It was earlier held that the action to annul a deed of extra-judicial settlement upon the ground of fraud may be filed within four years from the discovery of the fraud. Such discovery is deemed to have taken place when said instrument was filed with the Regis-ter of Deeds and new certificates of title were issued in the name of respondents [t]he registration of the deed of extra-judicial settlement constitute constructive notice to the whole
The doctrine in v. De Guzman was cited in Balbin v.
Medalla, where it was held that an action for reconveyance of real property on the ground of fraud must be filed within four (4) years from the discovery of the fraud. Such discovery is deemed to have taken place from the issuance of the certificates of
Respondents have not taken any step to have the deed of extra-judicial partition corrected, if it is true as they claim it is, that what
had been sold to their father is 3/4 share of Lot 86 instead of 1/4 share. It is now both too late and bereft of basis to ask for the cancellation of TCT No. T-4569. Inaction and neglect of a party to assert a right can convert a valid claim into a stale An
Phil. 2.
v. De Guzman, 11 SCRA 154 and 157 (1964), citing Diaz v.
11229, March 29, 1958, 103 Phil. 261; v. May 14, 1958, 103 Phil. 666; J.M. Tuazon & Co., Inc. v. J a n u a r y Phil.
4 2 , 4 82; Lopez v. J a n u a r y 3 1 , 1964, 10 SCRA 167.
v. Medalla, 108 SCRA 666.
v. Ong Chua, 116 SCRA 7 3 2
74 SUMMARY S E T T L E M E N T OF ESTATES 3-4
estoppel by laches arises from the negligence or omission to assert a right within a reasonable time, warranting a presumption that the party entitled to assert it either has abandoned it or declined to assert
The Supreme Court, however, in its 1987 decision v.
clarified:
It must be remembered that before August 30, 1950, the date of the of the new Civil Code, the old Code of Civil Procedure (Act No. 190) governed prescription. It pro-vided:
Other civil actions; How Limited. — Civil actions other than for the recovery of real property can only be brought within the following periods after the right of action accrues:
3. Within four years: An action for relief on the ground of fraud, but the right of action in such case shall not be deemed to have accrued until the discovery of the fraud;
In contrast, under the present Civil Code, we find that just as an implied or constructive trust is an offspring of the
law (Art. 1456, Civil Code), so is the corresponding obligation to reconvey the property and the title thereto in favor of the true owner. In this context, and prescription, Article
1144 of the Civil Code is applicable.
Article 1144. The following actions must be brought within ten years from the time the right of action accrues:
Upon a written contract;
(2) Upon an obligation created by law;
of v. of Cebu, Branch, 119 SCRA 392 (1982);
v. Court of Appeals, 120 687 (1983); Guerrero v. Court of Appeals, 126 SCRA 109 (1983); De Castro v. Tan, 129 SCRA 85 (1984); v. Patcho, 132 SCRA 540 (1984); Burgos v. Chief of of the 133 800 (1984); v.
137 SCRA 541 (1985); Tejido v. 138 SCRA 78 (1985); Sps. v.
J a n . 611.
September SCRA 396.
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(3) Upon a judgment.
An action for reconveyance based on an implied or con-structive trust must perforce prescribe in ten years and not otherwise. A long line of decisions of this Court, and of very recent vintage at that, illustrates this rule. Undoubtedly, it is now well-settled that an action for reconveyance based on an implied or constructive trust prescribes in ten years from the issuance of the title over the property. * * * The only discordant note, it seems, is Balbin v. Medalla, which states that the prescriptive period for a reconveyance action is four years. However, this variance can be explained by the errone-ous reliance on Gerona v. De Guzman. But in Gerona, the fraud was discovered on June hence Section 43(3) of Act No.
190, was applied, the new Civil Code not coming into effect until August as mentioned earlier. It must be stressed, at this juncture, that Article 1144 and Article are new provisions. They have no counterparts in the old Civil Code or in the old Code of Civil Procedure, the latter being then resorted to as legal basis of the four-year prescriptive period for an action for reconveyance of title of real property acquired under false pretenses.
Separate Opinion:
In a separate opinion PADILLA, concurring and dis-senting, concurred in the result. He did not however agree with the sweeping proposition that all actions for reconveyance, based upon the ground of fraud, prescribed in ten (10) years:
A distinction should be made. Fraud, or it should be recalled, is of two (2) kinds: dolo causante, or that deter-mines or is the essential cause of the consent; and dolo
or that which does not have such decisive influence and by itself cannot cause the giving of consent, but refers only to some particular or accident of obligation. Civil Code
the Philippines, 1956 Vol. IV, p. 463).
If the fraud committed was but an incident to the regis-tration of land (dolo incidente), as in the case at bar, then I would agree that the action for reconveyance prescribes in ten
Rule 74 SUMMARY S E T T L E M E N T OF ESTATES 3-4
(10) years. But, where it is necessary to annul a deed or title before relief could be granted, as when fraud, which vitiates consent (dolo causante), is alleged to have been committed in the execution of the deed which became the basis for the regis-tration of a parcel of land, the action for reconveyance should be filed within four (4) years from the discovery of the fraud.
In Rone v. and Baquiring (91 Phil. 250, 251), the Court held that an action for the recovery of title to parcel of registered land, where it was alleged that the defendants or one of them, through fraud, deceit and breach of faith, suc-ceeded in getting the original certificate of title from one of the plaintiffs, and then, again, with use of fraud, deceit, breach of faith, and other machinations, succeeded in having the plain-tiffs execute a deed of sale of the lot in question in favor of the defendants, and, thereafter, obtained a certificate of title in their names: "It may be that the recovery of title and posses-sion of the lot was the ultimate objective of plaintiffs, but to attain that goal, they must need first travel over the road of relief on the ground of fraud."
While the majority seems to have abandoned Gerona v.
De Guzman limiting the period of prescription to annul an extrajudicial settlement on the ground of fraud, the separate opinion would seem to make a distinction between an action to annul the extrajudicial partition based on fraud, from an ac-tion for reconveyance based on an implied or constructive trust.
The first prescribes in four years from the discovery of the fraud (Rone v. Claro, supra; see also Article 1391, Civil Code), the latter prescribes in ten years.
Action For Reconveyance is Ten Years
The Almerol doctrine was reiterated in Marquez v. Court of holding that:
* * * the Court of Appeals' reliance on Gerona v. de
is misplaced. In v. Bagumbaran, we ruled that the doctrine laid down in the earlier Gerona case was based on the
No. December 300 SCRA 653.
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old Code of Civil Procedure which provided that an action based on fraud prescribes within four years from the date of discov-ery. However, with the of the present Civil Code on August 30, 1950, the provisions on prescriptive periods are now governed by Articles 1139 to 1155. Since implied or con-structive trusts are obligations created by law, then the pre-scriptive period to enforce the same prescribes in ten years.
(Article 1149, Civil Code)
The same doctrine was reiterated in Caro v. Court of and in Alfredo v. correcting the erroneous ap-plication of the four-year prescriptive period in an action for reconveyance based on implied trust which should be ten years from the date of the registration of the deed or the issuance of the title, citing the foregoing case of Caro v. Court of Appeals.
When Ten-Year Reckoned
The general rule is an action for reconveyance based on implied or constructive trust prescribes in ten years from the alleged fraudulent registration or date of issuance of the cer-tificate of title over the property. Registration of real property is a constructive notice to all persons and, thus, the four-year period should be counted
EXCEPTION
The same case, however, held that prescriptive period for the filing of the action for reconveyance based on implied trust should be reckoned from the actual discovery of the fraud where the registra-tion where there was bad faith in securing the certificates of titles and, is therefore a holder of the said certificate in bad faith. The
title does furnish a shield for
No. December SCRA 4 0 1 . No. 144225, J u n e 17, 2 0 0 3 , 4 0 4 SCRA 145.
Service Insurance S y s t e m v. Santiago, G.R. No. 155206, October 5 6 3 , citing Philippine Economic Zone Authority v. Fernandez, 158 455 (1988).
Service Insurance S y s t e m v. Santiago, supra, citing v. Court of Appeals, 157 SCRA 4 5 5 (1988) and v. Court of Appeals, 3 6 1 SCRA 173
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