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SPOUSES AVELINO and EXALTACION SALERA,
Petitioners, -versus- SPOUSES CELEDONIO and POLICRONIA RODAJE, Respondents. |
G.R. No. 135900 Present: pUNO, C.J., Chairperson, Sandoval-Gutierrez, AZCUNA, and GARCIA,
JJ. Promulgated: |
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SANDOVAL-GUTIERREZ, J.:
Challenged
in this Petition for Review on Certiorari is the Decision[1]
dated October 9, 1998 of the Court of Appeals (Seventeenth Division) in CA-G.R.
CV No. 51480, entitled Spouses Avelino
Salera and Exaltacion Salera, plaintiffs-appellees, v. Spouses Celedonio Rodaje
and Policronia Rodaje, defendants-appellants.
On
In their
answer to the complaint, respondents claimed that they are the absolute owners
of the same property. They acquired it from
Catalino Tonacao, the father of Brigido, in a Deed of Absolute Sale dated P1,000.00 as
downpayment. They agreed that the
balance of P4,000.00 shall be paid upon execution of the deed of sale. Since then, they have been exercising their
right of ownership over the property and the building constructed thereon peacefully,
publicly, adversely and continuously. Apart
from being the first registrants, they are buyers in good faith.
On
In view of all the foregoing, judgment is hereby
rendered in favor of the plaintiffs and against the defendants, declaring the
plaintiffs the rightful and legal owners of the property described in paragraph
3 of the complaint; declaring as null and void the sale (Exhibits “1” and “2”)
made by Catalino Tonacao to herein defendants for lack of capacity to sell; and
ordering the cancellation of Tax Declaration No. 2408 issued in favor of Sps.
Celedonio Rodaje and Policronia Rodaje by the Provincial Assessor of Leyte and
directing defendants to pay the costs.
In declaring null and void the Deed of Absolute Sale between Catalino
and herein respondents and ordering the cancellation of Tax Declaration No.
2408 issued in the latter’s names, the RTC ratiocinated as follows:
Assessing the validity of the sale in favor of
plaintiffs by the heirs of Brigido Tonacao vis-à-vis the sale by Catalino Tonacao, father of Brigido
Tonacao, to the defendants of the property, the Court believes that the former
must survive over the latter.
To begin with, defendants admit that Brigido
Tonacao was the declared owner of the land in question before defendants
purchased such land from Catalino Tonacao.
Defendants also admit that the wife and children of Brigido Tonacao
indeed partitioned the land in question extrajudicially among themselves and
that such wife and children of Brigido Tonacao sold the land to plaintiffs although
defendants question the capacity of some children to sell the property for
being minors.
These admissions tend to establish ownership of
the land in question by Brigido Tonacao.
Upon his death, therefore, the property subject of the case at bar would
by operation of law on succession, pass to the heirs of Brigido Tonacao,
namely: to the surviving spouse and his children.
Catalino Tonacao, the father of the deceased
Brigido Tonacao, is excluded by operation of law by the presence of the
compulsory heirs who are the children of Brigido Tonacao. Whatever sale Catalino Tonacao may have
executed in favor of the defendants is a sale by one who has no legal
personality or authority to do so. Thus,
the sale by Catalino Tonacao to defendants is invalidated by his lack of
personality to execute such sale, which conferred no rights to the defendants
nor did it impair the right of Brigido Tonacao’s heirs to dispose of their
inheritance in favor of the plaintiffs.
On
appeal, the Court of Appeals, in a Decision dated
WHEREFORE,
the decision, dated
Hence, this petition.
The issue before us is which of the two contracts of sale is valid.
Petitioners
contend that the sale between Catalino and respondents is void because the former
was not the owner of the lot, hence “had no legal capacity to sue.” The true owner was Brigido as shown by Tax
Declaration No. 2994 (R-5) in his name.
Thus, his spouse and children, being his successors-in-interest, could
validly sell the property to them (petitioners).
On the
other hand, respondents insist that they are buyers
in good faith. They bought the property,
had the deed of sale registered, and took possession thereof ahead of petitioners. They
also constructed a house thereon which they used as a store. They paid the real estate taxes corresponding
to the period from 1974 up to 1993.
The Court
of Appeals, in upholding the validity of the sale in favor of respondents, relied
on Article 1544 of the Civil Code on double sale, thus:
As between two
purchasers, the one who registered the sale in his favor has a preferred right
over the other who has not registered his title, even if the latter is in
actual possession of the immovable property (Tañedo v. Court of Appeals, 252
SCRA 80). A fortiori¸ the defendants-appellants
have a superior right over the contested property inasmuch as they have both
actual possession and prior registration of the conveyance (Exhibit “2”; page
6, TSN, August 9, 1994; page 5, TSN, August 23, 1994). Dominium
a possessione cepisse dicitur. Right is said to have its
beginning from possession.
The applicable provision of the New Civil Code provides:
Art. 1544. If the same thing should have been sold to different
vendees, the ownership shall be transferred to the person who may have taken
possession thereof in good faith, if it should be movable property.
Should it be immovable property, the ownership shall belong to the
person acquiring it who in good faith first recorded it in the Registry of
Property.
Should there be no inscription, the ownership shall pertain to the
person who in good faith was first in the possession; and, in the absence
thereof, to the person who presents the oldest title, provided there is good
faith.
x x x
Since the controversy involves two deeds of sale over the
same property, Article 1544 properly applies thereto (Vda. De Alcantara v.
Court of Appeals, 252 SCRA 457).
Following the above-quoted provision, the court a quo was not justified in according preferential rights
to the plaintiffs-appellees, who had registered the sale in their favor later,
as against the defendants-appellants.
The Court
of Appeals is wrong. Article 1544 of the
Civil Code contemplates a case of double sale or multiple sales by a single vendor. More specifically, it covers a situation
where a single vendor sold one and the same immovable property to two or more
buyers.[2] It cannot be invoked where the two different
contracts of sale are made by two different persons, one of them not being the
owner of the property sold.[3] In the instant case, the property was sold by
two different vendors to different purchasers.
The first sale was between Catalino and herein respondents, while the
second was between Brigido’s heirs and herein petitioners.
Settled is the principle that this Court is not a trier of facts. In Gabriel v. Mabanta[4] we said
that “(t)his rule, however, is not an iron-clad rule.” One of
the recognized exceptions is when the findings of fact of the Court of Appeals are
contrary to those of the trial court, as in this case.
Here, the trial court which had the opportunity to observe the demeanor
of the parties and first to consider the evidence submitted by them, concluded
that respondents are not purchasers in good faith, thus:
The court finds no merit in the claim of good
faith by the defendants in purchasing the land in question. Exhibit “14”, which is Tax Declaration No.
2408, shows that such declaration is a transfer from Tax Declaration No. 2994
(R-5) in the name of Brigido Tonacao.
Defendants, therefore, knew when they bought the property that they were
buying the property from Catalino who is not the registered owner. The Deed of
In reversing the trial court’s findings, the appellate court found,
thus:
Since the plaintiffs-appellees had prior
knowledge of the sale of the questioned property to the
defendants-appellants—and even recognized and respected the latter’s possession
thereof—they acted with gross and evident bad faith in perfecting a contract of
sale in their favor. Accordingly, since
it has been proven that the defendants-appellants were the anterior possessors
in good faith, ownership of the questioned property vested in them by sheer
force of law. Besides, the
defendants-appellants subsequently registered the deed of sale in their favor on
Good faith is something internal.
Actually, it is a question of intention.
In ascertaining one’s intention, this Court must rely on the evidence of
one’s conduct and outward acts.[5] Good faith, or want of it, is capable of
being ascertained only from the acts of one claiming its presence, for it is a
condition of the mind which can be judged by actual or fancied tokens or signs.[6]
Good
faith consists in the possessor’s belief that the person from whom he received
the thing was the owner of the same and could convey his title. Good faith, while it is always to be presumed
in the absence of proof to the contrary, requires a well founded belief that
the person from whom title was received was himself the owner of the land, with
the right to convey it. There is good
faith where there is an honest intention to abstain from taking any unconscientious
advantage of another.[7]
Contrastingly, in Magat, Jr. v. Court of Appeals,[8]
the Court explained that “[b]ad faith does not simply connote bad judgment or
negligence. It imports a dishonest
purpose or some moral obliquity and conscious doing of wrong. It means a breach of a known duty through
some motive or interest or ill will that partakes of the nature of fraud.” In Arenas v. Court of Appeals,[9] the
Court held that the determination of whether one acted in bad faith is
evidentiary in nature. Thus, “[s]uch
acts (of bad faith) must be substantiated by evidence.” Indeed, the unbroken jurisprudence is that
“[b]ad faith under the law cannot be presumed; it must be established by clear
and convincing evidence.”
Evidence submitted to the court, oral and documentary, established that
respondents knew beforehand that the property was declared in the name of
Brigido Tonacao for taxation purposes.
Respondent Celedonio Rodaje testified as follows:
Q: Mr. Celedonio Rodaje, you said the
property you bought in this case was bought from Catalino Tonacao?
A: It
was from Catalino Tonacao.
Q: And the Deed of Absolute Sale was
executed in the year 1986?
A: Yes.
Q: It was likewise Catalino Tonacao who
signed and executed the Deed of Absolute Sale?
A: Yes,
including his wife.
Q: Before you purchased this property, did
you find for yourself the ownership of the property you were supposed to buy?
A: Yes,
I did.
Q: Did Catalino Tonacao presented to you a
document showing that he really owns the property?
A: The
Tax Declaration of his son Brigido Tonacao signed by Catalino Tonacao.
Q: It was presented to you, the Tax
Declaration declared in the name of Brigido Tonacao?
A: It
was presented to me.[10]
Respondents claim that they have been in possession of the lot even
before the execution of the Deed of Absolute Sale on
However, a perusal of the records of the case shows that petitioners
are the ones in prior possession of the property. After they purchased it from the heirs of
Brigido in 1981, they started building a house thereon. The construction was completed in 1984. The house was declared in the name of their
daughter Aida Salera[11]
under Tax Declaration No. 4403 issued on
Q: Aida Salera testified that she is the
owner of the house, plaintiff’s daughter in this case. She presented the electric bills in her name,
what can you say to that?
A: The electric bills are in her name, but
I was the one paying.
Q: How did it come that the electric bills are
in her name?
A: It was a time when the house was newly
constructed where she lived for a while.
Q: You said you were the one paying her electric
bills, do you have any evidence to prove your allegation?
A: I have.
Q: What is your proof?
A: A certification from the electric bill collector
that I have paid the electric bills from the beginning.
The certification referred to by respondent Celedonio
states that “Mr. Celedonio C. Rodaje, Jr. is the one paying the electric bills of Aida Salera whose
dwelling unit is situated in barangay Basud,
Respondent Celedonio Rodaje likewise testified that he paid the realty
taxes for the lot “from 1974 to 1984 up to the present.”[17] However, it appears from his Realty Tax
Clearance that he paid only in 1984 and that the payment was in lump sum.[18]
As stated earlier, respondents knew, prior to the sale to them, that
the lot was declared for taxation purposes under the name of Brigido. Thus, respondents should have been wary in
buying the property. Any lot buyer is
expected to be vigilant, exercising utmost care in determining whether the
seller is the true owner of the property and whether there are other
claimants. There is no indication from
the record that respondents first determined the status of the lot.
While tax declarations are not conclusive proofs of ownership, however, they are good indicia of
possession in the concept of owner, for no one in his right mind would be
paying taxes for a property that is not in his actual or at least constructive
possession.[19] Hence, as between Brigido and Catalino, the
former had better right to the property.
In other words, Catalino, not being the owner or possessor, could not
validly sell the lot to respondents.
The Court is convinced that respondents had knowledge that the disputed
property was previously sold to petitioners by Brigido’s heirs. Obviously, aware that the sale to petitioners
was not registered, they purchased the property and have the sale registered ahead
of petitioners, who although in possession, failed to have their contract of
sale registered immediately in the Registry of Deeds.
WHEREFORE, the
petition is GRANTED. The assailed Decision of the Court of
Appeals in CA-G.R. CV No. 51480 is REVERSED
and the Decision of the trial court is REINSTATED.
SO ORDERED.
ANGELINA SANDOVAL-GUTIERREZ
Associate Justice
WE
CONCUR:
REYNATO S. PUNO
Chief Justice Chairperson |
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RENATO C. CORONA Associate Justice |
ADOLFO S. AZCUNA Associate Justice |
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CANCIO C. GARCIA Associate Justice |
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Chief Justice
[1] Penned by Justice Ramon Mabutas, Jr. and concurred in by Justices Hilarion L. Aquino and Renato C. Dacudao (all retired).
[2] Consolidated
Rural Bank (
[3] Ibid.
[4] G.R. No. 142403,
[5] Ibid.
[6] Philippine
National Bank v. Heirs of Estanislao Militar, G.R. Nos. 164801 & 165165,
June 30, 2006, 494 SCRA 308.
[7] Ibid.¸
citing Sigaya v. Mayuga, 467 SCRA 341
(2005).
[8] G.R. No. 124221, August 4, 2000, 337 SCRA 298, cited in Philippine National Bank v. Heirs of Estanislao Militar, ibid.
[9] G.R. No. 126640,
[10] TSN, pp. 71-72 dated
[11] TSN, p. 7 dated
[12] Documentary Exhibits of Plaintiffs, p. 6.
[13] TSN, pp. 8-9 dated
[14] Documentary Exhibits of Plaintiffs, pp. 11-12.
[15] TSN, p. 69 dated
[16] Documentary Exhibits of Defendants, p. 13.
[17] TSN, p. 64 dated
[18] Documentary Exhibits of Defendants, p. 5.
[19] Palomo
v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 95608, January 21, 1997, 266 SCRA 392; Heirs of Simplicio Santiago v. Heirs of
Mariano Santiago, G.R. No. 151440, June 17, 2003, 404 SCRA 193; Heirs of Severo Legaspi, Sr. v. Vda. De
Dayot, G.R. No. 83904,