249 SCRA 323

FACTS:

Private respondent Laguna Agro-industrial Coconut Cooperative, Inc. a family corporation organized by the heirs of the deceased spouses Honorio Sumaya and Crispina Orlanda, was the plaintiff in an action to quiet title over a parcel of unregistered coconut land in Bo. Dita. Liliw, Laguna file in the RTC, br.XXVII, Laguna against herein private resposndent and docketed as civil case no.SC-1367. The complaint in said action alleged basically that the land in question had been purchased by the Sumaya spouses Laguna’s predecessors for P800.00 from Consuelo Vda. De Balantakbo the mother of the petitioner Luis Balantakbo and Sancho Balantakbo, the sale being evidenced by the deed executed by Consuelo on December 13, 1955 and that some 20 years later, or on March 8, 1975, the seller heirs, intruded into the land and harvested the coconut found therein. In their answer the Balantakbo denied knowledge of the sale and alleged that the land claimed sued for was different from that owned and held from them.

ISSUE:

In case of conflict between the area described and the actual bounderies of the land, which should prevail?

RULING:

The court ruled that where land is sold for a lump sum and not so much per unit of measure or number, the bounderies of the land stated in the contract determine the effects and scope of the sale, not the area thereof. The vendors are obligated to deliver all the land included within the bounderies, regardless of whether the real area should be greater or smaller than that recited in the deed. This is particularly true where the area is described as ‘’humigit kumulang” that is more or less.

In the present case, it is clear that the disputed parcel of unregistered land was sufficiently identified and described. The second partial stipulation of facts submitted by the parties sufficiently demonstrates that the parties lay claim to one and the same parcel of land, that descended to Raul Balantakbo from his father Jose Balantakbo, Sr. later inherited by Consuelo Joaquin Vda de Balnatakbo from the same Raul, her son and then sold by Consuelo to the spouses Honorio Sumaya and Crispina Orlanda. Uniform descriptions of the subject lot were made in the deed of sale executed by Consuelo Joaquin Vda. de Balantakbo in favor of herein private respondent in 1955, in the affidavit of self-adjudication executed by Consuelo on November 3, 1952, and in the extrajudicial partition of December 10, 1945.

*Case digest by Jan Robert M. Corre, JD-4, Andres Bonifacio Law School, SY 2019-2020