GR 178902; (April, 2010) (Digest)
G.R. No. 178902 ; April 21, 2010
MANUEL O. FUENTES and LETICIA L. FUENTES, Petitioners, vs. CONRADO G. ROCA, ANNABELLE R. JOSON, ROSE MARIE R. CRISTOBAL and PILAR MALCAMPO, Respondents.
FACTS
Tarciano Roca, owner of a lot, entered into an agreement to sell it to spouses Manuel and Leticia Fuentes. A condition was Tarciano securing his estranged wife Rosario’s consent. Atty. Romulo Plagata procured an affidavit of consent allegedly signed by Rosario. Upon this, a deed of absolute sale was executed in 1989, and a new title was issued to the Fuentes spouses, who built on the lot. Tarciano and Rosario died in 1990. In 1997, their children (the Rocas) filed an action for annulment of sale, claiming Rosario’s signature was forged, rendering the sale void for lack of spousal consent. The Fuentes spouses defended the consent’s validity and argued prescription.
ISSUE
The core issues were: (1) whether the sale was void due to forgery of the wife’s consent; (2) whether the action to annul had prescribed; and (3) the applicable property regime and legal consequences.
RULING
The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the trial court’s dismissal. The legal logic proceeded as follows. First, the property, acquired during Tarciano and Rosario’s marriage (1950), was governed by the Civil Code’s conjugal partnership regime. Under Article 166, the husband’s alienation of conjugal real property without the wife’s consent is not void but merely voidable. The action for annulment prescribes in ten years from the transaction’s date. The Rocas, as heirs, filed the action in 1997, within ten years of the 1989 sale; thus, prescription did not bar the action.
Second, on the merits, the Rocas failed to prove forgery by clear and convincing evidence. While the spouses were estranged, this did not conclusively prove forgery. The Court found Atty. Plagata’s testimony credible despite the defective notarization (the jurat indicated notarization in Zamboanga, not Manila where he claimed she signed). The variance in signatures noted by the Rocas’ expert was not definitive, as the Fuentes spouses’ expert reached the opposite conclusion. The burden of proof was on the Rocas, and they did not discharge it. Consequently, the sale, supported by valid spousal consent, remained valid. Since the sale was upheld, the ancillary issues regarding reimbursement and builders’ rights became moot. The Court emphasized that the defective notarization did not invalidate the consent itself, which was substantively given.