Heirs of Velasquez v. Court of Appeals
G.R. No. 126996. February 15, 2000
Spouses Leoncia de Guzman and Cornelio Aquino died intestate sometime in 1945 and 1947, respectively and were childless. Leoncia de Guzman was survived by her sisters Anatalia de Guzman (mother of the plaintiffs) and Tranquilina deGuzman (grandmother of the defendants). During the existence of their marriage, spouses Aquino were able to acquire real properties.
The plaintiffs alleged that Leoncia de Guzman, before her death, had a talk with
the plaintiffs’ mother, Anatalia de Guzman, with plaintiff Santiago Meneses and
Tranquilina de Guzman and his son Cesario Velasquez in attendance; that in the
conference Leoncia told Anatalia de Guzman, Tranquilina de Guzman and Cesario
Velaquez that the documents of donation and partition which she and her husband
earlier executed were not signed by them as it was not their intention to give away all
the properties to Cesario Velasquez because Anatalia de Guzman who is one of her
sisters had several children to support; Cesario Velasquez together with his mother
allegedly promised to divide the properties equally and to give the plaintiffs one-half
(1/2) thereof; that they are entitled to ½ of each of all the properties in question being
the children of Anatalia de Guzman, full blood sister of Leoncia de Guzman.
Plaintiffs alsio claim that after the death of Leoncia, defendants forcibly took
possession of all the properties and despite plaintiffs’ repeated demands for partition,
defendants refused. Plaintiffs pray for the nullity of any documents covering the
properties in question since they do not bear the genuine signatures of the Aquino
spouses, to order the partition of the properties between plaintiffs and defendants in
equal shares and to order the defendants to render an accounting of the produce of the
land in question from the time defendants forcibly took possession until partition shall
have been effected.
ISSUE: Should the action for partition be sustained?
No. In actions for partition, the court cannot properly issue an order to divide the
property unless it first makes a determination as to the existence of co-ownership. The
court must initially settle the issue of ownership, the first stage in an action for partition.
Needless to state, an action for partition will not lie if the claimant has no rightful interest over the subject property. In fact, Section 1 of Rule 69 requires the party filing the action to state in his complaint the “nature and the extent of his title” to the real estate. Until and unless the issue of ownership is definitely resolved, it would be premature to effect a partition of the properties.
In this case, the properties sought to be partitioned by private respondents have
already been delivered to petitioners and therefore no longer part of the hereditary
estate which could be partitioned. After finding that no co-ownership exists between private respondents and petitioners, the court found no reason to discuss the other arguments raised by the petitioners in support of their petition.
