GR 146208; (August, 2004) (Digest)
G.R. No. 146208 ; August 12, 2004
HEIRS OF BALDOMERO ROXAS y HERMANOS, represented by EDUARDO GONZALES, petitioners, vs. HON. ALFONSO S. GARCIA, Presiding Judge, Branch 18, RTC, Tagaytay City; REPUBLIC PLANTERS BANK; & SOLID BUILDERS, INC., respondents.
FACTS
The heirs of Baldomero Roxas filed an application for registration of two parcels of land in Tagaytay City (Roxas property) under Psu-113427. The land registration court granted the application in 1963. However, the Land Registration Commission later reported it could not issue a decree due to overlapping claims. It was established that the Roxas property was entirely within the perimeter of a parcel previously surveyed under Psu-136750 for Martin Landicho, which had already been decreed and titled in 1953. This Landicho property was subsequently transferred, ultimately to respondent Republic Planters Bank.
The land registration court, in 1991, consequently set aside its 1963 decision and dismissed the registration case, without prejudice to the heirs filing a proper action for annulment and reconveyance. The heirs then filed a complaint for cancellation of title against Republic Planters Bank. The respondent bank and an intervenor, Solid Builders, Inc., moved for summary judgment. The Regional Trial Court granted the motion and dismissed the complaint, a decision affirmed by the Court of Appeals.
ISSUE
Whether the Regional Trial Court correctly granted the motion for summary judgment and dismissed the complaint for cancellation of title.
RULING
Yes. The Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal. The core legal logic is that a Torrens title, once issued, becomes incontrovertible after one year from the decree of registration. The remedy of a landowner whose property was wrongfully or erroneously registered in another’s name is not to attack the title collaterally or to seek its cancellation directly after that one-year period. Instead, the proper recourse is to file an ordinary action for reconveyance, based on the implied or constructive trust created by law in favor of the true owner.
In this case, the Landicho title (OCT No. 157) was issued in 1953. The heirs of Roxas filed their complaint for cancellation only in 1991, nearly four decades later. Their action was therefore not the correct remedy available to them. Their claim of ownership, based on an earlier survey plan, could not prevail over a registered title that had long become indefeasible. The trial court correctly ruled that there was no genuine issue of material fact requiring a trial, as the legal remedy bar was clear. The heirs’ proper course was an action for reconveyance, which they could have pursued following the 1991 order of the land registration court, but they instead erroneously pursued cancellation.