3.

SOUTH CITY HOMES V REPUBLIC

GR NO: 76564
MAY 25,1990
By: MJBB
Topic: Prescription
Plaintiff-Appellant (Petitioner): South City Homes Inc
Defendant-Appellees(Respondent) : RP and CA
Ponente: Cruz,J
RECIT-READY: Petitioner owns two lots surrounding a strip of land. He claimed ownership on the basis of
prescription. SC ruled that his possession was far too short of the required prescriptive period
for acquisition of immovable property.

DOCTRINE: — The prescriptive period required for acquisition of immovable property is ten years if the
possession is in good faith and thirty years if in bad faith, or if the land is public.

FACTS:
 The subject of this dispute is a strip of land between two lots owned by the petitioner
 South City Homes, Inc now identified as Lot No. 5005.
 Lots 2381 and 2386-A (two lots bordering the Lot 5005) were acquired by the petitioner in 1977 and 1981 respectively.
 Petitioner argues that Lot 5005 should be registered in its because it had acquired the
property by prescription through uninterrupted possession thereof in concept of owner, by
itself and its predecessors-in-interest, for more than forty years.
 Respondent Republic argues that subject land cannot be subjected to prescription because
petitioner had not established the requisite possession of the lot, as to manner and length,
to justify judicial confirmation of title.
 Trial Court ruled in favor of petitioner and registration of lot under petitioner’s name was ordered.
 CA reversed.

ISSUE:
 W/N the petitioner had validly acquired the lot in question through prescription—NO.

HELD/RATIO:
 The petitioner presented only two witnesses whose testimony regarding its supposed possession of Lot No. 5005 is
essentially hearsay and inherently inadequate.
 According to the testimony, there was an irrigation canal constructed on the strip of land in question.
 After the cadastral survey, the canal gradually disappeared by the filling up of dirt and silt, until such time that no one
could notice any more a canal, such that the same was taken possession of by both the owners of Lot 2381 and 2386.
 This testimony falls short of establishing the manner and length of possession required by law to vest prescriptive title
in the petitioner to Lot No. 5005.
 For one thing, the claim of adverse ownership to the strip of land was not exclusive but shared by predecessors-in-
interest of the petitioner.
 For another the length of possession claimed by the petitioner is not sufficient to vest prescriptive title in it. Tacking
of possession allowed only when there is a privity of contract or relationship between the previous and present
possessors.
 In the absence of such privity, the possession of the new occupant should be counted only from the time it actually
began and cannot be lengthened by connecting it with the possession of the former possessors.
 Petitioner’s possession should begin from 1981 when it acquired the two adjacent lots and occupied as well the lot
in question thinking it to be part of the other two.
 Petitioner’s possession of the land for less than 3 years was far too short of the prescriptive period required for
acquisition of immovable property, which is ten years if the possession is in good faith and thirty years if in bad faith
or if the land is public.

RULING:
 Petition Denied. Respondents WON