Rivera v. Velasquez

[CA No. 53163-R. October 19, 1979.] * RUFINA RIVERA, ET AL. , plaintiffs-appellees , vs . BARTIMEO M. VELASQUEZ, ET AL. , defendants-appellants . Gonzales & Chua Law Offices for defendant and appellant Bartimeo M . Velasquez Santiago F . Alidio for plaintiffs and appellees SYLLABUS TAX SALE; NOTICE TO DECEASED REGISTERED OWNER, WHEN DEEMED A NOTICE TO HIS HEIRS. While a deceased person no longer possesses any civil personality (Art. 42, Civil Code), a notice of tax delinquency sale sent to the registered owner, who is already dead, with the death still not known by the proper government agency, is actually a notice to the heirs of said owner, particularly where the address in the notice to the deceased registered owner is the same address as that of the heirs, for the transfer of ownership to the heirs by succession takes place automatically, by operation of law, from the moment of death (Art. 777, Civil Code). D E C I S I O N PARAS , J p : For alleged failure to pay the realty taxes thereon in Quezon City, a parcel of land (located partly in Quezon City), and partly in Caloocan City), registered under the name of Feliciano Rivera and covered by Transfer Certificate of Title No. 18883 was sold in an auction sale conducted by the City Treasurer of Quezon City to Bartimeo M. Velasquez. The one year period within which to redeem the property having expired without redemption having been made, a Final Deed of Sale conveying said land was issued in favor of purchaser Velasquez. The present case arose from a complaint for the ANNULMENT of said tax sale, filed by plaintiffs (successors-in-interest of the original registered owner Feliciano Rivera) against defendant-purchaser Bartimeo M. Velasquez and defendant City Treasurer of Quezon City, on the theory that while generally all formalities for the tax sale had been duly complied with, still the tax sale was defective firstly because the greater portion of the lot is located not in Quezon City but in Caloocan City, secondly because all the realty taxes had been properly paid, again not in Quezon City but in Caloocan City, and thirdly because all notice of the tax delinquency and the tax sale had been sent to Feliciano Rivera, who while still the registered owner had nevertheless died in 1937 or nearly thirty years before such alleged tax delinquency occurred. The plaintiffs-appellees won in a judgment the dispositive portion of which reads: cdll WHEREFORE, this Court hereby renders judgment as follows. (1) declaring the tax sale made in favor of co-defendant Bartimeo M. Velasquez by defendant City Treasurer of Quezon City of Lot No. 95, Piedad Estate, on December 4, 1964, null and void and of no legal effect; (2) ordering the Register of Deeds of Quezon City to return Transfer Certificate of Title Nos. 1174 and 4334 to the Register of Deeds of Caloocan City; (3) ordering the Register of Deeds of Caloocan City to cancel the annotations of the Treasurer's Certificate of Sale and Final Deed of Sale at the back of Transfer Certificate of Title Nos. 1174, 1175, and 4334, upon payment of the prescribed fees; and LibLex (4). authorizing the Clerk of Court to return to the plaintiffs the deposit in the amount of P1,140.00, deposited by them for the purpose of complying with the provisions of Sec. 64, Republic Act No. 537. There is no pronouncement as to the payment of damages and attorney's fees. (Decision, pp. 128-129, Record on Appeal) The defendant Bartimeo M. Velasquez (hereinafter referred to as appellant) appealed to this Court interposing the following assignment of errors: I The lower court erred in holding that defendant, Bartimeo M. Vecy and public auction sale addressed to the deceased Feliciano Rivera, were no notice at all and that as a consequence thereof, the sale of lot 95 was vitiated. II The lower court erred in holding that the plaintiffs are not guilty of laches. III The lower court erred in holding that defendant, Bartimeo M Velasquez, acted in bad faith in purchasing the subject' property. The facts referred to in the first paragraph of this Decision are UNDISPUTED. Appellant however insists that the notices sent to a dead person were no notices at all and therefore the tax sale was vitiated, that by their alleged long inaction, the plaintiffs-appellees are guilty of laches, and that he (appellant) was in good faith in purchasing the subject property. After a serious study of the evidence and arguments presented in this case, We have come to the conclusion that the judgment of the trial court must in effect be affirmed because, without touching on the assigned alleged errors, it is undisputed that in the notice of the tax sale, the following important sentence appears: "In case of sale of real estate on which taxes and penalties due had been deposited with this office, or paid through another office but not transferred to the City Treasurer of Quezon City , such sale shall be subject to revocation upon presentation of evidence that all taxes due have been paid." It is a fact that all the real property taxes had been paid in Caloocan City (and this is so because while the land is registered in Quezon City, it is ALSO registered in Caloocan City, inasmuch as both cities have portions of the lot), although said payments have not been transmitted to Quezon City. Therefore, even assuming the tax sale to be completely valid, the same ought to be revoked, and ownership therefore should continue to be in favor of the plaintiffs-appellees, the undisputed heirs of the registered owner. This being the case there will be no purpose in Our discussing the three assigned errors. Parenthetically however, and simply to set matters aright, We wish to say that there was nothing wrong in sending the notices to the registered owner. While he was already dead by the time, no one in the proper government office knew, since the heirs had not bothered notifying the office concerned. It is true that under Art. 42 of the Civil Code a deceased person no longer possesses any civil personality, but then the notice to the registered owner is actually and virtually a notice to the heirs of said owner, the transfer of ownership to the heirs by succession, having taken place automatically, by operation of law, from the moment of death of the deceased (Art. 777, Civil Code), Besides the address of the deceased registered owners, to which the notices were sent, is the same address as that of the principal heirs. It cannot therefore be said that the tax sale was void simply because the registered owner was already dead at the time the notices of tax delinquency and the tax sale were sent. Nonetheless as already pointed out, the proviso on revocation applies due to the prior payment of all realty taxes due. In view thereof, there would be no point in touching upon the only alleged errors. PREMISES CONSIDERED, the judgment appealed from is hereby AFFIRMED in toto . No pronouncements as to costs. SO ORDERED. Gaviola, Jr. and Gutierrez, Jr . , concur. Footnotes * Vol. 24 C.A.R. (2s), p.