A client approached me recently with a request she didn’t understand. Her parents passed away twenty years ago and left a small lot. Now the office releasing the title was asking her and her two siblings for an “extrajudicial settlement,” a term none of them had ever heard, and nobody had explained what goes inside it. She felt lost.
As a licensed lawyer and real estate broker, I hear from heirs and buyers who face this exact question, often with a deadline or a deposit already hanging over them. It comes up constantly.
Book a consultation with The Property Lawyer and I’ll go through your documents with you.
An extrajudicial settlement of estate, or EJS, is how heirs divide a deceased person’s property among themselves without a court case. Extrajudicial means outside of court.
Land, a house, a condominium, bank accounts and vehicles can all be part of it, although each type of asset is transferred through its own office.
The rule behind it is Rule 74. The deed itself is the heirs’ signed record of who died, what was left behind, and who takes which property, and offices that release titles want it in writing before they move anything.
The settlement works only when all of these are true:
If even one heir disagrees or gets left out, the settlement can be voided and the family may end up in court after all, the slow route this process exists to avoid.
If your family is already tense about the land, I know this is hard to hear. Talk to every heir first.
I’ve had clients ask me to just send a sample PDF. I understand why.
A sample shows you the shape, but a copied form is how names, shares, and property descriptions end up wrong when the papers reach the Registry of Deeds.
A deed usually states:
Deeds come in a few versions. An EJS with Waiver of Rights is used when one or more heirs give up their shares so another heir can take them. An EJS with Absolute Sale is used when the heirs sell the property to a buyer right at the settlement.
A single heir signs an Affidavit of Self-Adjudication instead, and it still has to be published and registered like a full deed, so a one-person estate is not a shortcut around the process.
Here’s the path most families follow.
The order can shift a little depending on the office, so confirm the exact requirements with the Registry of Deeds and the BIR before you start.
Prepare your papers early. Expect to gather the death certificate, the heirs’ birth certificates from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), valid IDs, Tax Identification Numbers (TINs), the title, and the latest tax declaration. Exact lists vary by property and by office.
Tell your lawyer early if one of the heirs lives abroad, because every heir has to sign.
Before you ask anyone for a quote, it helps to know that the total is several payments to different offices, and each one depends on the property and where it’s located.
Here’s what to budget for.
| Cost | What to know |
|---|---|
| Estate tax | Six percent of the net taxable estate for deaths on or after January 1, 2018, under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law, after deductions. Earlier deaths follow different rules. |
| Notarial fees | Set by the notary and the document. |
| Newspaper publication | Depends on the newspaper. |
| Local transfer tax | Depends on the city or municipality. |
| Registry of Deeds fees | Depend on the property. |
| Lawyer's fees | Depend on how complex the estate is. |
Here’s a quick heads-up.
My client’s parents died twenty years ago, so the six percent TRAIN Law rate wouldn’t be where their math starts, and the same may be true for you. The BIR has also run an estate tax amnesty for older estates, and its deadline has been e
xtended before. Check the current status with the BIR before you plan around it.
Lawyer’s fees are the one line I can’t fill in for you, since they move with how much work your particular estate needs and how many people have to agree.
Two siblings who agree on one lot are a very different job from a large family with several properties. So the fee follows the number of heirs, the number of properties, and how much paperwork you’ve already gathered before the first meeting. Ask for an itemized quote.
Imagine you and your spouse want to buy a portion of a larger lot.
The title is in the names of the seller and his late wife. He sold two other portions while she was still alive, and you’d be the third buyer. It’s your first purchase.
You wonder if the children must sign an extrajudicial settlement before the sale is safe for you, and you don’t want to miss anything that matters this early.
Your question is a fair one. Yes, I’d ask for it.
Property acquired during a marriage is often conjugal or community property, so when the wife died, her share passed to her own heirs, usually her husband and their children.
Here’s what I’d do first.
Ask the seller to settle his wife’s estate with all of the children signing, then publish the deed, pay the estate tax, and register it so the title shows who owns what.
After that, the sale can follow, or the heirs can sign an EJS with Absolute Sale.
Don’t skip this step. If you do, you could be the one who pays for it later.
A child who never signed doesn’t lose their share because the sale went through, and under Rule 74 a settlement doesn’t bind an heir who took no part and had no notice.
Don’t apologize for being a first-time buyer.
Asking this question before you pay is exactly the right instinct, and I’d also ask to see the deeds for the two earlier sales so you know what was signed and by whom.
For checking the lot itself, my property inspection tips are a good place to start.
The deed itself doesn’t expire. What runs on a clock is the two-year lien under Rule 74, Section 4, which the Registry of Deeds annotates on the title once the deed is registered.
During those two years, an heir who was left out or a creditor can still come forward with a claim against the property.
After the two years pass, the annotation can be cancelled, and buyers and banks are usually more comfortable with a title that no longer carries that warning.
I’d still be careful, though. A lapsed lien doesn’t cure fraud or a forged signature, so ask to see the registered deed and the proof of publication before you rely on it.
Whatever stage your family is at, I’m happy to go through it with you. Bring the title, the death certificate, and any deed or draft you’ve been asked to sign.
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