Doctrines:

 The wife who sold conjugal lands without her husband’s consent cannot bring action for annulment of the sale even after her
husband’s death, but their children-heirs can, with respect to their shares.
 Prescriptive period to file action is counted from death of the father whose consent was not obtained by his wife in the sale
of conjugal lands, with respect to their heirs.
Felipe vs. Heirs of Maximo Aldon, No. L-60174, February 16, 1983,
ABAD SANTOS, J.:

FACTS:
The case is a petition for review filed by the petitioners Eduardo Felipe, Hermogena V. Felipe And Vicente V.
Felipe to assail the decision of the Court of Appeals which granted lawful ownership of the subject lands to the
heirs of Maximo Aldon. The facts of the case were as follows:
 The spouses, Maximo Aldon and Gimena Almosara owned three parcels of land. In 1951, however, without
the consent of Maximo, Gimena sold the lots to the spouses Eduardo Felipe and Hermogena V. Felipe. In
1976, the heirs of Maximo: Gimena and her children, Sofia and Salvador Aldon filed a complaint to recover
the three parcels of land. They alleged that though they orally mortgaged the lots to the Felipe spouses,
they thereafter made an offer to redeem the mortgage but were refused by the latter. Meanwhile, the Felipe
spouses argued that their acquisition of the lots from the plaintiffs was thru purchase and that there was in
fact subsequent delivery of said lots in question. The Trial Court however, ruled in favor of the Felipe
spouses and declared them to be the lawful owners of the property.
 On appeal, the Court of Appeals this time, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and reversed the trial court’s
decision. It held that the since the lots were conjugal, then it followed that the sale made by Gimena was
invalid for having been executed without the consent of her husband. Hence, the present petition for
review.
 Petitioners also further argued that they had already acquired the lands by prescription for failure of the
heirs of Maximo to question the ownership of the subject lands, considering that the purported sale or
mortgage was made in 1951 and yet the present action to recover it was instituted only in 1976.

ISSUE/S:
1. Whether or not the sale of the lands belonging to the conjugal partnership made by Gimena,
the wife, was legal and binding to grant ownership of the subject lands to the petitioners?
2. Whether the petitioners have already acquired the subject lands by prescription?

RULING:
1. No. The court ruled that the sale made by Gimena was a voidable contract, and not “invalid” as
described by the Court of Appeals. The view that the contract made by Gimena is a voidable contract is
supported by Article 173 of the Civil Code which provides that contracts entered by the husband without
the consent of the wife when such consent is required, are annullable at her instance during the
marriage and within ten years from the transaction questioned. Therefore since the sale made by
Gimena was a voidable contract, it was subject to annulment by her husband only during the marriage
because he was the victim who had an interest in the contract. Gimena, who was the party responsible
for the defect, could also not ask for its annulment. Their children could not likewise seek the annulment
of the contract while the marriage subsisted because they merely had an inchoate right to the lands
sold. Moreover, the termination of the marriage and the dissolution of the conjugal partnership by the
death of Maximo Aldon did not improve the situation of Gimena. What she could not do during the
marriage, she could not do thereafter. The case of Sofia and Salvador Aldon was different. After the
death of Maximo they acquired the right to question the defective contract insofar as it deprived them of
their hereditary rights in their father’s share in the lands. The father’s share is one-half (1/2) of the
lands and their share is two-thirds (2/3) thereof, one-third (1/3) pertaining to the widow.
2. No. The court agreed with the Court of Appeals and declared that the petitioners could not have
acquired ownership of the of the lots by prescription in view of their bad faith and having known that the
land still did not belong to them. Evidence of this bad faith was because the son of the supposed
vendee, Vicente Felipe, went to Gimena, the supposed vendor for the latter to sign a deed of sale in
December 1970. This actuation clearly indicated that the petitioners knew the lots did not still belong to
them, otherwise, why were they interested in a document of sale in their favor? The only possible
reason for purporting to obtain such consent is that they knew the lots were not theirs. Also, if the
court were to even consider appellees’ possession in bad faith as a possession in the concept of owners,
this possession at the earliest started in 1951, hence the period for extraordinary prescription (30 years)
had not yet lapsed when the present action was instituted on April 26, 1976. Lastly, the children’s cause
of action accrued from the death of their father in 1959 and they had thirty (30) years to institute it
(Art. 1141, Civil Code.) Accordingly, as they filed action in 1976, then is was still well within the period.

Thus in view of the foregoing, the court denied the petition and modified the Court of Appeals decision by
awarding to Sofia and Salvador Aldon their shares of the lands.

Case Digest by: Alena Icao-Anotado pg. 1