Justice Secretary Leila de Lima has ordered the city prosecutor of Pasig City to file a criminal complaint against Globe Asiatique Realty Holdings Corp. founder and president Delfin Lee for the alleged “double sale” of a house and lot in San Mateo, Rizal, six years ago.
In a resolution, De Lima denied Lee’s motion for reconsideration seeking a reversal of an order issued by the Department of Justice (DoJ) on July 5, 2010, which found him criminally liable for violating Presidential Decree 957, a Marcos-era edict on the real estate business, for the alleged anomalous sale of a unit in Sta. Barbara Villas II to one Mailene Coloma.
The real estate magnate also faces a string of estafa (fraud) cases at the DoJ over supposed irregularities other housing projects in Pampanga.
Coloma, who bought the house and lot for P650,000 in October 2004, sued Lee after she found out that the same property had also been sold to a certain Michael Pascual.
She also discovered that the property was not registered with the Registry of Deeds under her name even after Lee’s company had given her a “permit to occupy.”
According to De Lima, records and documents provided by Globe Asiatique clearly showed that there was a “double sale” as claimed by Coloma.
In fact, she said, Lee himself admitted in his counter-affidavit that the house and lot were sold to Pascual in February 2005, or three months after Coloma bought the property from Globe Asiatique.
“Printed billing statements for the account of Pascual would confirm this. Clearly, there was a double sale,” De Lima said.
In his defense, Lee maintained that his company did not register a contract to sell when Coloma refused to apply for bank financing after she purportedly failed to get a housing loan from the Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-ibig Fund).
Lee also argued that there was no “double sale” since Pascual did not actually own the property after he failed to pay the monthly amortization.
He also declared that he did not know about the transaction that Globe Asiatique had entered into with Coloma because it was the firm’s marketing office, headed by Christina Sagun, that negotiated with the complainant.
But De Lima said there was probable cause to charge Lee as his corporation “holds out an officer or agent as having the power to act, or in other words, the apparent authority to act in general.”
“In the instant case, (Lee), as president of Globe Asiatique, undoubtedly allowed Christina Sagun… to enter into contracts to sell or a semblance thereof… as he has not, in the first instance, repudiated the acts of Sagun in previous transactions,” she said.
“It is only now that he has done so in order to extricate himself from criminal liability,” she added.
Coloma’s complaint had been dismissed by the Pasig prosecutor’s office for lack of evidence, but the DoJ reversed the resolution in its review of the case, prompting Lee to seek an appeal.