Short answer. Yes. Good faith and negligence are separate findings about the same builder. Believing the land was yours keeps you out of the bad-faith rules on accession, but Article 456 says that belief does not by itself excuse careless work, and the ordinary rule on quasi-delict still supplies a claim in damages.

What the law says

good faith does not necessarily exclude negligence, which gives right to damages under article 2176

Civil Code, Article 456 — Good Faith and Negligence. Read the full provision →

Two questions people routinely collapse into one

Good faith in accession asks what the builder believed about his right to the land. Negligence asks how he behaved once he started work. A man can be entirely sincere about the boundary and still dig without shoring, build on fill he never tested, or ignore an obvious drainage line. The word necessarily is the whole point of the article: it forecloses the argument that a finding of good faith has already disposed of everything, and keeps the second question open on its own facts.

What this looks like on the ground

The damage that gets litigated is usually to somebody's structure rather than to the disputed land. Excavation that undermines the neighbour's wall, spoil pushed onto an adjoining lot, water redirected so it now ponds against another house, a partly built structure left unsecured through a typhoon. None of that is answered by asking whether the builder thought the lot was his. It is answered by asking what a reasonably careful builder would have done in the same position, which is a question about method, sequence and precautions.

Damages run alongside the accession remedies, not instead of them

This matters to the arithmetic. A landowner dealing with a good-faith builder works through the accession rules on keeping the work or requiring the builder to buy the land, and those rules are about indemnity, not punishment. A negligence claim sits outside that settlement and is measured by the harm actually caused. So a builder can be entitled to be reimbursed for what he put up and at the same time be liable for what his carelessness destroyed, and the two figures are computed separately rather than netted off by assumption.

What a negligence claim has to show

Not merely that damage happened near the work, but that the work caused it and that reasonable care would have prevented it. That means dated photographs from before construction began, the building plans and any inspection or clearance records, and an assessment by someone competent to say what the accepted practice was. Cracks and settlement can predate a project, so the earliest record you have of the neighbouring structure's condition is often more valuable than anything taken after the damage appeared.

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.

Related provisions

Note. Statute text quoted on this page is reproduced from the official enactment and is linked to the full provision. The explanation around it is general legal information from Vivas & Nobles Law Office, not legal advice. Whether it applies to your situation depends on facts only a lawyer reviewing them can assess.