This case has been cited 3 times or more.
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2009-09-30 |
LEONARDO-DE CASTRO, J. |
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| Petitioner had a month-to-month lease contract with respondent, which expired when he failed to pay the rentals. When petitioner opted to stay after the expiration of the lease contract, he had become an unlawful occupant of the place. Thus, he could not avail of the benefits of P.D. No. 1517, "because its intended beneficiaries are legitimate tenants, not usurpers or occupants by tolerance."[31] Besides, petitioner's possession over the property is obviously under litigation, thus, his insistence that he was a "tenant" within the contemplation of P.D. No. 1517 was nothing more than a ludicrous attempt to bring himself into the scope of the decree. | |||||
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2009-08-14 |
BRION, J. |
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| Stated differently, those whose possession or occupation of land is devoid of any legal authority or those whose contracts of lease are already terminated, or had already expired, or whose possession is under litigation are not considered "tenants" under the decree. Conversely, a legitimate tenant is one who is not a usurper or an occupant by tolerance.[25] The petitioners-defendants whose occupation has been merely by the owner's tolerance obviously fall outside the coverage of PD 1517 and cannot seek its protection. | |||||
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2009-05-08 |
BRION, J. |
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| It appears undisputed that the petitioner possesses requisites 2 and 3 - he built his home on the leased property and has lived there for more than 10 years. The inclusion of the land in the APD and the ULRZ was not raised as an issue before the appellate court.[11] The bone of contention that the lower courts emphasized is whether he is a legitimate tenant as defined by the Act, as amended by P.D. No. 2016. A legitimate tenant is one who is not a usurper or an occupant by tolerance.[12] Sections 3(f) of the Act, as amended by P.D. No. 2016, provides:SEC. 3(f). Tenant refers to the rightful occupant of land and its structures, but does not include those whose presence on the land is merely tolerated and without the benefit of contract, those who enter the land by force or deceit, or those whose possession is under litigation. The lower courts unanimously held that the petitioner was not a legitimate tenant, as he had failed to pay his rentals for the months of May to August, 1994. We find this conclusion questionable, as mere failure to pay rent does not make the lessee's possession of the premises unlawful, thereby denying him the status of being a tenant. What should assume materiality here is that the petitioner is not a usurper or an occupant by tolerance, but one who believed that he had a claim to possession based on the right of first refusal. If at all, the more appropriate reason would have been the pendency of an ejectment case against the petitioner at the time he filed his complaint for annulment of sale. Even this reason, however, is not a clear cut reason for barring him from filing his annulment of sale case; his status as a tenant involves factual and legal questions touching on, and intertwined with, the merits of the annulment of sale case. In other words, it is a legitimate issue that could have been raised in the case and cannot be an outright bar to the filing of the case. We find it obvious that, at that point, the petitioner resorted to the complaint for annulment of sale as a counter-step, taken at another venue and for another legal reason bearing on, but not directly related to, the issues in the ejectment case he was facing. | |||||