If a new owner ends my unrecorded farm lease, can I still gather this year's harvest before leaving?

The buyer's power to end the lease has a limit built in

Article 1676 lets the purchaser of land terminate a lease that was not recorded in the Registry of Property, unless the sale stipulated otherwise or the buyer knew of the lease. But the same article protects the farmer caught by that termination. It provides that if the buyer makes use of this right, the lessee may demand that he be allowed to gather the fruits of the harvest which corresponds to the current agricultural year and that the vendor indemnify him for damages suffered. So even as you are being asked to leave, the law does not let the standing crop you planted and tended be simply taken from you. You may finish the current year's harvest.

What the protection covers

The right is tied to the current agricultural year, the crop cycle you are presently in, not to future seasons. It reflects a basic fairness: a tenant who worked the land and sowed in reliance on his lease should reap what that year's labour produced before he goes. Alongside the harvest, the article gives a claim for indemnity for damages suffered against the seller, the person who leased to you and then sold out from under the arrangement. The termination is the buyer's right to exercise; the harvest and the indemnity are the lessee's answering rights, meant to prevent the change of ownership from stripping you of the season's work.

Why recording the lease would have mattered

This whole situation arises because the lease was not recorded. A recorded lease binds third persons, so a buyer generally takes the land already subject to it and cannot brush it aside. An unrecorded lease is vulnerable: the buyer may terminate it, save where the sale says otherwise or where he actually knew of the lease when he bought. Two exceptions therefore blunt his power, a contrary stipulation in the sale, and the buyer's knowledge of the existing lease. Where neither applies, the current-year harvest right and the indemnity are what stand between the tenant and an empty-handed departure.

Watch for a fictitious sale

The article guards against abuse of the termination right. It treats as fictitious a sale made merely to extinguish the lease, and a supposed buyer in that position cannot use the power to terminate at all. There is even a presumption of a sham where, at the time termination is demanded, the sale has not been recorded. If you suspect the "sale" is a device to evict you rather than a genuine transfer, that is significant, because it can defeat the termination entirely. Keeping proof of your lease, your planting, and the harvest cycle strengthens both your right to reap and any claim for damages.

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.

• Midway Maritime and Technological Foundation, represented by its Chairman/President PhD in Education, Dr. Sabino M. Manglicmot vs. Marissa E. Castro, et al, G.R. No. 189061, August 6, 2014 — read the decision on LawPhil →
• Felipe Uy vs. The Land Bank of the Philippines, G.R. No. 136100, July 24, 2000 — read the decision on LawPhil →
• Cebu Bionic Builders Supply, Inc. and Lydia Sia vs. Development Bank of the Philippines, et al, G.R. No. 154366, November 17, 2010 — read the decision on LawPhil →
• Hubert Nuñez vs. SLTEAS Phoenix Solutions, Inc, G.R. No. 180542, April 12, 2010 — read the decision on LawPhil →

Related provisions

• Civil Code, Article 1676 — Buyer's Right to Terminate an Unrecorded Lease