Short answer. Yes. Article 1678 gives the lessor that choice for ornamental expenses. A tenant who added ornamental objects in good faith is not entitled to reimbursement and may normally remove them without damaging the property, but the landlord can instead choose to keep them by paying their value at the time the lease ends.
What the law says
With regard to ornamental expenses, the lessee shall not be entitled to any reimbursement, but he may remove the ornamental objects, provided no damage is caused to the principal thing, and the lessor does not choose to retain them by paying their value at the time the lease is extinguished.
Civil Code, Article 1678 — Useful Improvements by the Lessee. Read the full provision →
Ornamental Items Are Treated Differently
Article 1678 treats useful improvements and purely ornamental additions differently. A tenant who makes useful improvements suitable to the leased property's purpose is entitled to half their value from the landlord once the lease ends. Ornamental objects, by contrast, carry no automatic right to reimbursement at all; the tenant's default entitlement is only to remove them, whether that means light fixtures, built-in shelving chosen purely for looks, or decorative panelling added to a wall.
The Landlord's Counter-Option
The removal right is not absolute. The same sentence that lets a tenant take his decorations gives the landlord a competing option: retain them by paying the tenant their value at the time the lease is extinguished. If the landlord exercises that option, the tenant cannot insist on removal even if he would rather take the items with him, and the landlord effectively buys the fixtures at their then-current worth rather than at what the tenant originally paid for them.
The Limit on Removal Either Way
Whether the tenant removes the ornaments or the landlord decides to keep and pay for them, the removal itself must be done without damaging the leased property. A tenant who cannot detach the decorations without harming the unit does not get to force a sale by damaging it; he simply loses the practical ability to take them and is left with neither the item nor a claim for its value.
Contrast With Useful Improvements
This is a deliberately different rule from useful improvements, where the landlord owes reimbursement of half their value regardless of whether he wants to keep them. For ornamental additions, reimbursement only happens if the landlord affirmatively chooses to retain the item; a tenant cannot demand payment for decorations the way he could for a genuinely useful structural upgrade, so it is worth knowing which category a given addition falls into before assuming any reimbursement is coming.
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.
- Henry L. Sia vs. Court of Appeals, et al, G.R. No. 108222, May 5, 1997 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Bermon Marketing Communication Corporation vs. Spouses Lilia M. Yaco and Nemesio Yaco, G.R. No. 224552, March 3, 2021 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Marguerite J. Lhuillier vs. The Hon. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 128058, December 19, 2000 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Spouses Crispin Aquino and Teresa V. Aquino, herein represented by their Attorney-in-fact, Amador D. Ledesma vs. Spouses Eusebio Aguilar and Josefina V. Aguilar, G.R. No. 182754, June 29, 2015 — read the decision on LawPhil →
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 1678 — Useful Improvements by the Lessee
- Civil Code, Article 1654 — Obligations of the Lessor