What Makati’s aging condos stand to gain from the new redevelopment law
For almost 60 years, Philippine condominium law has had a quiet but powerful flaw. To dissolve a condominium corporation and redevelop the land beneath it, every single unit owner had to agree–not a majority, not even a supermajority, everyone.
In a building with a few hundred units, that’s not a high bar–it’s an impossible one. One owner who can’t be located or one holdout negotiating for a better payout can already stall redevelopment indefinitely.
That’s what Republic Act 4726, the original Condominium Act of 1966, built into the system. It’s a big reason so much of Metro Manila’s oldest condo stock has simply been left standing long after it made economic sense to do so.
On September 3, the Senate voted 18-0 to pass Senate Bill 2420, the proposed Condominium Redevelopment Act, on the third and final reading. Sen. Chiz Escudero, the bill’s sponsor, pointed to a major obstacle under the current law: the requirement for unanimous approval from all unit owners, which is nearly impossible to secure and which the proposed measure seeks to address.
How the new rules work
SB 2420 replaces the all-or-nothing threshold with a sliding scale tied to a building’s age.
Buildings under 30 years old still require effectively unanimous approval, with all owners in good standing needing to sign off, while those between 30 and 50 years old need approval from two-thirds of condo owners. Buildings 50 years and older can be dissolved with a simple majority of condo owners.
The older the building, the easier it becomes to dissolve the corporation and clear the way for redevelopment.
The bill also lowers the bar for amending or revoking a master deed to a simple majority of registered owners, subject to notice and sign-off from the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) and the local engineer.
There’s a financial incentive too. Conveyance of common areas to a condominium corporation is now exempt from all national and local taxes, removing a cost that has discouraged redevelopment.
Buyer protections come along for the ride
The bill also tightens the rules for what gets built next.
Developers face a sliding scale of allowable floor area deviation, from 6 percent for units up to 60 sqm down to 2 percent for units over 500 sqm. Buyers, whose units fall short beyond that limit, can invoke existing legal remedies.
Developers also need a Certificate of Completion from the DHSUD before common areas are handed over, and owners keep the right to hold them accountable for defects afterward.
The law covers existing condominiums, projects under construction, and future developments alike.
Why this matters now
The timing lines up with our own data.
Metro Manila’s condo market is carrying roughly 803,000 total units, with unsold inventory at an all-time high of 82,900 units in 616 buildings, based on our 1H 2026 Residential Market report.
A widening affordability gap–with prices up 62 percent since 2019 against only a 20 percent increase in incomes–has made new supply harder to sell, and developers are increasingly focused on moving existing inventory.
At the same time, well-located land in the Metro Manila core is growing scarcer.
Our 1H 2026 Office Market data shows vacancy in the Makati central business district (CBD) at a tight 13 percent, with no new buildings scheduled to enter this district or Ortigas Center until after 2028. That scarcity isn’t limited to office towers. Many of Metro Manila’s oldest residential condominiums sit on some of the most valuable urban land in the country, worth far more than the aging structures built on it.
That’s the core of our view: this law converts trapped unit owners into landowners holding prime CBD sites.
Many aging condos in Makati sit on land worth more than all their units combined. Owners should start valuing their buildings as land, not as units. A 40- or 50-year-old low-rise building on a well-located Makati lot may be worth far more torn down and rebuilt at higher density than as a functioning, aging building.
SB 2420 finally lets owners act on that value.
What happens next
Passage in the Senate isn’t the finish line. The bill still needs House passage, a bicameral conference to reconcile both versions, and the President’s signature.
After that, the DHSUD must write the law’s implementing rules (IRR), spelling out how dissolution votes and redevelopment actually work in practice. That’s the stage that matters most, since the IRR determines the details that make or break individual projects.
For owners sitting on older buildings in well-located parts of the city, that’s worth a second look.
What a building is worth as a structure and what its land is worth as a redevelopment site are often two very different numbers, and this law is what starts to close that gap.
The author is the director of Investment Sales at Leechiu Property Consultants
