This case has been cited 2 times or more.
|
2012-08-29 |
PEREZ, J. |
||||
| The appellate court is correct in stating that there was no settlement of the estate of Abundio. There is no showing that Lot 224 has already been partitioned despite the demise of Abundio. It has been held that an heir's right of ownership over the properties of the decedent is merely inchoate as long as the estate has not been fully settled and partitioned. This means that the impending heir has yet no absolute dominion over any specific property in the decedent's estate that could be specifically levied upon and sold at public auction. Any encumbrance of attachment over the heir's interests in the estate, therefore, remains a mere probability, and cannot summarily be satisfied without the final distribution of the properties in the estate.[27] Therefore, the public auction sale of the property covered by Tax Declaration No. 1107 is void because the subject property is still covered by the Estate of Abundio, which up to now, remains unpartitioned. Arles was not proven to be the owner of the lot under Tax Declaration No. 1107. It may not be amiss to state that a tax declaration by itself is not sufficient to prove ownership.[28] | |||||
|
2009-04-24 |
TINGA, J. |
||||
| The governing law for judicial reconstitution of titles is R.A. No. 26. Sections 2[18] and 3[19] of RA 26 enumerate the sources upon which reconstitution should issue. Section 2 refers to source documents for reconstitution of the original certificate of title while Sec. 3 refers to sources for reconstitution of transfer certificates of title. The requirements of Secs. 2 and 3 are almost identical, referring to documents from official sources which recognize the ownership of the owner and his predecessors-in-interest.[20] In Republic v. Intermediate Appellate Court,[21] the Court ruled that "any other document" in Secs. 2(f) and 3(f) of RA 26 refers to documents similar to those previously enumerated therein, that is, those mentioned in Sections (a), (b), (c), (d) and (e). The Court reiterated this ruling in Heirs of Dizon v. Hon. Discaya[22] and Republic v. El Gobierno de las Islas Filipinas.[23] The documents alluded to in Secs. 2(f) and 3(f) must be resorted to in the absence of those preceding in order. If the petitioner for reconstitution fails to show that he had, in fact, sought to secure such prior documents and failed to find them, the presentation of the succeeding documents as substitutionary evidence is proscribed.[24] | |||||