Use this hub to work out who owns what, what an owner may and may not do, and how competing claims over land and buildings are resolved. Possession, title and registration are distinct concepts, and most property disputes turn on telling them apart.
Key topics: classification of property · ownership and its limits · accession · co-ownership and partition · possession and its effects · usufruct · right of way and other easements · nuisance · quieting of title · land registration and condominium ownership.
Statutory basis: Civil Code, Book II (Arts. 414 to 711), read with PD 1529 (Property Registration Decree) and RA 4726 (Condominium Act).
If the easement legally exists, no. The owner of the servient land keeps the soil but may not impair the use of the passage, and the remedy is an action to enforce the easement with an injunction. The first question is always whether the easement exists at all.
Verification means getting the certified true copy yourself, reading every annotation, matching the technical description to the ground, and checking taxes, occupants and the seller’s authority. The copy the seller shows you proves nothing on its own.
Everything turns on good faith. If your neighbor built in good faith you must choose between buying the structure and selling him the land – you cannot simply demand demolition. If he built in bad faith, the options reverse.
A co-owner may use the common property, but not in a way that shuts the others out. Renting it out alone is a different matter: the income belongs to everyone in proportion to their shares, and it must be accounted for.
Sometimes – and never against registered land. Whether decades of occupation turn into ownership depends on whether the land is titled, privately owned but untitled, or public land, and on the character of the possession itself.
The right remedy depends on two facts: how the occupation started, and how long ago. Within one year it is a summary ejectment case; beyond that it becomes a plenary action. Here is how to tell which one you have, and what to do first.
If your lot is surrounded by other properties with no adequate outlet to a public road, the Civil Code lets you demand a right of way through a neighboring estate after paying proper indemnity. Here are the four requisites, how the route is chosen, and what it costs.
A co-owner can sell his own undivided share without asking anyone. What he cannot do is sell the whole property, or a specific portion of it, and bind the others. Here is what such a sale actually transfers and what the remaining co-owners can do about it.
A boundary is fixed by the technical description in the title as plotted on the ground by a licensed geodetic engineer – not by the fence, the tax declaration, or how long it has stood there. Here is the order of steps, the evidence that decides it, and the remedy that fits.
A certificate of title proves ownership of registered land. A tax declaration does not – it is a tax assessment record that at most proves possession. Here is what each document does, what to do if you only hold a tax declaration, and how to get untitled land titled.