Case 3: Nazareno v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No.

138842, [October 18,

2000], 397 PHIL 707-730

Facts:.
During their marriage, Maximino Nazarano, Sr. and Aurea Poblete acquired properties in
Quezon City. After their death, Romeo, one of their children, filed an intestate case in the Court
of First Instance of Cavite. He was thereafter appointed as the administrator. In the course of
the intestate proceedings, Romeo discovered that his parents executed several deeds of sale
in January 1970 conveying a number of real properties to his sister, Natividad . One of the
properties involved six lots in Quezon City. By virtue of the said deed, transfer certificates of
title were issued to Natividad. Among the lots covered was Lot 3-B which was occupied by
Romeo and his wife, and by his brother, Maximino, Jr.

Unknown to Romeo, Natividad sold Lot 3-B to Maximino, Jr. When he found out of
the sale, Romeo and his wife locked Maximino, Jr. of of the house. As such, Maximino,
Jr. filed an action for recovery of possession and damages. The trial court ruled in favor
of Maximino, Jr. which the Court of Appeals affirmed. On Jun 1988, Romeo in turn filed
for the annulment of sale against Natividad and Maximino, Jr on the ground of lack of
consideration. Natividad and Maximino, Jr. then filed a third-party complaint seeking
the annulment of the transfer to Romeo and cancellation of his title.

During the trial, Romeo presented evidence to show that Maximino and Aurea never
intended to sell the six lots to Natividad and Natividad was only to hold the said lots in
trust for her siblings. He presented a Deed of Partition and Distribution dated June
1962. Further, Romeo testified that the deeds were created for consideration, but they
never really paid any amount for the supposed sale in order to avoid payment of
inheritance taxes. On the other hand, Natividad and Maximino, Jr. claimed that she
bought the properties because she was the one financially able to do so.

The trial court declared thereafter the nullity of the January 1970 Deed of Sale and
ordered that the remaining properties were held in trust by Natividad in favor of his
brother, Jose Jr. . On appeal, the Court of Appeals modified the decision in the sense
that the titles of Lot 3 and Lot 3-B were canceled and restored to the estate of
Maximino, Sr.

Hence, the petitioner filed a case before the Supreme Court.

ISSUE:

W/N the deed of sale is indivisible.

HELD:
YES. The Obligation is an indivisible one.

An obligation is indivisible when it cannot be validly performed in parts, whatever may be the nature of
the thing which is the object thereof. The indivisibility refers to the prestation and not to the object
thereof.

In the present case, the Deed of Sale of January 29, 1970 supposedly conveyed the six lots to Natividad.
The obligation is clearly indivisible because the performance of the contract cannot be done in parts,
otherwise the value of what is transferred is diminished.

Petitioners are therefore mistaken in basing the indivisibility of a contract on the number of obligors.

In any case, if petitioners’ only point is that the estate of Maximino, Sr. alone cannot contest the validity
of the Deed of Sale because the estate of Aurea has not yet been settled, the argument would
nonetheless be without merit.

The validity of the contract can be questioned by anyone affected by it. A void contract is inexistent
from the beginning. Hence, even if the estate of Maximino, Sr. alone contests the validity of the sale, the
outcome of the suit will bind the estate of Aurea as if no sale took place at all.