1.

Definitions

Land Title
It is the evidence of the right of the owner or the extent of his interest, and by which
means he can maintain control, and as a rule, assert right to exclusive possession and
enjoyment of the property.

Deed
A written instrument executed in accordance with law, wherein a person grants or
conveys to another certain land, tenements or hereditaments.

Torrens title
A Torrens title is the certificate of ownership issued under the Torrens system of
registration by the government, thru the Register of Deeds naming and declaring the owner
in fee simple of the real property described therein, free from all liens and encumbrances
except such as may be expressly noted thereon or otherwise reserved by law.

Fee Simple
An absolute title; it is an absolute estate in perpetuity. It is where title to land is
conferred upon a man and his heirs absolutely and without any limitation imposed upon the
estate.

Lis pendens
Latin term for pending suit or litigation. It indicates the control which a court has,
during the pendency of an action, over the property involved therein.

2. Registration of title / Recording of evidence of title

Registration
The State provides a public record of the
title itself upon which a prospective
purchaser or someone else interested may
rely.
Recording
Provide for the recording of deeds of
conveyance and other instruments, without
guaranteeing the title, leaving to the
prospective purchasers or other persons
interested to examine the instruments in the
records and formulate their own conclusions
as to their effect on the title.
3. Modes of acquiring land titles
(a) by public grant; (e) by private grant or voluntary transfer;
(b) by adverse possession; (f) by involuntary alienation;
(c) by accretion; (g) by descent or devise; and
(d) by reclamation; (h) by emancipation patent.

4. Rights of Co-owners
Under the co-ownership, the ownership of an undivided thing or right belongs to
different persons. During the existence of the co-ownership, no individual can claim title to
any definite portion of the community property until the partition thereof; and prior to the
partition, all that the co-owner has is an ideal or abstract quota or proportionate share in
the entire land or thing.

5. Purpose of the Torrens System

The real purpose of the Torrens system of registration is to quiet title to land; to put
a stop forever to any question of the legality of the registration, in the certificate, or which
may arise subsequent thereto.

6. Procedure of Registration under PD 1529

No new certificate of title shall be entered or issued upon any transfer of registered
land which does not divest the land in fee simple from the owners or from someone of the
registered owners. All interests in registered land less than an estate in fee sample are
registered by filing with the Register of Deeds the instrument creating or transfer- ring or
claiming such interests, and this official makes a brief memorandum thereof upon the
certificate of title, signed by him. A similar memorandum is also made on the owner’s
duplicate. In like manner, the cancellation or extinguishment of such interests is registered.

7. Effect of Failure to Answer

If no person appears and answers within the time allowed, the court may at once
upon motion of the applicant, no reason to the contrary appearing, order a general default
to be recorded and the application to be taken for confessed.

8. Effect of Withdrawal of Application of Land Registration

In a land registration case, when the applicant withdraws her application with the
consent of the court, and only the Director of Lands and the private oppositors are left, it
does not mean, that the withdrawal terminates the proceedings.
9. Dismissal with prejudice / Dismissal without prejudice

With prejudice Without prejudice

It is a conclusive judgment and the principle It is is not a conclusive judgment and the
of res judicata applies. principle of res judicata does not apply.
The applicant may not file another The applicant may file another application
application anymore, unless it is based upon for registration of the same property when
a ground different from that alleged in the he improves his position.
previous application.

10. Jurisdiction of RTC under PD 1529

RTCs shall have exclusive jurisdiction over all applications original for registration
of title, with power to hear and determine all questions arising upon such applications or
petition.

11. Requisites of Registrable Title

(a) the land is alienable public land; and
(b) his open, continuous, exclusive and notorious possession and occupation of the same are
either since time immemorial or for the period prescribed in the Public Land Act.

12. Decree / Judgment

Decree Judgment
Decree of registration as issued by the The court decision or judgment of dismissal.
Commissioner of Land Registration (now
Administrator of the Land Registration
Authority).

A judgment may always be considered a decree, not all decrees are judgments.

13. Statutory liens affecting title

a. Liens, claims or rights arising or existing under the laws and Constitution of the
Philippines which are not by law required to appear of record in the Registry of Deeds in
order to be valid against subsequent purchasers or encumbrancers of record.
b. Unpaid real estates taxes levied and assessed within two years immediately preceding
the acquisition of any right over the land by an innocent purchaser for value, without
prejudice to the right of the government to collect taxes payable before that period from the
delinquent taxpayer alone.
c. Any public highway or private way established or recognized by law, or any government
irrigation canal or lateral thereof, if the certificate of title does not state that the boundaries
of such highway or irrigation canal or lateral thereof have been determined.
d. Any disposition of the property or limitation on the use thereof by virtue of, or pursuant
to, Presidential Decree No. 27 or any other law or regulations on agrarian reform such as
Republic Act No. 6657 known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

14. When decree of registration becomes final

The adjudication of land in a registration or cadastral case does not become final
and incontrovertible until the expiration of one year after the entry of the final decree.

15. Remedies available to the aggrieved party

1) new trial; (4) relief from judgment;
(2) appeal; (5) reconveyance; and
(3) review of decree of registration; (6) recovery of damages.

16. Who has the right to possess owner’s duplicate copy

The owner’s duplicate certificate shall be issued by the Register of Deeds in the
name of the person in whose favor the land was decreed, and said duplicate shall be
delivered to the registered owner.

17. Rules to be applied when land is registered in the name of 2 persons

If there is only one common original certificate of title from which the two transfer
certificates came from, the transfer certificate issued at an earlier date along the line should
prevail, barring anomaly in the process of registration. But if there are two original
certificates, then whichever of the two transfer certificates traceable to the earlier original
certificate should prevail.

18. Nature and purpose of adverse claim

The claim asserted must affect the title or be adverse to the title of the registered
owner in order to be duly annotated as an adverse claim to the land against the registered
owner. The annotation of an adverse claim is a measure designed to protect the interest of a
person over a piece of real property where the registration of such interest or right is not
otherwise provided for by the Land Registration Act, and serves as a notice and warning to
third parties dealing with said property that someone is claiming an interest on the same or
a better right than the registered owner.
19. Assurance Fund
The act of registration is the operative act, and the transfer and vesting of the title is
effected, not by the execution of an instrument of transfer, not by the act of the owner of the
land, not by the transfer of a valid title by the transferor, but by the State acting through its
officer the Registrar; and because it transfers and vests the title by the issue of a certificate
which is declared by statute to be conclusive evidence of an indefeasible title to the land, the
State creates a fund for the compensation of such person as may be injured by the divesting
and cutting off of rights and interests under this statutory declaration

20. Consultas and appeals to land registration authority

To pursue an appeal by consulta from the Register of Deeds to the Commissioner of
Land Registration, the party in interest is allowed a period of the five days from receipt of
notice of the denial of registration, provided the documents involved have not been
withdrawn from the Registry and the prescribed consulta fee paid, in accordance with the
provision of Section 117 of Presidential Decree No. 1529.

21. Tomas Claudio Memorial College vs. CA

Even if the co-owner sells the whole property as his, the sale will affect only his
share but not those of the co-owners who did not consent to the sale. Under Article 493,
NCC, the sale or other disposition affects only the seller’s pro indiviso share and the
transferee gets only what corresponds to his grantor’s share in the partition of the property
owned in common. Since a co-owner is entitled to sell his undivided share, a sale of the
entire property by one co-owner is not null and void. However, only the rights of the co-
owner/seller are transferred, thereby making the buyer a co-owner of the property.

22. Director of Lands vs. CA

The Supreme Court held that land registration proceedings are actions in rem. It is
not necessary to give personal notice to the owners or claimants of the land sought to be
registered, to vest the court with authority over the res. Instead, it is the publication of
notice of the application for registration which serves to apprise the whole world that such
petition has been filed and whosoever is minded to oppose it, may do so within 30 days
before the date set by the court for hearing the petition. It is the publication of such notice
that brings in the whole world as a party and vests the court with jurisdiction to hear the
case.

23. Benin vs. Tuason

“Under Section 23 of Act 496, the registration court may allow, or order, an
amendment of the application for registration when it appears to the court that the
amendment is necessary and proper. Under Section 24 of the same Act, the court may at any
time order an application to be amended by striking out one or more parcels of land by
severance of the application. The amendment may be made in the application or in the
survey plan, or in both since the application and survey plan go together. If the amendment
consists in the inclusion in the application for registration of an area or parcel of land not
previously included in the original application, as published, a new publication of the
amended application must be made. The purpose of the new publication is to give notice to
all persons concerned regarding the amended application. Without a new publication the
registration court cannot acquire jurisdiction over the area or parcel of land that is added to
the area covered by the original publication, and the decision of the registration would be a
nullity insofar as the decision concerns the newly included land. The reason is because
without a new publication, the law is infringed with respect to the publicity that is required
in registration proceedings, and third parties who have not had the opportunity to present
their claim might be prejudiced in their rights because of failure of notice. But if the
amendment consists in the exclusion of a portion of the area covered by the original
application and the original plan as previously published, a new publication is not
necessary. In the latter case, the jurisdiction of the court over the remaining area is not
affected by the failure of a new application.”

24. Matute vs. Government of the Philippines

The dismissal of the action at the request of the plaintiff, even without prejudice to
his right to reinstate the same, becomes a final decision after the expiration of the time
within which an appeal may have been taken, and the cause cannot be reinstated without
new notices and new citations to all of the persons interested. Such interpretation of Section
37 of Act No. 496 may work hardship upon the petitioner in a particular case. However, it is
the safer rule to fol- low even at the cost of an occasional hardship, to adhere to the right
principle.
From the foregoing doctrine, it can be inferred that if a retrial which in a sense is
also a form of reinstatement of the case should be sought before the order for dismissal has
become final or before the lapse of the period within which to appeal, the requisite of
publica- tion of new notices and new citations to all persons interested may be dispensed
with.

25. Paraiso et al vs. Camon

Where the property sold by a widow was in fact conjugal in nature because it was
her husband who initiated its purchase on the installment basis and had paid several
installments on account up to the time of his death in 1946, but thereafter the widow
continued with the installments and paid the price in full in 1951 when the subdivision
company executed a final deed of sale in her favor, describing her civil status as widow, the
subsequent purchaser who acquired the property from said widow without actual
knowledge of the history of the previous transaction and who relied on the face of the
certificate of title did acquire valid title thereto even as against the husband’s heir.