CASES RELATED TO ARTICLE 154-155

Manacop Vs. CA

Facts: On March 17, 1986, Private Respondent E & L Mercantile, Inc. filed a complaint against petitioner and F.F. Manacop Construction Co., Inc. before the Regional Trial Court of Pasig, Metro Manila to collect an indebtedness of P3,359,218.45. Instead of filing an answer, petitioner and his company entered into a compromise agreement with private respondent, the salient portion of which provides:  That defendants will undertake to pay the amount of P2,000,000.00 as and when their means permit, but expeditiously as possible as their collectibles will be collected.  However, execution of the Judgment was delayed. Eventually, the sheriff levied on several vehicles and other personal properties of petitioner. In partial satisfaction of the judgment debt, these chattels were sold at public auction for which certificates of sale were correspondingly issued by the sheriff.

On August 1, 1989, petitioner and his company filed a motion to quash the alias writs of execution and to stop the sheriff from continuing to enforce them on the ground that the judgment was not yet executory. On September 21, 1989, private respondent filed an opposition to petitioner and his company's addendum to the motion to quash the writ of execution. It alleged that the property covered by TCT No. 174180 could not be considered a family home on the grounds that petitioner was already living abroad and that the property, having been acquired in 1972, should have been judicially constituted as a family home to exempt it from execution.

Issue: whether or not Mañacop's residence under TCT 174180 has been duly constituted as a family home in accordance with law?

Held: 

Petitioner contends that he should be deemed residing in the family home because his stay in the United States is merely temporary. He asserts that the person staying in the house is his overseer and that whenever his wife visited this country, she stayed in the family home. This contention lacks merit.

The law explicitly provides that occupancy of the family home either by the owner thereof or by "any of its beneficiaries" must be actual. That which is "actual" is something real, or actually existing, as opposed to something merely possible, or to something which is presumptive or constructive.10 Actual occupancy, however, need not be by the owner of the house specifically. Rather, the property may be occupied by the "beneficiaries" enumerated by Article 154 of the Family Code.

"Art. 154. The beneficiaries of a family home are:

1 . The husband and wife, or an unmarried person who is the head of the family; and

2. Their parents, ascendants, descendants, brothers and sisters, whether the relationship be legitimate or illegitimate, who are living in the family home and who depend upon the head of the family for lead support."

This enumeration may include the in-laws where the family home is constituted jointly by the husband and wife.  But the law definitely excludes maids and overseers. They are not the beneficiaries contemplated by the Code. Consequently, occupancy of a family home by an overseer like Carmencita V. Abat in this case is insufficient compliance with the law.

The petition Denied for utter lack merit.