Short answer. No. Article 1619 defines legal redemption as the right to step into the place of someone who acquired a thing by purchase, dation in payment, or another onerous transfer. A donation is gratuitous, not onerous, so it falls outside that definition, and a co-owner's legal right of redemption cannot be used against a donee.
What the law says
Legal redemption is the right to be subrogated, upon the same terms and conditions stipulated in the contract
Civil Code, Article 1619 — Legal Redemption Defined. Read the full provision →
What the law says
in the place of one who acquires a thing by purchase or dation in payment, or by any other transaction whereby ownership is transmitted by onerous title.
Civil Code, Article 1619 — Legal Redemption Defined. Read the full provision →
Why donation is different
Legal redemption exists to let certain people, like co-owners, buy their way into a transaction someone else already completed, on the same price and terms that transaction used. A donation has no price and no terms to step into; the donee paid nothing, so there is nothing for a would-be redemptioner to reimburse or subrogate into. Article 1619's own wording limits the right to transfers made by onerous title.
What kinds of transfers are covered
The article names purchase and dation in payment expressly, then adds "any other transaction whereby ownership is transmitted by onerous title," which reaches arrangements like exchanges or transfers in satisfaction of a debt where the transferee gives something of value in return. What unites them is that the acquirer paid or gave value; the redemptioner reimburses that same value to take the acquirer's place.
What a co-owner can do instead
A co-owner who objects to a donation of another co-owner's share is not entirely without options; depending on the facts, he may look into whether the donation was simulated to disguise an actual sale for a price, or whether it impairs legitimes or other rights under succession law once the donor dies. Neither of those is the legal redemption remedy under this article, though, which simply does not reach gratuitous transfers no matter how the co-owner feels about the new co-owner.
The reason for the line
Extending legal redemption to gratuitous transfers would force a donee, who received the property as a gift, to hand it over to a redemptioner in exchange for money the donee never asked for and the donor never received either, an outcome the law does not intend. Confining the right to onerous transfers keeps it tied to reimbursing an actual price someone already paid.
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.
- Sps. Amado & Milagros Tino, et al. vs. Nellie Manzano, G.R. No. 132102, May 19, 1999 — read the decision on LawPhil →
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 1619 — Legal Redemption Defined
- Civil Code, Article 1620 — Co-Owner's Right of Legal Redemption