Short answer. Yes, you take it as it is. Article 1189 governs a thing promised under a suspensive condition. If it deteriorates without the debtor's fault while the condition is pending, the impairment is to be borne by the creditor. Because you are the creditor here, you must accept the item as it stands, with no claim for the lost value.
What the law says
When the thing deteriorates without the fault of the debtor, the impairment is to be borne by the creditor
Civil Code, Article 1189 — Loss, Deterioration, Improvement Pending a Suspensive Condition. Read the full provision →
The setting: a thing owed under a suspensive condition
Article 1189 applies to an obligation to give a specific thing where the duty depends on a suspensive condition — a future, uncertain event that must happen before the obligation takes effect. In your case, you will only become entitled to the thing if the condition is fulfilled, and in the meantime the item can change. The article exists precisely to allocate the risk of those changes — loss, deterioration, or improvement — during the waiting period, so that everyone knows in advance who bears a decline and who enjoys a gain if something happens to the thing before the condition is met.
Deterioration without fault falls on the creditor
Your situation is deterioration through nobody's fault. The article's rule is clear: when the thing deteriorates without the fault of the debtor, the impairment is to be borne by the creditor. As the buyer awaiting the condition, you are the creditor of the obligation to deliver the thing. So the natural, faultless worsening of the item is your loss to absorb. You still get the thing once the condition is fulfilled, but you take it in its diminished state, and you cannot charge the debtor for the drop in value, because he did nothing wrong to cause it.
Contrast: if the debtor had been at fault
It is worth seeing how different the answer would be if the debtor were to blame. The article provides that if it deteriorates through the fault of the debtor, the creditor may choose between the rescission of the obligation and its fulfillment, with indemnity for damages in either case. So fault flips the outcome: instead of quietly bearing the impairment, you would get a choice — walk away from the deal or insist on it — and either way claim damages. That contrast underlines why the cause of the deterioration is the decisive fact. Faultless decline is on you; fault-based decline hands you remedies.
Why the law puts it on the creditor, and the limits
The logic is that once the condition is fulfilled, the obligation is treated as having existed from the start, and the creditor takes the thing in its actual condition — enjoying natural improvements and bearing faultless deterioration alike. This assumes a genuine suspensive condition and a real absence of fault. If instead the thing were entirely lost without the debtor's fault, the obligation would be extinguished rather than delivered in a worse state. And if the debtor's fault or a deliberate act caused the harm, the rules just discussed give you remedies. Within its own terms, though, faultless deterioration is simply the creditor's burden to accept.
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.
- National Power Corporation vs Socorro T. Posada, Renato Bueno, Alice Balin, Adrian Tablizo, et al, G.R. No. 191945, March 11, 2015 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Agustin P. Dela Torre vs. The Hon. Court of Appeals, et al./Philippine Trigon Shipyard Corporation, et al. vs. Crisostomo G. Concepcion, et al, G.R. No. 160088 / G.R. No. 160565, July 13, 2011 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Sergio Osmeña III, et al. vs. SS etc., et al, G.R. No. 165272, September 13, 2007 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Heirs of TImoteo Moreno, et al. vs. Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority, G.R. No. 156273, October 15, 2003 — read the decision on LawPhil →