Fuentes vs. Roca
G.R. No. 178902, [April 21, 2010]
FACTS:
Sabina Tarroza owned a land in Canelar,Zamboanga City and she sold it to her son, Tarciano T. Roca (Tarciano) under a deed of absolute sale. Six years later in 1988, Tarciano offered to sell the lot to petitioners Manuel and Leticia Fuentes (the Fuentes spouses). They met in the office of Atty. Romulo D. Plagata whom they asked to prepare the documents of sale and signed an agreement to sell that Atty. Plagata prepared. It expressly stated that the sale was to take effect in six months. Within six months, Tarciano was to clear the lot of structures and occupants and secure the consent of his estranged wife, Rosario Gabriel Roca (Rosario), to the sale.
Upon Tarciano’s compliance with these conditions, the Fuentes spouses were to take possession of the lot and pay him an additional pay besides the downpayment, depending on whether or not he succeeded in demolishing the house standing on it. If Tarciano was unable to comply with these conditions, the Fuentes spouses would become owners of the lot without any further formality and payment.
The parties left their signed agreement with Atty. Plagata who then worked on the other requirements of the sale. According to the lawyer, he went to see Rosario in one of his trips to Manila and had her sign an affidavit of consent. After 6 months, a new title was issued in the name of the spouses who immediately constructed a building on the lot. Thereafter Tarciano passed away, followed by his wife Rosario who died nine months afterwards.
Eight years later in 1997, the children of Tarciano and Rosario, namely, respondents(collectively, the Rocas), filed an action for annulment of sale and re-conveyance of the land against the Fuentes spouses before the RTC.
The Rocas claimed that the sale to the spouses was void since Tarciano’s wife, Rosario, did not give her consent to it. Her signature on the affidavit of consent had been forged. They thus prayed that the property be reconveyed to them upon reimbursement of the price that the Fuentes spouses paid Tarciano.
The spouses denied the Rocas’ allegations. They presented Atty. Plagata who testified that he personally saw Rosario sign the affidavit at her residence. He admitted, however,that he notarized the document in Zamboanga City four months later. All the same, the Fuentes spouses pointed out that the claim of forgery was personal to Rosario and she alone could invoke it. Besides, the four-year prescriptive period for nullifying the sale on ground of fraud had already lapsed.
ISSUES:
1. Whether Rosario’s signature on the document of consent to her husband Tarciano’s sale of their conjugal land to the Fuentes spouses was forged?
2. Whether the Rocas’ action for the declaration of nullity of that sale to the spouses already prescribed?
3. Whether or not only Rosario, the wife whose consent was not had, could bring the action to annul that sale?
HELD:
- It was forged
- It did not prescribe
- The heirs of Rosario may bring an action to annul the sale.
RATIO:
1. The key issue in this case is whether or not Rosario’s signature on the document of consent had been forged. For, if the signature were genuine, the fact that she gave her consent to her husband’s sale of the conjugal land would render the other issues merely academic. The SC agreed with the CA that the signature was forged.
While a defective notarization will merely strip the document of its public character and reduce it to a private instrument, that falsified jurat, taken together with the marks of forgery in the signature, dooms such document as proof of Rosario’s consent to the sale of the land. That the Fuentes spouses honestly relied on the notarized affidavit as proof of Rosario’s consent does not matter. The sale is still void without an authentic consent.
2. Contrary to the ruling of the Court of Appeals, the law that applies to this case is the Family Code, not the Civil Code. Although Tarciano and Rosario got married in 1950, Tarciano sold the conjugal property to the Fuentes spouses on January 11, 1989, a few months after the Family Code took effect on August 3, 1988.
When Tarciano married Rosario, the Civil Code put in place the system of conjugal partnership of gains on their property relations. While its Article 165 made Tarciano the sole administrator of the conjugal partnership, Article 166 prohibited him from selling commonly owned real property without his wife’s consent. Still, if he sold the same without his wife’s consent, the sale is merely voidable. Article 173 gave Rosario the right to have the sale annulled during the marriage within ten years from the date of the sale. Failing in that, she or her heirs may demand, after dissolution of the marriage, only the value of the property that Tarciano fraudulently sold.
But, as already stated, the Family Code took effect on August 3, 1988. Its Chapter 4 on Conjugal Partnership of Gains expressly superseded Title VI, Book I of the Civil Code on Property Relations Between Husband and Wife. Further, the Family Code provisions were also made to apply to already existing conjugal partnerships without prejudice to vested rights.
Art. 105. x x x The provisions of this Chapter shall also apply to conjugal partnerships of gains already established between spouses before the effectivity of this Code, without prejudice to vested rights already acquired in accordance with the Civil Code or other laws, as provided in Article 256.
(n)
In contrast to Article 173 of the Civil Code, Article 124 of the Family Code does not provide a period within which the wife who gave no consent may assail her husband’s sale of the real property. It simply provides that without the other spouse’s written consent or a court order allowing the sale, the same would be void.
Under the provisions of the Civil Code governing contracts, a void or inexistent contract has no force and effect from the very beginning. And this rule applies to contracts that are declared void by positive provision of law, as in the case of a sale of conjugal property without the other spouse’s written consent. But, although a void contract has no legal effects even if no action is taken to set it aside, when any of its terms have been performed, an action to declare its inexistence is necessary to allow restitution of what has been given under it. This action, according to Article 1410 of the Civil Code does not prescribe.
Here, the Rocas filed an action against the Fuentes spouses in 1997 for annulment of sale and re-conveyance of the real property that Tarciano sold without their mother’s (his wife’s) written consent. The passage of time did not erode the right to bring such an action.
3. As stated above, that sale was void from the beginning. Consequently, the land remained the property of Tarciano and Rosario despite that sale. When the two died, they passed on the ownership of the property to their heirs,
