LAW ON SALES | FUDOT VS. CATTLEYA LAND, INC., 533 SCRA 350, SEPTEMBER 13, 2007

FUDOT VS. CATTLEYA LAND, INC., 

533 SCRA 350, SEPTEMBER 13, 2007

 

TOPIC/DOCTRINE

Art. 1544 of the Civil Code, which provides the rule on double sale, applies only to a situation where the same property is validly sold to different vendees.

 

FACTS

Sometime in July 1992, Cattleya Land, Inc., after the former finding no defect on the titles, purchased the nine lots from spouses Troadio and Asuncion Tecson through a Deed of Absolute Sale. The Deed of Conditional Sale and the Deed of Absolute Sale were registered with the Register of Deeds on 06 November 1992 and 04 October 1993, respectively.

Titles to six (6) of the nine (9) lots were issued, but the Register of Deeds refused to issue titles to the remaining three (3) lots, because the titles covering the same were still unaccounted for.

On 23 January 1995, petitioner presented for registration before the Register of Deeds the owner’s copy of the title of the subject property, together with the deed of sale purportedly executed by the Tecsons in favor of petitioner on 19 December 1986. On the following day, respondent sent a letter of protest/opposition to petitioner’s application.

Asuncion filed a complaint-inintervention, claiming that she never signed any deed of sale covering any part of their conjugal property in favor of petitioner. She averred that her signature in petitioner’s deed of sale was forged thus, said deed should be declared null and void. The trial court concluded that the purported signature of Asuncion in the deed of sale in favor of petitioner was forged, thereby rendering the sale void. The appellate court dismissed her appeal.

 

ISSUE

Whether there is a valid sale in the instant case.

 

RULING

Negative.

The court held that the Civil Law provision on double sale is not applicable where there is only one valid sale, the previous sale having been found to be fraudulent. Likewise, in Espiritu and Apostol v. Valerio, 9 SCRA 761 (1963), where the same parcel of land was purportedly sold to two different parties, the Court held that despite the fact that one deed of sale was registered ahead of the other, Art. 1544 of the Civil Code will not apply where said deed is found to be a forgery, the result of this being that the right of the other vendee should prevail.

Here, the court held that there is no double sale to speak of. Art. 1544 of the Civil Code, which provides the rule on double sale, applies only to a situation where the same property is validly sold to different vendees. In this case, there is only one sale to advert to, that between the spouses Tecson and respondent.https://www.instagram.com/lawyalstudent/

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