Smart home AI renovation

Smart home AI renovation leverages artificial intelligence to automate and simplify home design, allowing users to get design plans, inspiration, and realistic visualizations by uploading room photos or floor plans.

AI tools can instantly generate interior design concepts, swap furniture, suggest color palettes, and even preview new flooring or walls, helping homeowners, renters, and designers quickly visualize and plan renovations. 

How Smart Home AI Renovation Works

1. Upload a Photo or Floor Plan: Start by providing a photo of your existing room or a digital floor plan.

2. Select Design Preferences: Choose from a range of styles, like modern, farmhouse, or Scandinavian, to guide the AI.

3. AI Generates Designs: The AI algorithm processes your input and generates realistic 2D, 3D, or VR renderings of your space, featuring personalized furniture placement, color schemes, and decor suggestions.

4. Customize and Refine: You can then adjust the AI-generated designs, swapping furniture, changing colors, or trying different materials using a drag-and-drop editor.

5. Visualize the Results: The platform provides high-resolution mockups, helping you visualize the final look before making any physical changes. 

Benefits of Using AI for Renovation

• Personalized Designs: AI tailors designs to your specific room dimensions, style preferences, and functional needs.

• Time and Cost Efficiency: Generate multiple design ideas quickly, saving time on manual planning and potentially reducing costs associated with professional designers for initial concepts.

• Realistic Visualization: See photorealistic images of your space with actual furniture and decor before you buy anything or hire contractors.

• Creative Inspiration: Explore a wide variety of design themes and get unique ideas for furniture, colors, and decor that you might not have considered otherwise. 

Popular AI Tools for Renovation

• Ideal House: Offers AI tools for home decor and interior design, providing design plans and inspiration.

• AI Home: Smart Interior Design: Allows users to upload a photo and get instant room makeovers with design concepts, furniture, and color suggestions.

• DecAI: Helps users visualize new furniture, colors, and textures in their own spaces, making room makeovers easy.

• Planner 5D: Provides a platform to create floor plans, move walls, and test different materials, with AI generating functional and aesthetic layouts.

• Remodel AI: A tool that helps with inspiration and visualizing different design concepts, including colors and textures. 

Source: Ziggurat Real Estate

Failure to pay within the period stipulated

In a sales contract involving real property, the agreement that the vendee’s failure to make full payment on the agreed time will render the sale rescinded, the vendee may still pay as long as the vendor does not make a demand for rescission.

Article 1592 of the New Civil Code of the Philippines provides that “in the sale of immovable property, even though it may have been stipulated that upon failure to pay the price at the time agreed upon the rescission of the contract shall of right take place, the vendee may pay, even after the expiration of the period, as long as no demand for rescission of the contract has been made upon him either judicially or by a notarial act. After the demand, the court may not grant him a new term.”

Clearly, Article 1592 of the said Code allows a vendee to pay as long as no demand for rescission has been made by the vendor or seller. This is supported by the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Province of Cebu vs. Heirs of Rufina Morales, GR 170115, Feb. 19, 2008, penned by Honorable Associate Justice Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, which held:

“Thus, respondents could still tender payment of the full purchase price as no demand for rescission had been made upon them, either judicially or through notarial act. While it is true that it took a long time for respondents to bring suit for specific performance and consign the balance of the purchase price, it is equally true that petitioner or its predecessor did not take any action to have the contract of sale rescinded.

Article 1592 allows the vendee to pay as long as no demand for rescission has been made. The consignation of the balance of the purchase price before the trial court thus operated as full payment, which resulted in the extinguishment of respondents’ obligation under the contract of sale.”

Further, in the earlier case of The City of Cebu vs. Heirs of Rubi, GR 128579, April 29, 1999, penned by Honorable Associate Justice Minerva Gonzaga-Reyes, the high court ruled:

“It is not disputed that the City of Cebu did not give notice of rescission much less make a judicial or notarial demand for rescission. The only subsequent action taken by petitioner was to send to the respondents a ‘Formal Notice’ dated March 4, 1989 ordering the latter to vacate the premises within fifteen days from receipt of notice for the reason that the occupancy of lot 1141-D is presumed to be illegal as the lot is still registered in the name of the City of Cebu. This letter did not amount to a demand for rescission, as indeed there was no reference to the sale much less a declaration that the sale was being rescinded or abrogated from the beginning. It was only when the City of Cebu filed its Answer on June 15, 1989 to the instant complaint for specific performance that the city invoked ‘automatic rescission’ and prayed for relief allowing it to rescind the contract.”

In case, you failed to make the full payment on the stipulated date, you may still tender payment despite the expiration of the period as long as no demand for rescission has been made by the vendor, either through a judicial action or notarial act.

Source: Manila Times

The importance of safekeeping your property’s certificate of title

As Filipinos, we know all too well the significance of land and real property ownership. This goes beyond mere legal possession, as land ownership is deeply ingrained in our cultural, social, and economic fabric. Rooted in history, tradition, and practicality, Filipinos attach immense importance to their land and real property.

Land and property ownership is often viewed as a means of economic empowerment and security. It can provide a stable foundation for families, offering a source of income through agriculture, rental properties, or potential development.

Since Filipinos value family closeness and relations, land ownership is also seen as a form of tangible wealth that can be passed on to future generations, ensuring their financial stability and opportunities for growth. This is why our Real Estate brokers often include in their sales pitch that buying an expensive property would be well worth it because it would be a “legacy” that the buyer can leave for their children and loved ones.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of tricksters, fraudsters, and forgers that plot and attempt to take our property from us. These people may not think twice about forging signatures and consents in deeds of sales, in order to take and/or transfer properties from legitimate owners to themselves.

In this article, we shall discuss why property owners must ensure the safekeeping of their certificates of title, because if this should fall into the wrong hands, they could lose their property and even be barred from recovering it, regardless of the fact that they never consented to its sale or transfer, and notwithstanding that they were the victims of forgery or fraud committed by others.

A forged deed is void and transfers no title

A forged deed of sale is null and void and conveys no title, for it is a well-settled principle that no one can give what one does not have. This means that one can sell only what one owns or is authorized to sell, and the buyer can acquire no more right than what the seller can transfer legally.  (Tolentino v. Latagan, G.R. no. 179874, June 22, 2015)

The Supreme Court has declared that all subsequent certificates of title arising from the forged deed of sale are also void because of the legal truism that the spring cannot rise higher than its source. (Heirs of Arao, et al. vs. heirs of Eclipse, et. al., G.R. No. 211425, Nov 19, 2018)

Exception

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Supreme Court has ruled that as an exception, the law protects the innocent purchaser who acquires the property from the forger in good faith and for valuable consideration.

Where innocent third parties, relying on the correctness of the certificate of title, acquires the rights over the property – the courts cannot disregard such rights and order the total cancellation of the certificate. An outright cancellation would impair the public confidence in the certificate of title and would in effect require anyone dealing with property registered under the Torrens system to inquire in every instance whether the title has been regularly or irregularly issued. And this would be contrary to the very purpose of the law.

Therefore, an innocent purchaser in good faith and for value of registered land, holds an indefeasible title under the Torrens system. (Aguirre vs. Bombaes, G.R. No. 233681, Feb 3, 2023)

The remedy of the victim-owner

This does not mean, however, that the victim-landowner is without any recourse, as public policy dictates that those unjustly deprived of their rights over real property must be afforded legal remedies.  The victim-landowner may opt to file an action for compensation from the Assurance Fund under Presidential Decree No. 1529, or the Property Registration Decree.

Note that it does not give the property back to the original victim-owner, but only allows the victimized owner to file a claim with the Assurance Fund as provided for under PD 1529. The victim-landowner may also file a case to claim damages against the forger or the person whose fraudulent act resulted in the loss of the property.

What is an innocent purchaser for value

Notably, an innocent purchaser for value is one who buys the property of another without notice that some other person has a right to or interest in it, and who pays a full and fair price for the property. On the other hand, a buyer is not an innocent purchaser if it has actual knowledge of a defect or lack of title of the seller of the property, which would reasonably give rise to suspicion, or one who fails to inquire or take the necessary steps to ensure that there was no cloud on the title, right or ownership of the property. (Aguirre vs. Bombaes, G.R. No. 233681, Feb 3, 2023)

The certificate of title

Given that an innocent purchaser in good faith and for value of a property may rely on the face of the certificate of title without inquiring further, it is important to emphasize the importance and significance of a certificate of title.

As it is settled that every person dealing with registered land may safely rely on the correctness of the certificate of title, when a certificate of title is clean and free from any defect, encumbrance or claim, a potential buyer has every right to rely on the correctness of the certificate in making its purchase of real property. (Aguirre vs. Bombaes, G.R. No. 233681, Feb 3, 2023)

This very same certificate of title is also a critical and essential document that would allow the forger of the deed of sale to transfer the property to their name, as the presentation and submission of the owner’s duplicate original transfer certificate of title is necessary to transfer title over a property to another.

It is important for property owners to know that the Property Registration Decree provides that no voluntary instrument, such as a deed of donation or deed of absolute sale, shall be registered by the Register of Deeds, unless the owner’s duplicate certificate is presented with such instrument.

The production of the owner’s duplicate certificate, whenever any voluntary instrument is presented for registration, shall be taken as conclusive authority from the registered owner to the Register of Deeds to enter a new certificate or to make a memorandum of registration in accordance with such instrument. The result is that a new certificate or memorandum issued by the Register of Deeds shall be binding upon the registered owner and upon all persons claiming under them, in favor of every purchaser for value and in good faith.

The Supreme Court reiterated that failure to comply with the registration requirements of the Torrens system, for example the presentation of the owner’s original certificate of title, averts the registration process. This failure to present and surrender the certificate of title effectively prevents the transaction from affecting the land subject of the registration.

More importantly, a certificate of title issued by the Register of Deeds without the prior presentation and cancellation of the existing owner’s duplicate title does not bind the property to which it pertains and the title issued does not produce the effects of a valid title. It is literally a scrap of paper. (Gatmaytan, et al. v. Misibis Land, Inc., G.R. No. 222166, June 10, 2020)

This is why we urge all property owners to diligently secure the certificates of title to their properties, keeping them safely in your possession or, if needed, entrusting them only to someone who is truly deserving your trust and confidence.

Source: Inquirer