Case Digest: Article 93 of Family Code (Muñoz, Jr. vs. Ramirez et al.)

FRANCISCO MUÑOZ, JR., petitioner

vs.

ERLINA RAMIREZ and ELISEO CARLOS, respondents

G.R. 156125, 25 August 2010

BRION, J.:

FACTS: Respondent – spouses mortgaged a residential lot inherited by the wife to secure a housing loan to the GSIS. Thereafter, they used the money loaned to construct a residential house in the said lot.

Muñoz offered six hundred thousand loan to respondents. But respondents only received two hundred thousand which was used to pay their debt to GSIS. The balance of the loan, four hundred thousand, will be delivered by petitioner upon surrender of the title over the property and an affidavit of waiver of rights to be executed by the husband. Respondent- wife was able to turn over the title but the affidavit was not signed by the husband. Consequently, Muñoz refused to give the four hundred thousand balance of the loan and since the spouses could no longer return the two hundred thousand. Muñoz kept the title over the property and subsequently, caused the issuance of a new one in his own name.

The respondents then filed a case for the annulment of the purported sale of the property. The RTC ruled that the property was the wife’s exclusive paraphernal property and as such, the sale is valid even without the husband’s consent. While the CA reversed and ruled that while the property was originally exclusive paraphernal property of the wife, it became conjugal property when it was used as collateral for a housing loan that was paid through conjugal funds. Hence, the sale is void.

ISSUE: Is the property paraphernal or conjugal?

RULING: Paraphernal. As a general rule, all property acquired during the marriage is presumed to be conjugal unless the contrary is proved. In this case, clear evidence that the wife inherited the lot from her father has sufficiently rebutted this presumption of conjugal ownership. Consequently, the residential lot is the wife’s exclusive paraphernal property.