Tanedo vs CA

FACTS:

Lazaro Taedo executed a deed of absolute sale in favor of Ricardo Taedo and Teresita Barrera in
which he conveyed a parcel of land which he will inherit. Upon the death of his father he executed an
affidavit of conformity to reaffirm the said sale. He also executed another deed of sale in favor of the
spouses covering the parcel of land he already inherited. Ricardo registered the last deed of sale in the
registry of deeds in their favor.

Ricardo later learned that Lazaro sold the same property to his children through a deed of sale.

ISSUE: WON the Taedo spouses have a better right over the property against the children of Lazaro
Taedo.

HELD:Since a future inheritance generally cannot be a subject of a contract, the deed of sale and the
affidavit of conformity made by Lazaro has no effect. The subject of dispute therefore is the deed of sale
made by him in favor of spouses Taedo and another to his children after he already legally acquired the
property.

Thus, although the deed of sale in favor of private respondents was later than the one in favor of
petitioners, ownership would vest in the former because of the undisputed fact of registration. On the
other hand, petitioners have not registered the sale to them at all.

Petitioners contend that they were in possession of the property and that private respondents never
took possession thereof. As between two purchasers, the one who registered the sale in his favor has a
preferred right over the other who has not registered his title, even if the latter is in actual possession of
the immovable property.

In the Matter of the will of ANTERO MERCADO, deceased. ROSARIO GARCIA, petitioner, vs. JULIANA
LACUESTA, ET AL., respondents 90 Phil 489 November 29, 1951

Facts: Antero Mercado left a will dated January 3, 1943. The will is written in the Ilocano dialect which is
spoken and understood by the testator. The will also contained an attestation clause which is signed by
three witnesses. The attestation clause states: We, the undersigned, by these presents to declare that
the foregoing testament of Antero Mercado was signed by himself and also by us below his name and of
this attestation clause and that of the left margin of the three pages thereof. Page three the
continuation of this attestation clause; this will is written in Ilocano dialect which is spoken and
understood by the testator, and it bears the corresponding number in letter which compose of three
pages and all them were signed in the presence of the testator and witnesses, and the witnesses in the
presence of the testator and all and each and every one of us witnesses. The will appears to have been
signed by Atty. Florentino Javier who wrote the name of Antero Mercado, followed below by "A ruego
del testador" and the name of Florentino Javier. Antero Mercado is alleged also to have written a cross
immediately after his name.

Issue: Whether or not the attestation clause in the will is valid.

Ruling: No. The attestation clause is fatally defective for failing to state that Antero Mercado caused
Atty. Florentino Javier to write the testator's name under his express direction, as required by section
618 of the Code of Civil Procedure. When the testator expressly caused another to sign the formers
name, this fact must be recited in the attestation clause. Otherwise, the will is fatally defective.
Moreover, the cross appearing on the will is not the usual signature of Antero Mercado nor is it even
one of the ways by which he signed his name. After mature reflection, the Court is not prepared to liken
the mere sign of the cross to a thumbmark, and the reason is obvious. The cross cannot and does not
have the trustworthiness of a thumbmark. Thus, the cross cannot be considered a valid signature.

Ortega 478 SCRA 247 v. Valmonte

F: Two years after the arrival of Placido from the United States and at the age of 80 he wed Josefina who
was then 28 years old. But in a little more than two years of wedded bliss, Placido died. Placido executed
a notarial last will and testament written in English and consisting of 2 pages, and dated 15 June
1983but acknowledged only on 9 August 1983. The allowance to probate of this will was opposed by
Leticia, Placidos sister. According to the notary public who notarized the testators will, after the
testator instructed him on the terms and dispositions he wanted on the will, the notary public told them
to come back on 15 August 1983 to give him time to prepare. The testator and his witnesses returned on
the appointed date but the notary public was out of town so they were instructed by his wife to come
back on 9 August 1983. The formal execution was actually on 9 August 1983. He reasoned he no longer
changed the typewritten date of 15 June 1983 because he did not like the document to appear dirty.
Petitioners argument: 1. At the time of the execution of the notarial will Placido was already 83 years
old and was no longer of sound mind. 2. Josefina conspired with the notary public and the 3 attesting
witnesses in deceiving Placido to sign it. Deception is allegedly reflected in the varying dates of the
execution and the attestation of the will.

ISSUE: 1. W/N Placido has testamentary capacity at the time he allegedly executed the will.

2. W/N the signature of Placido in the will was procured by fraud or trickery.

HELD: 1. YES. Despite his advanced age, he was still able to identify accurately the kinds of property he
owned, the extent of his shares in them and even their location. As regards the proper objects of his
bounty, it was sufficient that he identified his wife as sole beneficiary. The omission of some relatives
from the will did not affect its formal validity. There being no showing of fraud in its execution, intent in
its disposition becomes irrelevant.

2. NO. Fraud is a trick, secret devise, false statement, or pretense, by which the subject of it is cheated.
It may be of such character that the testator is misled or deceived as to the nature or contents of the
document which he executes, or it may relate to some extrinsic fact, in consequence of the deception
regarding which the testator is led to make a certain will which, but for fraud, he would not have made.
The party challenging the will bears the burden of proving the existence of fraud at the time of its
execution. The burden to show otherwise shifts to the proponent of the will only upon a showing of
credible evidence of fraud. Omission of some relatives does not affect the due execution of a will.
Moreover, the conflict between the dates appearing on the will does not invalidate the document,
because the law does not even require that a notarial will be executed and acknowledged on the same
occasion. The variance in the dates of the will as to its supposed execution and attestation was
satisfactorily and persuasively explained by the notary public and instrumental witnesses.

Azuela vs CA

AZUELA v. COURT OF APPEALS

A will whose attestation clause does not contain the number of pages on which the will is written is
fatally defective. A will whose attestation clause is not signed by the instrumental witnesses is fatally
defective. And perhaps most importantly, a will which does not contain an acknowledgment, but a mere
jurat, is fatally defective. Any one of these defects is sufficient to deny probate. A notarial will with all
three defects is just aching for judicial rejection.

FACTS:

Felix Azuela filed a petition with the trial court for the probate of a notarial will purportedly executed by
Eugenia E. Igsolo on June 10, 1981 and notarized on the same day. The will consisted of two (2) pages
and was written in Filipino. The attestation clause did not state the number of pages and it was not
signed by the attesting witnesses at the bottom thereof. The said witnesses affixed their signatures on
the left-hand margin of both pages of the will though. Geralda Castillo opposed the petition, claiming
that the will was a forgery. She also argued that the will was not executed and attested to in accordance
with law. She pointed out that the decedents signature did not appear on the second page of the will,
and the will was not properly acknowledged.

The trial court held the will to be authentic and to have been executed in accordance with law and, thus,
admitted it to probate, calling to fore the modern tendency in respect to the formalities in the
execution of a willwith the end in view of giving the testator more freedom in expressing his last
wishes. According to the trial court, the declaration at the end of the will under the sub-title, Patunay
Ng Mga Saksi, comprised the attestation clause and the acknowledgement, and was a substantial
compliance with the requirements of the law. It also held that the signing by the subscribing witnesses
on the left margin of the second page of the will containing the attestation clause and acknowledgment,
instead of at the bottom thereof, substantially satisfied the purpose of identification and attestation of
the will. The Court of Appeals, however, reversed the trial courts decision and ordered the dismissal of
the petition for probate. It noted that the attestation clause failed to state the number of pages used in
the will, thus rendering the will void and undeserving of probate.

Azuela argues that the requirement under Article 805 of the Civil Code that the number of pages used
in a notarial will be stated in the attestation clause is merely directory, rather than mandatory, and
thus susceptible to what he termed as the substantial compliance rule.
ISSUE:

Whether or not the subject will complied with the requirements of the law and, hence, should be
admitted to probate.

HELD:

The petition is DENIED.

A will whose attestation clause does not contain the number of pages on which the will is written is
fatally defective. A will whose attestation clause is not signed by the instrumental witnesses is fatally
defective. And perhaps most importantly, a will which does not contain an acknowledgment, but a mere
jurat, is fatally defective. Any one of these defects is sufficient to deny probate. A notarial will with all
three defects is just aching for judicial rejection.

Prior to the New Civil Code, the statutory provision governing the formal requirements of wills was
Section 618 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Extant therefrom is the requirement that the attestation
state the number of pages of the will. The enactment of the New Civil Code put in force a rule of
interpretation of the requirements of wills, at least insofar as the attestation clause is concerned, that
may vary from the philosophy that governed the said Section 618. Article 809 of the Civil Code, the Code
Commission opted to recommend a more liberal construction through the substantial compliance
rule. However, Justice J.B.L. Reyes cautioned that the rule must be limited to disregarding those
defects that can be supplied by an examination of the will itself: whether all the pages are consecutively
numbered; whether the signatures appear in each and every page; whether the subscribing witnesses
are three or the will was notarizedBut the total number of pages, and whether all persons required to
sign did so in the presence of each other must substantially appear in the attestation clause, being the
only check against perjury in the probate proceedings. The Court suggested in Caneda v. Court of
Appeals (G.R. No. 103554, May 28, 1993, 222 SCRA 781): the rule, as it now stands, is that omission
which can be supplied by an examination of the will itself, without the need of resorting to extrinsic
evidence, will not be fatal and, correspondingly, would not obstruct the allowance to probate of the will
being assailed.

However, those omissions which cannot be supplied except by evidence aliunde would result in the
invalidation of the attestation clause and ultimately, of the will itself.

The failure of the attestation clause to state the number of pages on which the will was written remains
a fatal flaw, despite Art. 809. This requirement aims at safeguarding the will against possible
interpolation or omission of one or some of its pages and thus preventing any increase or decrease in
the pages. Following Caneda, there is substantial compliance with this requirement if the will states
elsewhere in it how many pages it is comprised of, as was the situation in Singson and Taboada. In this
case, however, there could have been no substantial compliance with the requirements under Art. 805
of the Civil Code since there is no statement in the attestation clause or anywhere in the will itself as to
the number of pages which comprise the will. There was an incomplete attempt to comply with this
requisite, a space having been allotted for the insertion of the number of pages in the attestation clause.
Yet the blank was never filled in.

The subject will cannot be considered to have been validly attested to by the instrumental witnesses.
While the signatures of the instrumental witnesses appear on the left-hand margin of the will, they do
not appear at the bottom of the attestation clause. Art. 805 particularly segregates the requirement that
the instrumental witnesses sign each page of the will, from the requisite that the will be attested and
subscribed by them. The signatures on the left-hand corner of every page signify, among others, that the
witnesses are aware that the page they are signing forms part of the will. On the other hand, the
signatures to the attestation clause establish that the witnesses are referring to the statements
contained in the attestation clause itself. An unsigned attestation clause results in an unattested will.
Even if the instrumental witnesses signed the left-hand margin of the page containing the unsigned
attestation clause, such signatures cannot demonstrate these witnesses undertakings in the clause,
since the signatures that do appear on the page were directed towards a wholly different avowal.

The notary public who notarized the subject will wrote, Nilagdaan ko at ninotario ko ngayong 10 ng
Hunyo 10 (sic), 1981 dito sa Lungsod ng Maynila. By no manner of contemplation can these words be
construed as an acknowledgment. An acknowledgment is the act of one who has executed a deed in
going before some competent officer or court and declaring it to be his act or deed. It might be possible
to construe the averment as a jurat, even though it does not follow to the usual language thereof. A
jurat is that part of an affidavit where the notary certifies that before him/her, the document was
subscribed and sworn to by the executor.

It may not have been said before, but a notarial will that is not acknowledged before a notary public by
the testator and the witnesses is fatally defective, even if it is subscribed and sworn to before a notary
public. The importance of the requirement of acknowledgment is highlighted by the fact that it had
been segregated from the other requirements under Art. 805 and entrusted into a separate provision,
Art. 806. The express requirement of Art. 806 is that the will be acknowledged, and not merely
subscribed and sworn to. The acknowledgment coerces the testator and the instrumental witnesses to
declare before an officer of the law that they had executed and subscribed to the will as their own free
act or deed. Such declaration is under oath and under pain of perjury, thus allowing for the criminal
prosecution of persons who participate in the execution of spurious wills, or those executed without the
free consent of the testator. It also provides a further degree of assurance that the testator is of certain
mindset in making the testamentary dispositions to those persons he/she had designated in the will.

DEFECTS:

(1) AC did not state number of pages

(2) Witnesses did not sign the AC

(3) No acknowledgment by a notary

(4) No signature of the testator in each and every page

(5) Pages were not numbered consecutively