G.R. No. 168646, 12 January 2011

FACTS:

Petitioner DELTA (which is owned by Ricardo de Leon) is a domestic corporation engaged in the business of developing and selling real estate properties loaned from Luzon Development Bank for the express purpose of developing Delta Homes I. To secure the loan, the spouses De Leon executed in favor of the BANK a real estate mortgage (REM) on several of their properties, including Lot 4 (which is the disputed lot).

Sometime in 1997, DELTA executed a Contract to Sell with respondent Angeles Catherine Enriquez (Enriquez) over the house and lot in Lot 4 for the purchase price of P614,950.00. Enriquez made a downpayment of P114,950.00. When DELTA defaulted on its loan obligation, the BANK, instead of foreclosing the REM, agreed to a dation in payment or a dacion en pago.

The Deed of Assignment in Payment of Debt was executed on September 30, 1998 and stated that DELTA “assigns, transfers, and conveys and sets over to the assignee that real estate with the building and improvements existing thereon x x x in payment of the total obligation owing to the Bank x x x.”

Unknown to Enriquez, among the properties assigned to the BANK was the house and lot of Lot 4, which is the subject of her Contract to Sell with DELTA. The records do not bear out and the parties are silent on whether the BANK was able to transfer title to its name. It appears, however, that the dacion en pago was not annotated on the TCT of Lot 4.

ISSUES:

Whether the Contract to Sell conveys ownership;
Whether the dacion en pago extinguished the loan obligation, such that DELTA has no more obligations to the BANK;

RULING:

Mortgage contract void

DELTA violated Section 18 of PD 957 in mortgaging the properties in Delta Homes I (including Lot 4) to the BANK without prior clearance from the HLURB. This violation of Section 18 renders the mortgage executed by DELTA void. “Considering that “PD 957 aims to protect innocent subdivision lot and condominium unit buyers against fraudulent real estate practices,” we have construed Section 18 thereof as “prohibitory and acts committed contrary to it are void.”

Because of the nullity of the mortgage, neither DELTA nor the BANK could assert any right arising therefrom. The BANK’s loan of ₱8 million to DELTA has effectively become unsecured due to the nullity of the mortgage. The said loan, however, was eventually settled by the two contracting parties via a dation in payment. In the appealed Decision, the CA invalidated this dation in payment on the ground that DELTA, by previously entering into a Contract to Sell, had already conveyed its ownership over Lot 4 to Enriquez and could no longer convey the same to the BANK. This is error, prescinding from a wrong understanding of the nature of a contract to sell. Contract to sell does not transfer ownership.

Both parties are correct in arguing that the Contract to Sell executed by DELTA in favor of Enriquez did not transfer ownership over Lot 4 to Enriquez. A contract to sell is one where the prospective seller reserves the transfer of title to the prospective buyer until the happening of an event, such as full payment of the purchase price. What the seller obliges himself to do is to sell the subject property only when the entire amount of the purchase price has already been delivered to him. “In other words, the full payment of the purchase price partakes of a suspensive condition, the non-fulfillment of which prevents the obligation to sell from arising and thus, ownership is retained by the prospective seller without further remedies by the prospective buyer.” It does not, by itself, transfer ownership to the buyer.

In the instant case, there is nothing in the provisions of the contract entered into by DELTA and Enriquez that would exempt it from the general definition of a contract to sell. The terms thereof provide for the reservation of DELTA’s ownership until full payment of the purchase price; such that DELTA even reserved the right to unilaterally void the contract should Enriquez fail to pay three successive monthly amortizations.

Since the Contract to Sell did not transfer ownership of Lot 4 to Enriquez, said ownership remained with DELTA. DELTA could then validly transfer such ownership (as it did) to another person (the BANK). However, the transferee BANK is bound by the Contract to Sell and has to respect Enriquez’s rights thereunder. This is because the Contract to Sell, involving a subdivision lot, is covered and protected by PD 957. One of the protections afforded by PD 957 to buyers such as Enriquez is the right to have her contract to sell registered with the Register of Deeds in order to make it binding on third parties.

The purpose of registration is to protect the buyers from any future unscrupulous transactions involving the object of the sale or contract to sell, whether the purchase price therefor has been fully paid or not.

While DELTA, in the instant case, failed to register Enriquez’s Contract to Sell with the Register of Deeds, this failure will not prejudice Enriquez or relieve the BANK from its obligation to respect Enriquez’s Contract to Sell. Despite the non-registration, the BANK cannot be considered, under the circumstances, an innocent purchaser for value of Lot 4 when it accepted the latter as payment for DELTA’s obligation. The BANK was well aware that the assigned properties, including Lot 4, were subdivision lots and therefore within the purview of PD 957. It knew that the loaned amounts were to be used for the development of DELTA’s subdivision project, for this was indicated in the corresponding promissory notes. Under these circumstances, the BANK knew or should have known of the possibility and risk that the assigned properties were already covered by existing contracts to sell in favor of subdivision lot buyers. As observed by the Court in another case involving a bank regarding a subdivision lot that was already subject of a contract to sell with a third party:

Hence, there was a need to verify whether any part of the property was already intended to be the subject of any other contract involving buyers or potential buyers
Bound by the terms of the Contract to Sell, the BANK is obliged to respect the same and honor the payments already made by Enriquez for the purchase price of Lot 4. Thus, the BANK can only collect the balance of the purchase price from Enriquez and has the obligation, upon full payment, to deliver to Enriquez a clean title over the subject property.

A contract to sell is one where the prospective seller reserves the transfer of title to the prospective buyer until the happening of an event, such as full payment of the purchase price. What the seller obliges himself to do is to sell the subject property only when the entire amount of the purchase price has already been delivered to him. “In other words, the full payment of the purchase price partakes of a suspensive condition, the non-fulfillment of which prevents the obligation to sell from arising and thus, ownership is retained by the prospective seller without further remedies by the prospective buyer.” It does not, by itself, transfer ownership to the buyer.

The BANK then posits that, if title to Lot 4 is ordered delivered to Enriquez, DELTA has the obligation to pay the BANK the corresponding value of Lot 4. According to the BANK, the dation in payment extinguished the loan only to the extent of the value of the thing delivered. Since Lot 4 would have no value to the BANK if it will be delivered to Enriquez, DELTA would remain indebted to that extent.

*Case Digest by Radolfzell Adasa, JD – 4, Andres Bonifacio College, SY 2019 – 2020