JOSE SANTA ANA, JR. and LOURDES STO. DOMINGO, petitioners, vs. ROSA HERNANDEZ, respondent.

G.R. No. L-16394      December 17, 1966

FACTS:

Petitioners owned a 115,850 square meter parcel of land to which they sold 2 separate portions to the respondent.

Petitioners caused the preparation of a subdivision plan in the said property which was approved by the Director of Lands. Respondent however, did not conform with the said plan and executed a subdivision plan of her own, which was also approved by the Directors of Lands.

The petitioners filed a suit against the respondent for occupying an excess of 17,000 square meters from what she had purchased. Respondent however, alleges that it is part of the land she bought.

Trial Court ruled in favor of petitioner.

CA, reversed, on the ground that the two parcels of land sold to appellant (i.e., appellee herein, Rosa Hernandez) were identified by the conspicuous boundaries.

ISSUE:

Whether or not the lands sold were identified by conspicuous boundaries.

HELD:

The Court of Appeals concluded by applying to the case Article 1542 of the new Civil Code:

In the sale of real estate, made for a lump sum and not at the rate of a certain sum for a unit of measure or number, there shall be no increase or decrease of the price, although there be greater or less area or number than that stated in the contract.

The same rule shall be applied when two or more immovables are sold for a single price; but if, besides mentioning the boundaries, which is indispensable in every conveyance of real estate, its area or number should be designated in the contract, the vendor shall be bound to deliver all that is included within said boundaries, even when it exceeds the area or number specified in the contract; and, should he not be able to do so, he shall suffer a reduction in the price, in proportion to what is lacking in the area or number, unless the contract is rescinded because the vendee does not accede to the failure to deliver what has been stipulated.

consisting in a long and continuous pilapil or dike that separated the lands in question from the rest of the property. On the basis of such findings, that can not be questioned at this stage, for reasons already shown, it is unquestionable that the sale made was of a definite and identified tract, a corpus certum, that obligated the vendors to deliver to the buyer all the land within the boundaries, irrespective of whether its real area should be greater or smaller than what is recited in the deed (Goyena vs. Tambunting, 1 Phil. 490; Teran vs. Villanueva, 56 Phil. 677; Azarraga vs. Gay, 52 Phil. 599; Mondragon vs. Santos, 87 Phil. 471). And this is particularly true where, as in the case now before this Court, the area given is qualified to be approximate only ("humigit kumulang", i.e., more or less Rec. on App., p. 22).