We write on Philippine law and show the authority behind it.

Yes, where the condominium project’s common areas are held by a condominium corporation, because the land belongs to the corporation and the buyer is only a member of it. Where the unit owners co-own the land instead, the Condominium Act bars any sale to a foreign individual.

The constitutional prohibition

The Constitution is short and it is absolute: “Save in cases of hereditary succession, no private lands shall be transferred or conveyed except to individuals, corporations, or associations qualified to acquire or hold lands of the public domain.”¹ Those qualified are Filipino citizens and corporations at least 60 percent Filipino-owned.²

So a foreigner cannot buy land in the Philippines. The condominium route works because a buyer in a corporation-held project is not buying land.

The two kinds of condominium project

Section 5 of the Condominium Act describes two structures:³

Any transfer or conveyance of a unit or an apartment, office or store or other space therein, shall include the transfer or conveyance of the undivided interest in the common areas or, in a proper case, the membership or shareholdings in the condominium corporation; Provided, however, That where the common areas in the condominium project are held by the owners of separate units as co-owners thereof, no condominium unit therein shall be conveyed or transferred to persons other than Filipino citizens or corporations at least 60% of the capital stock of which belong to Filipino citizens, except in cases of hereditary succession. Where the common areas in a condominium project are held by a corporation, no transfer or conveyance of a unit shall be valid if the concomitant transfer of the appurtenant membership or stockholding in the corporation will cause the alien interest in such corporation to exceed the limits imposed by existing laws.

The two provisos point in opposite directions.

Where the unit owners hold the common areas as co-owners, no unit may be conveyed to anyone other than a Filipino citizen or a 60 percent Filipino corporation. There is no percentage allowance in that sentence. A foreigner cannot buy into that project at all.

Where a condominium corporation holds the common areas, the land is the corporation’s. As the Supreme Court put it in Hulst v. PR Builders, “the ownership of the land is legally separated from the unit itself. The land is owned by a Condominium Corporation and the unit owner is simply a member in this Condominium Corporation.”⁴ On that footing “the constitutional proscription against aliens owning real property does not apply”.⁴

Read the master deed before discussing the price. Which structure the project uses is a matter of record, and it decides whether the sale is possible at all.

Where the 40 percent comes from

A foreigner may own up to 40 percent of a condominium project, and the figure needs two qualifications.

The figure is not in the Condominium Act. Section 5 says only that a transfer is invalid if it would cause the alien interest “to exceed the limits imposed by existing laws”.³ The 40 percent is the arithmetic complement of the 60 percent Filipino requirement that makes a corporation qualified to hold land, and it reaches the reader through the Court’s own summary in Hulst, which says the Act “expressly allows foreigners to acquire condominium units and shares in condominium corporations up to not more than 40% of the total and outstanding capital stock of a Filipino-owned or controlled corporation.”⁵ That is the Court’s formulation, not the statute’s words.

The second qualification is where the figure operates. It is a ceiling inside a corporation-held project. In a co-owned project the bar is total.

What the buyer acquires, and why the cap moves

Section 5 ties the unit to the membership. A transfer of a unit “shall include the transfer or conveyance of the undivided interest in the common areas or, in a proper case, the membership or shareholdings in the condominium corporation”.³ The unit and the membership travel as one. A foreign buyer in a corporation-held project therefore acquires a unit and, with it, a stake in the company that owns the land underneath it.

That is also why the ceiling behaves differently from a fixed allowance. The statute invalidates a transfer where the accompanying transfer of membership “will cause the alien interest in such corporation to exceed the limits imposed by existing laws”.³ The test is what this particular sale does to the corporation’s overall position, not what any one buyer holds. So whether a unit can lawfully be sold to a foreigner depends on how much of the corporation foreign owners already hold, and a project that has reached its ceiling cannot sell further units to foreign buyers even though earlier foreign buyers were perfectly lawful.

A buyer should ask, before paying anything, what is the current foreign interest in the condominium corporation, and does this purchase stay inside the limit. The corporation keeps that record.

The first proviso carries one exception. Even in a co-owned project, where the bar is otherwise total, units may pass “in cases of hereditary succession”.³ That mirrors the constitutional exception, and it is narrow: what inheritance does and does not permit is part of how a foreigner can lawfully hold land.

What counts as a condominium

The Hulst Court’s language covers “condominium units or townhouses constituted under the Condominium principle with Condominium Certificates of Title”.⁶ A townhouse, a low-rise, or a horizontal development can all be constituted as condominiums, and a tower is not automatically one for these purposes. What matters is how the project is constituted and what title issues.

Leasing, and who the 99-year term is for

A foreigner who cannot buy can lease, and the ordinary term is short. Private land may be leased to aliens or alien-owned entities not qualified to acquire land for “twenty-five years, renewable for another period of twenty-five years upon mutual agreement of both lessor and lessee.”⁷

A contract exceeding that ceiling is “null and void ab initio”, and both parties are punishable by fine or imprisonment.⁸

Since September 2025 there has also been a 99-year lease, for a narrower class of lessee. The Investors’ Lease Act as amended provides that “[t]he aggregate period of the lease contract shall not exceed ninety-nine (99) years”, subject to a shorter period the President may impose on the recommendation of the Fiscal Incentives Review Board for investors in vital services or critical infrastructure.⁹

It is not available to an ordinary foreign buyer. The amended limitations provide that “[f]oreign individuals, corporations, associations, or partnerships not otherwise investing in the Philippines as defined herein shall continue to be covered by Presidential Decree No. 471 and other existing laws on lease of lands to foreigners”.¹⁰ The implementing rules of the two departments say the same.¹¹

The 99-year term is for a foreign investor with an approved and registered investment, the leased area must be used solely for that investment, and registration of the lease is what makes it binding on third persons.¹² A person buying a holiday property is outside all of that.

Before anything is signed

Whether a company is Filipino enough to hold land at all is a counting question that belongs with the foreign ownership rules for businesses.

This is real estate work, and the master deed and the title decide it. Obtain both before anything is signed.