Maestrado v CA
G.R. No. 133345. March 9, 2000
These consolidated cases involve Lot No. 5872 and the rights of the contending
parties thereto. The lot has an area of 57.601 sq.m. and is registered in the name of the
deceased spouses Ramon and Rosario Chaves. The spouses died intestate in 1943
and 1944, respectively. They were survived by six heirs. To settle the estate of said
spouse, Angel Chaves, one of the heirs, initiated intestate proceedings and was
appointed administrator of said estates in the process. An inventory of the estates was
made and thereafter, the heirs agreed on a project partition. The court approved the
partition but a copy of said decision was missing. Nonetheless, the estate was divided
among the heirs. Subsequently, in 1956, the partition case effected and the respective
shares of the heirs were delivered to them.
Significantly, Lot No.5872 was not included in a number of documents. Parties
offered different explanations as to the omission of said lot in the documents. Petitioners
maintain the existence of an oral partition agreement entered into by all heirs after the
death of their parents. To set things right, petitioners then prepared a quitclaim to
confirm the alleged oral agreement. Respondents dispute voluntariness of their consent
to the quitclaims.
Six years after the execution of the quitclaims, respondents discovered that
indeed subject lot was still a common property in the name of the deceased spouses.
Eventually, an action for Quieting of Title was filed by petitioners on December 22,
1983.
The trial court considered Lot No. 5872 as still a common property and therefore
must be divided into six parts, there being six heirs. Petitioners appealed to the Court of
Appeals which sustained the decision of the trial court.
ISSUE: Whether or not the action for quieting of title had already prescribed.
Lot No. 5872 is no longer common property of the heirs of the deceased spouses
Ramon and Rosario Chaves. Petitioners’ ownership over said lot was acquired by
reason of the oral partition agreed upon by the deceased spouses’ heirs sometime
before 1956. That oral agreement was confirmed by the notarized quitclaims executed
by the said heirs on August 16, 1977 and September 8, 1977. There was indeed an oral
agreement of partition entered into by the heirs/parties. A possessor of real estate
property is presumed to have title thereto unless the adverse claimant establishes a
better right. In the instant case it is the petitioners, being the possessors of Lot No.
5872, who have established a superior right thereto by virtue of the oral partition which
was also confirmed by the notarized quitclaims of the heirs. Partition is the separation,division and assignment of a thing held in common among those to whom it may belong. It may be effected extra-judicially by the heirs themselves through a public instrument filed before the register of deeds. However, as between the parties, a public instrument is neither constitutive nor an inherent element of a contract of partition. Since registration serves as constructive notice to third persons, an oral partition by the heirs is valid if no creditors are affected. Moreover, even the requirement of a written memorandum under the statute of frauds does not apply to partitions effected by the heirs where no creditors are involved considering that such transaction is not a conveyance of property resulting in change of ownership but merely a designation and segregation of that part which belongs to each heir.
