CASE DIGEST
Calalang vs Calalang
G.R. No. 184148 | June 9, 2014
Topic: Successional rights are vested only at the time of death;
Facts:
A Complaint for Annulment of Sale and Reconveyance of Property was filed with the RTC by the respondents and asserted their ownership over a certain parcel of land against the petitioners. According to the respondents, their father, Pedro Calalang contracted two marriages during his lifetime. The petitioners argue that the disputed property belonged to the conjugal partnership of the second marriage of Pedro Calalang which was issued to Pedro Calalang during the subsistence of the second marriage. On the other hand, the respondents claim that the disputed property was transferred by their maternal grandmother, Francisca Silverio, to their parents on the first marriage, Pedro Calalang and Encarnacion Silverio, during the latter’s marriage. Thus, the respondents argue that it belonged to the conjugal partnership of the first marriage of Pedro Calalang with Encarnacion Silverio.
The trial court rendered decision in favor of the respondents and held that when the first marriage was dissolved, the corresponding shares to the disputed property were acquired by the heirs of the decedent according to the laws of succession. Upon appeal from the CA, it reversed the factual findings of the trial court and held that Pedro Calalang was the sole and exclusive owner of the subject parcel of land, on the ground of insufficient evidence, to prove that the disputed property was indeed jointly acquired from the parents of Encarnacion Silverio during the first marriage.
Issue:
1. WON Pedro Calalang deprived his heirs of their respective shares over the disputed property when he alienated the same. – NO
Held:
1. It is hornbook doctrine that successional rights are vested only at the time of death. Article 777 of the New Civil Code provides that "[t]he rights to the succession are transmitted from the moment of the death of the decedent." In Butte v. Manuel Uy and Sons, Inc., we proclaimed the fundamental tenets of succession:
The principle of transmission as of the time of the predecessor's death is basic in our Civil Code, and is supported by other related articles. Thus, the capacity of the heir is determined as of the time the decedent died (Art. 1034); the legitime is to be computed as of the same moment (Art. 908), and so is the in officiousness of the donation inter vivas (Art. 771). Similarly, the legacies of credit and remission are valid only in the amount due and outstanding at the death of the testator (Art. 935), and the fruits accruing after that instant are deemed to pertain to the legatee (Art. 948).
Thus, it is only upon the death of Pedro Calalang on December 27, 1989 that his heirs acquired their respective inheritances, entitling them to their pro indiviso shares to his whole estate. At the time of the sale of the disputed property, the rights to the succession were not yet bestowed upon the heirs of Pedro Calalang. And absent clear and convincing evidence that the sale was fraudulent or not duly supported by valuable consideration (in effect an in officious donation inter vivas), the respondents have no right to question the sale of the disputed property on the ground that their father deprived them of their respective shares. Well to remember, fraud must be established by clear and convincing evidence. Mere preponderance of evidence is not even adequate to prove fraud. The Complaint for Annulment of Sale and Reconveyance of Property must therefore be dismissed.