G.R. No. 126444, December 4, 1998

FACTS:

Plaintiffs-appellees (petitioners) are the children of the late Trinidad Corvera Vda. de Quijada. Trinidad was one of the heirs of the late Pedro Corvera and inherited from the latter the two-hectare parcel of land. Trinidad Quijada together with her sisters Leonila Corvera Vda. de Sequea and Paz Corvera Cabiltes and brother Epapiadito Corvera executed a conditional deed of donation of the two-hectare parcel of land wit the condition being that the parcel of land shall be used solely and exclusively as part of the campus of the proposed provincial high school in Talacogon but Trinidad remained in possession of the parcel of land despite the donation.

On July 29, 1962, Trinidad sold one (1) hectare of the subject parcel of land to defendant-appellant Regalado Mondejar. Subsequently, Trinidad verbally sold the remaining one (1) hectare to defendant-appellant (respondent) Regalado Mondejar without the benefit of a written deed of sale and evidenced solely by receipts of payment.

In 1980, the heirs of Trinidad, who at that time was already dead, filed a complaint for forcible entry against defendant-appellant (respondent) Regalado Mondejar, which complaint was dismissed. The proposed provincial high school having failed to materialize, the Sangguniang Bayan of the municipality of Talacogon enacted a resolution reverting the two (2) hectares of land donated back to the donors.

ISSUE:

Whether or not the donated parcel of land will revert back to the original owner for not complying the resolutory condition of the construction of the school.

RULING:

Yes. In this case, that resolutory condition is the construction of the school. It has been ruled that when a person donates land to another on the condition that the latter would build upon the land a school, the condition imposed is not a condition precedent or a suspensive condition but a resolutory one. Thus, at the time of the sales made in 1962 towards 1968, the alleged seller (Trinidad) could not have sold the lots since she had earlier transferred ownership thereof by virtue of the deed of donation. Only then – when the non-fulfillment of the resolutory condition was brought to the donor’s knowledge – that ownership of the donated property reverted to the donor as provided in the automatic reversion clause of the deed of donation.

In the doctrine of resolutory condition provided under Article 1181, So long as the resolutory condition subsists and is capable of fulfillment, the donation remains effective and the donee continues to be the owner subject only to the rights of the donor or his successors-in-interest under the deed of donation.

The donor may have an inchoate interest in the donated property during the time that ownership of the land has not reverted to her. Such inchoate interest may be the subject of contracts including a contract of sale. In this case, however, what the donor sold was the land itself which she no longer owns. It would have been different if the donor-seller sold her interests over the property under the deed of donation which is subject to the possibility of reversion of ownership arising from the non-fulfillment of the resolutory condition.

 * Case digest by Prince Dave Santiago, LLB-1, Andres Bonifacio Law School, SY 2017-2018