G.R. No.

76351 October 29, 1993

Aguilar vs Court of Appeals

Article 494 of the Civil Code provides that no co-owner shall be obliged to remain in the co-ownership, and that each
co-owner may demand at any time partition of the thing owned in common insofar as his share is concerned.
Corollary to this rule, Art. 498 of the Code states that whenever the thing is essentially, indivisible and the co-owners
cannot agree that it be, allotted to one of them who shall indemnify the others, it shall be sold and its proceeds
accordingly distributed. This is resorted to (1) when the right to partition the property is invoked by any of the co-
owners but because of the nature of the property it cannot be subdivided or its subdivision would prejudice the
interests of the co-owners, and (b) the co-owners are not in agreement as to who among them shall be allotted or
assigned the entire property upon proper reimbursement of the co-owners. In one case, this Court upheld the order
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of the trial court directing the holding of a public sale of the properties owned in common pursuant to Art. 498 of the
Civil Code.

G.R. No. 124262 October 12, 1999

Tomas Claudio Memorial College, Inc. vs Court of Appeals

On the issue of prescription, we have ruled that even if a co-owner sells the whole property as his, the sale will affect
only his own share but not those of the other co-owners who did not consent to the sale. Under Article 493 of the
Civil Code, the sale or other disposition affects only the seller's share pro indiviso, and the transferee gets only what
corresponds to his grantor's share in the partition of the property owned in common. Since a co-owner is entitled to
sell his undivided share, a sale of the entire property by one co-owner without the consent of the other co-owners is
not null and void. However, only the rights of the co-owner/seller are transferred, thereby making the buyer a co-
owner of the property. The proper action in a case like this, is not for the nullification of the sale, or for the recovery of
possession of the property owned in common from the third person, but for division or partition of the entire property if
it continued to remain in the possession of the co-owners who possessed and administered it. Such partition should
result in segregating the portion belonging to the seller and its delivery to the buyer.1âwphi1.nêt
Article 361 of the Civil Code in the original Spanish text uses the word "indemnizacion." However one may speculate
as to the true meaning of the term "indemnizacion" whether correctly translated as "compensation” or "indemnity," the
amount of the "indemnizacion" is the amount of the expenditures mentioned in Articles 453 and 454 of the Civil Code,
which in the present case is the amount of the necessary and useful expenditures incurred by the defendant.
Necessary expenses have been variously described by the Spanish commentators as those made for the
preservation of the thing; as those without which the thing would deteriorate or be lost; as those that augment the
income of the things upon which they are expanded. Among the necessary expenditures are those incurred for
cultivation, production, upkeep, etc.
Here, the plaintiffs have chosen to take the improvements introduced on the land and are disposed to pay the amount
of the necessary and useful expenses incurred by the defendant. Inasmuch as the retentionist, who is not exactly a
possessor in good faith within the meaning of the law, seeks to be reimbursed for the necessary and useful
expenditures, it is only just that he should account to the owners of the estate for any rents, fruits, or crops he has
gathered from it.