VERITAS NEWSLETTER JUNE 2024 – LEGAL

If you allow it, this newsletter could protect you from destroying your life, from horrid emotional challenges, from financial loss or worse, from financial ruin. We will primarily focus on aspects of material security such as how, when involved in a relationship with your Pinay, to protect yourself financially by protecting your home and other assets.

Please read this article carefully and consider acting on some of the recommendations. If you don’t, an unnecessary future outcome could result in you spending the final years of your life homeless and hungry. If you think I’m exaggerating let me tell you about clients of VERITAS who acted prudently and others who did not.

I often reminded by images of VERITAS clients or non-clients as they poured their hearts and souls out after experiencing cruelty from the callous hands of their estranged Pinay wives or other unscrupulous individuals.

I’ve attended civil court to support expats who shouted at the judge that he’d paid for the land, the house, the furnishings, even a car for his woman. Now, just as construction on their new home was being finished, she’d suddenly thrown him out. He, who’d taken her from poverty in a remote provincial part of the Philippines, paid for her college education, set her up in her now successful business, she was finished with him. Cold and evil behavior callously calculated.

The judge, although sympathetic, had seen this tragedy played out many times in his court but, under Philippine laws, he was powerless to do anything about it. I’ve also seen it happen too often. What hurts most was knowing with basic planning, none of it would have happened!

Alternatively, we’ve had clients who reported back their enthusiastic gratitude for expressing concerns at VERITAS for dangers to expats when marriage, or other log term relationships to their Pinay turned sour.

PRENUPTIAL CONTRACTS. That leads us into an important area of expat planning called Prenuptial Contracts. This is advisable for any expat who plans to marry a Filipina. It provides protection for the expat regarding property and other assets already owned by the expat.

It’s understandable you might cringe at the image of sitting down with your fiancée and telling her about the prenup concept. It might seem insulting to her, a statement about your doubt regarding the marriage, about her. WE recommend you arrange an appointment with one of our pane of attorneys and have him introduce and then explain he process. He or she usually says its not unusual for this to be done in the West where most marriages end in divorce.

Also, if she objects to the concept and refuses to marry because of it, then what more advance warning would you need about her true intentions?

PROPERTY. It’s generally not known that legal strategies are available that allow an expat, even after marriage, to have legal control over some property assets acquired after the marriage. His wife or long-term partner can be excluded from any legal or financial interpret in the asset if strategies are put in place.

Regarding property acquired before or even during the marriage, that are located outside of the Philippines, the foreigner retains full control of those assets.

I’m not licensed here as an attorney so can’t provide further details that might be interpreted as me offering legal advice. We will, If you wish, refer you to one of our panel of attorneys who specializes in this important area of law. Not that it should matter, but the plan is inexpensive to create.

Please give careful consideration to the points made in this article. With pre marriage planning, and even after marriage, by using well tested laws in the Philippines that cover property assets accrued before and during the marriage, we expats never have to face the horrid experiences of financial and emotional disaster. Surely it could correctly be argued that its highly irresponsible NOT to prudently protect ones assets? Remember, this is a time of our lives when we must focus on asset protection. Once the money is gone, we no longer have time available to accrue future meaningful assets.

And yet, even when expats reading this article are aware of the protection available, few will go to the “trouble” of safeguarding themselves either because they can never see their presently loving relationship going sour. It’s the simplistic example of one will never get a flat tire it will always be the person next door.

Please don’t let it be you who becomes broken emotionally and financially destroyed if your relationship with your special Pinay falls apart. That’s not at all necessary. At VERITAS we can refer you to our panel of attorneys who can create a legal framework to secure your future and provide you with the peace of mind you need and deserve. Why would you possibly not want to give yourself the comfort of that?