only advertised old bangers.
I initially wanted a Ford Discovery, but they all seemed very overpriced, and millage was quite high for a high value car. Eventually I came across a Toyota Fortuner 4 x 4 3.0ltr diesel with only 1800klms in new condition, it was 8 months old and still had all the seat wrapping on !!.The car belonged to a Chinese woman who had run up gambling debts so could no longer afford the repayments.I wired the money PHP 1.45m got my nephew to arrange insurance (PHP 26,000) obtain the necessary paperwork and deliver the car to our home in Pangasinan.On my recent visit we then when to the LTO to register the title ownership (PHP 9,500) job done.

The car is kept under cover and my nephew goes to our house once a month to start the car and drive it round the sub division .Regarding family use, no òne would ever ask me to loan the car,because of the high value,and of course insurance limitations.

The moral of this is buy a high value car then if your relatives have any common sense they would be to frightened to 'borrow' it in case of accidents. Incidentally, I found driving in the Philippines easier than the UK as it is much slower due to tricycles and traffic. Needless to say I would not drive in Manila unless I had considerably more experience of Philippines driving.

One of the best functions of the car is Sat Nav...........and must!

re: Me and My Family
 

Buying a car here is fraught with danger Manila has 1000s of cars that have flood damage, just covered up by a new carpet but one of the major things is that the model year is quite often the year of import for 2nd hand cars. I have a little cheap Suzuki Carry that I bought in 2010, it was advertised as a 2007 model. The easy way to check is the seat belts have a safety tag on them near the floor connection, this has a year of manufacture stamped on it, amongst other things. Car manufacturers will not hold a stock of seat belts for more than a years worth of car production. So if the tag says 2005 the car would not be newer than a 2006 model. I checked mine before I bought it, 2003 so I paid him a lot less than he wanted.

re: Me and My Family
 

The spelling mistake has been tried on me before, then pressure to sign quickly or they will sell it to someone else. I kept them on the hook for nearly six weeks before I told the lawyer that I saw him change the spelling before he gave it to his secretary to type up. I also warned the other potential buyers of his trick as I knew them from years before. They pulled out as well and they told the owner who fired the lawyer. Result all round. Trick is, never buy land without the free title on the table and verified by the Land Registry Office. My German friend bought some land ( in his wife's name ) and was promised the free title within 2 weeks, that was 27 years ago, the owner keeps coming back with pay me P50,000 and you will get the free title but he was smart enough to ask the bank where the title is held against a loan, with interest P2.5 million would just about clear the title.

re: Me and My Family
 

Greetings!

Just a quick reminder please to fb friends. My lovely lady regularly goes into my phone and checks for messages and reads my fb page. Please exercise discretion when messaging on fb and pm me here instead.

Thanks

re: Me and My Family
 

Sounds like someone has got into trouble. A good reason for not having a facebook page, having 2 is much safer, or if you are like me - none.