Dela Cruz v.

Capco

Facts:

Petitioners mother, Teodora, acquired ownership over a piece of land. It was

duly registered under her name (TCT) no. 31873.
Teodora, out of neighborliness and blood relationship, tolerated the spouses
Capcos occupation of the said property.
The subject property was later on conveyed to Spouses Dela Cruz.
Spouses Dela Cruz demanded Spouses Capco to vacate the property, but refused
to do so.
Baranggay Conciliation failed to resolve the controvery.
Spouses Dela Cruz filed a complaint for Unlawful Detainer against Spouses
Capco.
Spouses Capco asserted that the complaint is defective for failing to allege the
exact metes and bounds of the property. Neither is a title attached thereto to
show that the spouses Dela Cruz are the owners of the disputed property. Be
that as it may, the spouses Capco asserted that they have all the rights to
occupy the subject property since respondent Rufino Capco (Rufino) is an heir
of its true owner. In fact, they established their balutan business and built
their house thereon as early as 1947.
MeTC ruled in favor of Spouses Dela Cruz.
RTC affirmed the decision of MeTC.
CA ruled in favor of Spouses Dela Cruz.

ISSUE:
Whether or not petitioners are the rightful possessor of the subject property.

Held:

The spouses Dela Cruz are able to establish by preponderance of evidence that they
are the rightful possessors of the property.
"The only issue in an ejectment case is the physical possession of real property
possession de facto and not possession de jure." 45 But "[w]here the parties to an
ejectment case raise the issue of ownership, the courts may pass upon that issue to
determine who between the parties has the better right to possess the
property."46 Here, both parties anchor their right to possess based on ownership,
i.e., the spouses Dela Cruz by their own ownership while the spouses Capco by the
ownership of Rufino as one of the heirs of the alleged true owner of the property.

Thus, the MeTC and the RTC correctly passed upon the issue of ownership in this
case to determine the issue of possession. However, it must be emphasized that
"[t]he adjudication of the issue of ownership is only provisional, and not a bar to an
action between the same parties involving title to the property." 47
The spouses Dela Cruz were able to prove by preponderance of evidence that they
are the owners of the lot. Their allegation that the subject property was adjudicated
to Teodora by virtue of a decision in a land registration case and was later conveyed
in their favor, is supported by (1) a copy of the Decision in the said land registration
case; (2) the title of the land issued to Teodora (TCT No. 31873), and, (3) the Deed
of Extra-Judicial Settlement of the Estate of Teodora wherein the latters heirs
agreed to convey the said property to Amelia.
The spouses Capco, on the other hand, aside from their bare allegation that
respondent Rufino is an heir of the true owners thereof, presented nothing to
support their claim. While they submitted receipts evidencing their payments of the
realty taxes of their house and the camarin standing in the subject property, the
same only militates against their claim since the latest receipts indicate Teodora as
the owner of the land. Moreover, the spouses Capcos attempt to attack the title of
Teodora is futile. "It has repeatedly been emphasized that when the property is
registered under the Torrens system, the registered owner's title to the property is
presumed legal and cannot be collaterally attacked, especially in a mere action for
unlawful detainer. It has even been held that it does not even matter if the party's
title to the property is questionable." 48
All told, the Court agrees with the MeTC's conclusion, as affirmed by the RTC, that
the spouses Dela Cruz are better entitled to the material possession of the subject
property. As its present owners, they have a right to the possession of the property
which is one of the attributes of ownership.

Suarez v Emboy, Jr.

Facts:

Respondent spouses Felix and Marilou Emboy inherited a 222 sq.m. lot, Lot
No. 1907-A-2 covered by TCT No. T-174880, from their mother, Claudia. The
lot was originally part of a bigger property, Lot No. 1907-A, which was
partitioned into 5 different lots for Claudia and her siblings as inheritance
from their parents Carlos Padilla and Asuncion Pacres.
In 2004, the respondents were asked by their cousins, the heirs of Vicente
(Claudia's brother) to vacate the subject lot and transfer to Lot No. 1907-A-5
which was a landlocked portion without a right of way.
The respondents refused, insisting that Claudia's inheritance pertained to Lot
No. 1907-A-2. Shortly thereafter, the respondents received a demand letter
from counsel of the petitioner, requiring them to vacate the said lot on the
information that petitioner had already purchased the said lot from the
respondent's relatives on Feb. 12, 2004.
Respondents refused and went on to file a complaint for nullification of the
partition and for the issuance of new TCTs covering the heir's respective
portions of Lot No. 1907-A after examining the records pertaining to the
subject lot and uncovering possible anomalies like forged signatures and
alterations in the execution of a series of deeds of partition relative to the
same lot.
The petitioner filed a complaint for unlawful detainer against respondents on
Dec. 8, 2004 before the MTCC alleging that she bought the subject lot from
Remedios, Moreno, Veronica and Dionesia, the registered owners thereof and
the persons who allowed the respondents to occupy the same by mere
tolerance.
The MTCC upheld respondent's claims in its 2006 decision and ordered the
respondents to vacate the subject lot and remove at their expence all the
improvements they had built thereon.
The RTC affirmed the MTCC ruling.
Through a petition for review filed before the CA, respondents argued that
they have been occupying the subject lot in the concept of owners for several
decades while petitioner was buyer in bad faith for having purchased the

property despite the notice of lis pendens clearly annotated on the subject
lot's title.
The respondents insisted that the Heirs of Vicente, who had allegedly sold the
subject lot to petitioner, had never physically occupied the same. Hence,
there was no basis at all for petitioner's claim that the respondents'
possession of the subject lot was by mere tolerance of the alleged owners.
Respondents also discovered a duly notarized document showing that Vicente
and his spouse, Dionesoa, had waived their hereditary rights to Lot No. 1907A when he used the same as a collateral in obtaining a loan from PNB. The
loan was paid for by Carlos and Asuncion.
Based on this discoveries, the Heirs of Vicente did not have the rights over
the subject lot to convey to petitioner. Respondents also averred that
petitioner's complaint lacked a cause of action because the certification to file
an action was issued in the name of James Tan Suarez (petitioner's brother),
who had no real rights or interests over the subject lot. Also, no demand to
vacate was made upon the respondents after the execution of the deed of
sale (April 1, 2004), which served as petitioner's primary basis for her claim
to the property. The absence of such demand rendered the complaint fatally
defective, as the date of its service should be the reckoning point of the oneyear period within which the suit can be filed.

Issues
1.

Whether or not Carmencita's comlaint againts the respondents had

sufficiently alleged and proven a cause of action for unlawful detainer.
2.
Whether or not the pendency of the respondents' petition for
nullification of partition of Lot No. 1907-A and for the issuance of new
certificates of title can abate Carmencita's ejectment suit.
Held:
1. Carmencita had not amply alleged and proven that all the requisites
for unlawful detainer are present in the case at bar. Without a
doubt, the registered owner of real property is entitled to its
possession. However, the owner cannot simply wrest possession
thereof from whoever is in actual occupation of the property. To
recover possession, he must resort to the proper judicial remedy
and, once he chooses what action to file, he is required to satisfy
the conditions necessary for such action to prosper.
In a complaint for unlawful detainer, the following key jurisdictional facts must be
alleged and sufficiently established:chanRoblesvirtualLawlibrary
(1) initially, possession of property by the defendant was by contract with or by
tolerance of the plaintiff;
(2) eventually, such possession became illegal upon notice by plaintiff to
defendant of the termination of the latters right of possession;
(3) thereafter, the defendant remained in possession of the property and deprived
the plaintiff of the enjoyment thereof; and

(4) within one year from the last demand on defendant to vacate the property, the
plaintiff instituted the complaint for ejectment. 40
In the case at bar, the first requisite mentioned above is markedly absent.
Carmencita failed to clearly allege and prove how and when the respondents
entered the subject lot and constructed a house upon it. 41 Carmencita was likewise
conspicuously silent about the details on who specifically permitted the respondents
to occupy the lot, and how and when such tolerance came about. 42 Instead,
Carmencita cavalierly formulated a legal conclusion, sans factual substantiation,
that (a) the respondents initial occupation of the subject lot was lawful by virtue of
tolerance by the registered owners, and (b) the respondents became deforciants
unlawfully withholding the subject lots possession after Carmencita, as purchaser
and new registered owner, had demanded for the former to vacate the property. 43 It
is worth noting that the absence of the first requisite assumes even more
importance in the light of the respondents claim that for decades, they have been
occupying the subject lot as owners thereof.
2. As an exception to the general rule, the respondents petition for
nullification of the partition of Lot No. 1907-A can abate Carmencitas suit for
unlawful detainer. Carmencitas complaint for unlawful detainer is anchored
upon the proposition that the respondents have been in possession of the
subject lot by mere tolerance of the owners. The respondents, on the other
hand, raise the defense of ownership of the subject lot and point to the
pendency of Civil Case No. CEB-30548, a petition for nullification of the
partition of Lot No. 1907-A, in which Carmencita and the Heirs of Vicente
were impleaded as parties. Further, should Carmencitas complaint be
granted, the respondents house, which has been standing in the subject lot
for decades, would be subject to demolition. The foregoing circumstances,
thus, justify the exclusion of the instant petition from the purview of the
general rule.