Cruzado v.

Bustos

Case:

• An appeal from the judgment of CFI Pampanga allowing declaring defendant Bustos as the
rightful owner of the property in question.

• Bustos and Escaler who has said to be detaining such land, refused to deliver the possession
thereof to plaintiff and refused to recognize his ownership of the same.

Facts:

• Agapito Cruzado was a poor man living in Pampanga, he had a job in court but was still not
enough to support his family. He aspired to hold the office of procurador in the CFI of
Pampanga but he was unable to give the required bond, an indispensable condition for his
appointment.

• Since Cruzado was friends with Bustos, a rich woman in their place. He begged the latter to
simulate a mortgage deed of a certain property and have it executed in court in his favor only
to pose that he has real property to enable him to qualify to such position of procurador. In
truth, the said mortagage was a front and fraudulent but was effected by making a pretended
contract which bore the appearance of truth.

• It is unquestionable that the contract of sale was perfect and binding upon both contracting
parties since their names both appear in that instrument to have agreed upon the thing sold.
But it is also undeniable that the said contract was not consummated. 1.) Cruzado did not pay
the purchase price of P2,200 2.) he never took possession of the land apparently sold in the
said deed. All that the vendee did was to pledge the land as a security for the faithful
discharge of the duties of his office.

• Santiago Cruzado, the son, brought an action for recovery of possession, founded on the right
transmitted to him by his father at his death – a right arising from the said simulated deed of
sale of the land in question.

Issue:

• W/N the said deed of sale was simulated, not with the intent to defraud 3rd persons, but for the
sole purpose of making it appear that Agapito Cruzado has real property?

• W/N rights of transmission acquired by Santiago Cruzado from the death of his father,
pertaining to the said land in contest is valid and without defect?

Ruling:

• Under the law, the contract of purchase and sale, as consensual, is perfected by consent as to
the price and the thing and is consummated by the reciprocal delivery of the one and the
other. Full ownership of the thing sold being conveyed to the vendee, from which moment the
right of action derived from this right may be exercised. – the record discloses that there was
no payment made by Cruzado to Bustos, thus, rendering the contract not to be consummated.

• Art 1164 states that, a creditor has a right to the fruits of the time the obligation to deliver it
arise. However, he shall not acquire a property right thereto until it has been delivered to him.
• Besides the failure to pay the purchase price, neither the vendee nor his heirs, had at any time
taken possession of the land. Seven witnesses attest to the fact, Bustos and her husband while
still living, continued to possess the said land supposedly sold to Agapito Cruzado and
cultivated it, as she had done long before the sale of September 1875 to September 1891, the
date of complaint by Santiago Cruzado.

• Consequently, at the death of Agapito, he could not have transmitted to the Santiago as his
successor any greater right than a personal right to exact fulfillment of a contract, as plaintiff
was not the owner of the said land, he could not validly register it. This fulfillment of a right
has already prescribed since, under the law, prescription towards real property shall be 30
years. In the case at bar, the action to recover took 34 years to bring it to court, thus has
already prescribed.

• Petition is denied.