G.R. No. 122249 ; January 29, 2004
REYNALDO, TELESFORO, REMEDIOS, ALFREDO and BELEN, all surnamed AGUIRRE, VICENTA, HORACIO and FLORENCIO, all surnamed MAGTIBAY and LEONILA, CECILIA, ANTONIO, and VENANCIO, all surnamed MEDRANO, and ZOSIMA QUIAMBAO, Petitioners, vs. COURT OF APPEALS and ELIAS, JOSE, ARSENIA and ROGELIO, all surnamed BALITAAN, and MARIA ROSALES, Respondents.

FACTS

Leocadio Medrano owned a parcel of land acquired during his first marriage to Emiliana Narito. Upon his death in 1945, the property, being conjugal, was inherited by his children from both his first marriage (Gertrudes, Isabel, Placido, and Sixto) and his second marriage (Venancio, Leonila, Antonio, and Cecilia). Sixto managed the property. Without the knowledge of his co-heirs, Sixto executed an Affidavit of Transfer in 1953 falsely representing himself as the sole heir. Using this document, he obtained a tax declaration in his name and subsequently sold portions of the land to Maria Bacong in 1957 and to Tiburcio Balitaan in 1959.
After Sixto’s death in 1974, the other heirs discovered the sales and demanded reconveyance. Upon refusal, they filed an action for nullity of documents and partition. The Bacong heirs settled via compromise agreement. The trial proceeded against the heirs of Tiburcio Balitaan (respondents), who defended their purchase by claiming they were innocent purchasers for value and that the action was barred by prescription and laches.

ISSUE

Whether the action for reconveyance filed by the co-heirs against the buyers from a fraudulent co-owner has prescribed.

RULING

The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the trial court’s decision, declaring the sale to respondents void only with respect to the shares of the other co-owners. The Court held that the action was imprescriptible. The property was held in a state of co-ownership from Leocadio’s death in 1945. An action for reconveyance based on an implied or constructive trust, arising from fraud, prescribes in ten years from the issuance of the title or registration that created the trust. Here, no Torrens title was issued; Sixto only obtained a tax declaration, which is not a mode of acquiring ownership. The ten-year prescriptive period did not begin to run. Furthermore, as long as the co-ownership is expressly or impliedly recognized, no prescription runs between co-owners. The heirs’ cause of action accrued only upon the repudiation of the co-ownership, which occurred when they discovered the sales after Sixto’s death in 1974. The filing of the complaint in 1978 was well within the prescriptive period. The respondents, as buyers from a co-owner, merely stepped into Sixto’s shoes and acquired only his undivided share in the co-owned property.