RUFINA YATCO vs. JESUALDO GANA - G.R. No. L-3876

RUFINA YATCO vs. JESUALDO GANA

G.R. No. L-3876

March 27, 1909

The plaintiff, as heir to her father, Isidro Yatco, among other properties, received the lands in controversy. In consequence of proceedings in execution brought in by the late Yatco against the spouses Eugenio Andal and Gregoria Faciolco, the said lands were attached and as no bidders appeared at the public auction, they were adjudicated in payment to the execution creditor by an order of the lower court. The corresponding instrument of sale was not executed nor was the execution creditor put in possession of the property until 1902, in compliance with an order issued upon request of the said creditor. The credit of the execution creditor, Yatco, is not recorded in the registry of property, nor were the attached properties charged in the payment of any debts, or entered in the register. The defendant debtor, Andal, had informed the officer who was sent to enforce the order of attachment, that the property now in question had already been sold by him to the defendant, Jesualdo Gana, prior to the date of the attachment. Gana, acquired the said lands from Eugenio Andal by means of a public instrument of purchase and sale. The said instrument was lost during the late insurrection, but appears on the index of the notarial acts executed in La Laguna, on file at the office of the clerk of the Supreme Court. Since 1894, the defendant has been in possession of the said properties and has held them as owner until the present day and defendant was not required by the sheriff to deliver the possession of the lands to the representative of the late Yatco.

ISSUE:

Whether or not the purchasers had acquired the ownership and dominion over the purchased thing in accordance with article 1473 of the Civil Code.

HELD:

Yes. The main point is the legitimacy of the sale made by Eugenio Andal to Jesualdo Gana, and the fact that this contract was executed even before the lands that were sold had been judicially attached. The trial court has not committed any error by declaring that Eugenio Andal could validly sell them to Jesualdo Gana and the circumstance that they were subject to the credit of Isidro Yatco against the spouses Andal and Faciolco was not an obstacle to the validity of the sale because they were not subject to the security of the credit as by a real right formally attached to the said lands, but by the mere delivery of the title deeds that the debtors made to the creditors.

There was no bad faith on the part of the purchaser even though it be supposed such existed on the part of the vendor, because it has not been shown in any manner that the purchaser was aware of any impediment to the vendor's lawfully effecting the sale of a thing that belonged to him.