DAVAO CITY – Davao City Planning and Development Office (CPDO) head Ivan Cortez warned Dabawenyos on Wednesday not to buy “affordable raw lots” in the city to avoid getting into trouble later on.

Cortez issued the warning after the local government noticed the rampant selling of raw lots on social media.

He said this is not allowed because land owners who sell their properties don’t have “subdivision plans”  approved by the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) that will warrant buyers to register land titles under their names. 

“Many people will want to look for affordable lots and get victimized by this scheme where they are just told to develop the drainage on their own. That will really cause you trouble because they don’t have plans that are approved by the government. You cannot own that land and get titles because these are agricultural areas,” he said.

He said the selling of “agricultural areas” packaged as “raw lots” for residential purposes is illegal.

He urged the public to avoid sellers of raw lots, urging them to immediately report this rampant scheme on social media to authorities. 

“You will suffer from it because there will be no development and there will be no drainage. Buyers will not pool in resources to establish the prescribed drainage. I noticed that those homes established in previous raw lots could reek of canal because the grey water will accumulate around their homes,” he added.

He said that buyers of residential lots should check if property owners have license-to-sell, which  is HLURB-approved.

“There are also others who don’t really own the raw lots and once they receive the down payment, they will immediately disappear,” he said.