Short answer. Generally no. Article 1680 of the Civil Code says the lessee has no right to a reduction of the rent on account of the sterility of the land leased, or by reason of the loss of fruits due to ordinary fortuitous events. Barren land and ordinary crop failure fall on the tenant.
What the law says
The lessee shall have no right to a reduction of the rent on account of the sterility of the land leased, or by reason of the loss of fruits due to ordinary fortuitous events
Civil Code, Article 1680 — Rent Reduction for Loss of Crops. Read the full provision →
Sterility and ordinary losses stay with the tenant
A tenant who leased land hoping for a good yield, only to find it poor or to suffer an ordinary bad season, generally cannot pass that disappointment on to the rent. The law is direct: the lessee shall have no right to a reduction of the rent on account of the sterility of the land leased, or by reason of the loss of fruits due to ordinary fortuitous events. Two things are covered. Barren or unproductive land is one, and crop losses from the ordinary hazards of farming are the other. Both are treated as risks the tenant accepted when he took the land.
Why the tenant carries this risk
The reasoning is that farming always carries the chance of a weak harvest, and land is not guaranteed to be fertile. A tenant is expected to inspect and assess the land before committing to it, and to reckon with the normal ups and downs of cultivation. Ordinary fortuitous events, the commonplace setbacks that any farmer might face in a given year, are part of that expected risk. Shifting them onto the owner through an automatic rent cut would make the owner an insurer of the tenant's profits, which the lease was never meant to do.
The narrow exception this rule does not cover
It is important to see what this provision withholds and what it does not touch. It denies relief for sterility and for ordinary losses. It does not deny relief in the separate, more serious case the same article recognizes, where an extraordinary and unforeseen event destroys a large part of the crop. That is a different situation with a different answer. So a tenant reading only the first part should not conclude that rent can never be reduced; he should conclude that ordinary failure and poor land are not grounds, while a truly extraordinary catastrophe is assessed under a distinct standard.
Check the lease and the cause of loss
Before deciding whether rent relief is possible, pin down the real cause of the loss. If it is simply that the land is unproductive or the season was ordinarily poor, this article stands in the way of a reduction. The parties can, however, agree otherwise in the lease itself, so it is worth checking whether the contract contains any stipulation on crop failure or rent adjustment. Absent such an agreement, a tenant hoping to cut rent over barren land or a routine bad harvest will find the law places that risk squarely on his own shoulders.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- Edgar Cokaliong Shipping Lines, Inc., vs. UCPB General Insurance Company, Inc, G.R. No. 146018, June 25, 2003 — read the decision on LawPhil →