Case Digest:TRISTAN LOPEZ as Attorney-in-Fact of LETICIA and CECILIA LOPEZ v. LETICIA R. FAJARDO

TRISTAN LOPEZ as Attorney-in-Fact of LETICIA and CECILIA LOPEZ v. LETICIA R. FAJARDO

468 SCRA 664 (2005)

A month-to-month lease under the New Civil Code is a lease with a definite period and expires after the last day of any given thirty-day period, upon proper demand and notice by the lessor to vacate.

Leonor Sobrepena and her kins (the Sobrepenas) were the owners of a 2-door apartment at 1326 and 1328 Tomas Mapua St., Sta. Cruz, Manila. The apartment at No. 1328 has for so many years been occupied under a verbal contract of lease Leticia Fajardo (Fajardo). The Sobrepenas sold such property to Leticia and Cecilia Lopez (the Lopez sisters).

The Lopez sisters filed before the Metropolitan Trial Court of Manila (MeTC) a complaint for ejectment with damages, against Fajardo on the ground of failure to pay her monthly rentals from May 1999 to February 2000. This was settled after Fajardo paid P35,000.00 representing rental in arrears and current rental for June 2000.

Fajardo again failed and refused to pay her July and August 2000 rentals, prompting Lopez, et al. to send her a letter informing her that they have decided to terminate their monthly lease contract effective midnight of August 31, 2000, the very time their oral lease contract shall expire and they are giving her a grace period of one (1) month within which to vacate the premises. Fajardo then remitted to Lopez, et al. a check in the amount of P30,000 representing payment of the rentals in arrears for July 2000, August 2000 and September 2000, and advance rentals for October 2000 up to July 2001 but it was not accepted by Lopez, et al.

Having no settlement, Lopez, et al. filed a new complaint for ejectment and damages against Fajardo before the MeTC wherein it held that Lopez, et al. had sufficiently established their cause of action arising from the expiration of the lease contract, the lease being terminable at the end of any month after due notice, and failure of Fajardo to pay the stipulated rental which are the grounds for ejectment under Article 1673 of the Civil Code. Such was appealed by Fajardo to the Regional Trial Court of Manila (RTC) which affirmed in toto the decision of MeTC.

Fajardo appealed to the Court of Appeals which held that a minimum of 3-month arrearages is required to justify a lessor to eject a lessee and held that Fajardo had incurred back rentals of only 2 months when Lopez, et al. sent her the letter of demand hence, ―the filing of the ejectment case was premature.‖

ISSUE:

Whether or not Lopez, et al. has a valid ground for the ejectment of Fajardo

HELD:

A month-to-month lease under Article 1687 is a lease with a definite period and expires after the last day of any given thirty-day period, upon proper demand and notice by the lessor to vacate.
Under the Rent Control Law, the prohibition against the ejectment of a lessee by his lessor is not absolute. There are exceptions expressly provided by law, which include the expiration of a lease for a definite period. In the instant case, it was noted that the rentals were paid on a month-to-month basis. Thus, the lease could be validly terminated at the end of any given month upon prior notice to that effect on the lessee. After all, when the rentals are paid monthly, the lease is deemed to be for a definite period, i.e., it expires at the end of every month.

When Lopez, et al. then sent the August 18, 2000 letter to respondent informing her that the lease would be terminated effective at the end of the same month, it was well within his rights.

In fine, it was error for the appellate court to ignore the fact that by the earlier-quoted August 18, 2000 letter of which was annexed as Annex “F” to the complaint, they had notified Fajardo of the expiration of the lease contract, another legal ground for judicial ejectment.