LAW ON SUCCESSION | LOCSIN VS. CA, G.R. NO. 89783, FEBRUARY 19, 1992

LOCSIN VS. CA,

G.R. NO. 89783, FEBRUARY 19, 1992

 

TOPIC/DOCTRINE

The rights to a person's succession are transmitted from the moment of his death, and do not vest in his heirs until such time.

 

FACTS

The late Getulio Locsin had three children named Mariano, Julian and Magdalena, all surnamed Locsin. He owned extensive residential and agricultural properties in the provinces of Albay and Sorsogon. After his death, his estate was divided among his three (3) children.

Those that Mariano inherited from his father, Getulio Locsin, were surveyed cadastrally and registered in the name of "Mariano Locsin, married to Catalina Jaucian.'' Mariano Locsin executed a Last Will and Testament instituting his wife, Catalina, as the sole and universal heir of all his properties. Don Mariano relied on Doña Catalina to carry out the terms of their compact, hence, nine (9) years after his death, as if in obedience to his voice from the grave, and fully cognizant that she was also advancing in years, Doña Catalina began transferring, by sale, donation or assignment, Don Mariano's as well as her own, properties to their respective nephews and nieces.

In 1989, or six (6) years after Doña Catalina's demise, some of her Jaucian nephews and nieces who had already received their legacies and hereditary shares from her estate, filed action in the Regional Trial Court of Legaspi City (Branch VIII, Civil Case No. 7152) to recover the properties which she had conveyed to the Locsins during her lifetime, alleging that the conveyances were inofficious, without consideration, and intended solely to circumvent the laws on succession. 

 

ISSUE

Whether the court ruled that the trial court and the Court of Appeals erred in declaring the private respondents, nephews and nieces of Doña Catalina J. Vda. de Locsin, entitled to inherit the properties which she had already disposed of more than ten (10) years before her death.

 

RULING

Yes.

The court ruled that the rights to a person's succession are transmitted from the moment of his death, and do not vest in his heirs until such time

Here, the court ruled that the trial court and the Court of Appeals erred in declaring the private respondents, nephews and nieces of Doña Catalina J. Vda. de Locsin, entitled to inherit the properties which she had already disposed of more than ten (10) years before her death. For those properties did not form part of her hereditary estate, i.e., "the property and transmissible rights and obligations existing at the time of (the decedent's) death and those which have accrued thereto since the opening of the succession."  Property which Doña Catalina had transferred or conveyed to other persons during her lifetime no longer formed part of her estate at the time of her death to which her heirs may lay claim. Had she died intestate, only the property that remained in her estate at the time of her death devolved to her legal heirs; and even if those transfers were, one and all, treated as donations, the right arising under certain circumstances to impugn and compel the reduction or revocation of a decedent's gifts inter vivos does not inure to the respondents since neither they nor the donees are compulsory (or forced) heirs. Apart from the foregoing considerations, the trial court and the Court of Appeals erred in not dismissing this action for annulment and reconveyance on the ground of prescription. Commenced decades after the transactions had been consummated, and six (6) years after Doña Catalina's death, it prescribed four (4) years after the subject transactions were recorded in the Registry of Property,28 whether considered an action based on fraud, or one to redress an injury to the rights of the plaintiffs. The private respondents may not feign ignorance of said transactions because the registration of the deeds was constructive notice thereof to them and the whole world.







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