[ G.R. No. 13442. December 20, 1919 ] 40 Phil. 614
[ G.R. No. 13442. December 20, 1919 ]
NARCISA SANCHEZ, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. ROQUE RAMOS, DEFENDANT AND APPELLEE. D E C I S I O N
AVANCEÑA, J.:
This is an action for the recovery of a piece of land described in the second paragraph of the complaint. This land is in the defendant’s possession and formerly belonged to Ciriaco Fernandez. On July 1, 1910, Ciriaco Fernandez sold it to .the spouses Marcelino Gomez and Narcisa Sanchez under pacto de retro for the period of one year. This sale was executed in a public instrument. Marcelino Gomez and Narcisa Sanchez never took material possession of the land. The period for repurchase elapsed without the vendor making use of it. On July 3, 1912, Ciriaco Fernandez again sold the same land, by means of a private document, to Roque Ramos who immediately took material possession thereof. By applying article 1473 of the Civil Code, the trial court declared preferable the sale executed to the defendant and absolved him from the complaint. By the same article applied by the lower court, we are of the opinion that the sale executed to the plaintiff must be declared preferable. This article provides:
“ART. 1473. If the same thing should have been sold to different vendees, the ownership shall be transferred to the person who may have first taken possession thereof in good faith, if it should bepersonal property. “Should it be real property, it shall belong to the purchaser who first recorded it in the registry of deeds. “Should it not be recorded, the property shall belong to the person who first took possession of it in good faith, or, in default of possession, to the person who presents the oldest title, provided there is good faith.”
Not one of the documents of sale in this case having been recorded, preference must be decided in favor of the vendee who first, took possession. To what kind of possession does this article refer? Possession is acquired by the material occupancy of the thing or right possessed, or by the fact that the latter is subjected to the action of our will, or by the appropriate acts and legal formalities established for acquiring possession (art. 438, Civil Code.). By a simple reasoning, it appears that, because the law does not mention to which of these kinds of possession the article refers, it must be understood that it refers to all of these kinds. The proposition that this article, according to its letter, refers to the material possession and excludes the symbolic does not seem to be founded upon a solid ground. It is said that the law, in the gradation of the causes of preference between several sales, fixes, first, possession and then the date of the title and, as a public instrument is a title, it is claimed that the inference is that the law has deliberately intended to place the symbolic possession, which the execution of the public document implies, after the material possession. This argument, however, would only be forceful if the title, mentioned by this article, includes public instruments, and this would only be true if public instruments are not included in the idea of possession spoken of in said article. In other words, the strength of the argument rests in that this possession is precisely the material and does not include the symbolic. Consequently, the argument is deficient for it is begging the same question, because if this possession includes the symbolic, which is acquired by the execution of a public instrument, it should be understood that the title, mentioned by the law as the next cause of preference, does not include public instruments. Furthermore, our interpretation of this article 1473 is more in consonance with the principles of justice. The execution of a public instrument is equivalent to the delivery of the realty sold (art. 1462, Civil Code) and its possession by the vendee (art. 438). Under these conditions the sale is considered consummated and completely transfers to the vendee all of the vendor’s rights of ownership including his real right over the thing. The vendee by virtue of this sale has acquired everything and nothing, absolutely nothing, is left to the vendor From this moment the vendor is a stranger to the thing sold like any other who has never been its owner. As the thing is considered delivered, the vendor has no longer the obligation of even delivering it. If he continues taking material possession of it, it is simply on account of vendee’s tolerance and, in this sense, his possession is vendor’s possession. And if the latter should have to ask him for the delivery of this material possession,‘it would not be by virtue of the sale, because this has been already consummated and has produced all its effects, but by virtue of the vendee’s ownership, in the same way as said vendee could require of another person although same were not the vendor. This means that after the sale of a realty by means of a public instrument, the vendor, who resells it to another, does not transmit anything to the second vendee and if the latter, by virtue of this second sale, takes material possession of the thing, he does it as mere detainer, and it would be unjust to protect this detention against the rights to the thing lawfully acquired by the first vendee. We are of the opinion that the possession mentioned in article 1473 (for determining who has better right when the same piece of land has been sold several times by the same vendor) includes not only the material but also the symbolic possession, which is acquired by the execution of a public instrument. From the foregoing it follows that the plaintiff was the first to take possession of the land, and consequently the sale executed to him is preferable. Wherefore, the judgment appealed from is hereby reversed; the plaintiff is declared owner of the land in question; and the defendant is ordered to deliver the possession of the land to the plaintiff. No special findings as to costs. So ordered. Arellano, C.J., Torres, Johnson, Araullo, and Malcolm, JJ., concur.