G.R. No. 120827 ; February 15, 2007
Life Homes Realty Corporation, Petitioner, vs. Court of Appeals and Marvi Development, Inc., Respondents.

FACTS

Petitioner Life Homes Realty Corporation and respondent Marvi Development, Inc. are registered owners of adjacent subdivided properties in San Mateo, Rizal. In 1979, petitioner discovered that respondent’s property, based on its survey plan, encroached upon its own lots by approximately 10,365 square meters. The parties agreed to a joint verification survey by the Bureau of Lands to resolve the conflict. The resulting Venezuela Report found that the relocation survey for petitioner’s property, which adopted the established cadastral survey system, was correct. It further found that respondent’s earlier survey plan, Psu-177242, had been found defective and amended during the cadastral survey, increasing its area. The report recommended that respondent’s property be re-relocated using specific corners from petitioner’s plans as reference points.
Petitioner demanded respondent vacate the encroached area. Upon refusal, petitioner filed a complaint for recovery of possession and damages with the Regional Trial Court (RTC). The RTC dismissed the complaint, a decision affirmed by the Court of Appeals (CA). The CA ruled that an ordinary action for recovery of possession was improper, as the core issue required a correction of the technical description in respondent’s title, which is a relief obtainable only in a special proceeding under the Property Registration Decree.

ISSUE

Whether an ordinary civil action for recovery of possession is the proper remedy to resolve a boundary dispute arising from conflicting survey plans where a government report recommends the re-plotting of one property based on cadastral survey data.

RULING

No, an ordinary civil action for recovery of possession is not the proper remedy. The Supreme Court affirmed the CA’s dismissal of the complaint. The legal logic hinges on the nature of the relief sought and the implications of the Venezuela Report. The report did not merely identify an encroachment based on possession; it fundamentally found that respondent’s original survey plan (Psu-177242) was defective and had been amended during the cadastral survey. This amendment altered the technical description of the property.
Consequently, implementing the report’s recommendation to re-plot respondent’s boundaries would necessarily require a correction or alteration of the technical description in its Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT). Under Section 108 of Presidential Decree No. 1529 (the Property Registration Decree), such an act of correcting a certificate of title is not a function of an ordinary civil action. It is a relief that must be sought through a special proceeding filed in the proper Regional Trial Court, acting as a land registration court. The Court emphasized that the objective of aligning the property’s physical boundaries with the corrected cadastral data is inseparable from the need to officially reflect that correction in the title itself. Therefore, petitioner’s chosen remedy was incorrect, and the proper course was a proceeding under the Property Registration Decree to secure the necessary court order for the title correction.