Short answer. One year. Article 1147 requires an action for forcible entry and detainer to be filed within one year. Missing that year does not necessarily leave you without a remedy, but it does close off the summary action and push you towards a slower and heavier one.
What the law says
The following actions must be filed within one year: (1) For forcible entry and detainer
Civil Code, Article 1147 — One-Year Actions. Read the full provision →
One year is short, and it is usually spent negotiating
The period the Code allows for these actions is the shortest in the Title, and it is almost always spent doing something other than filing. Families talk. Barangay meetings are set and reset. The occupant promises to leave after the harvest, after the school year, after the next payday. Article 1147 does not pause for any of it. An owner who reaches the anniversary of the entry still negotiating has lost the remedy that would have moved fastest, and usually he has lost it without ever being told a clock was running.
The article fixes the length, not the starting point
And the starting point is where these cases are actually decided. It differs according to the kind of case: an entry taken by force, stealth or strategy is not counted in the same way as a possession that began lawfully and became unlawful only when the occupant refused to go. Which of those describes your situation, and what event started the year, is a question to put to a lawyer with the facts and the dates in front of you rather than one to settle by assumption over the phone.
What is left after the year
Missing it does not end every claim. Article 1141 provides that real actions over immovables prescribe after thirty years, so the remedies aimed at the right to possess or to own remain available on their own terms — slower, heavier and more expensive, but available. What is not unlimited is the other side of the ledger. Article 1134 allows acquisition of immovables by ordinary prescription through ten years of possession, and Article 1137 through thirty years of uninterrupted adverse possession, so delay eventually costs the land itself.
The first weeks are the ones that matter
Treat the entry as dated from the moment you learn of it. Write down when you discovered it, from whom, and what was said, and photograph the property immediately. Send a written demand to vacate with proof of receipt, and keep every reply. Go to the barangay if that is the route your case takes, but keep the calendar in view while you do, because a conciliation process that drifts is still time passing. See a lawyer inside the first weeks, not in the eleventh month.
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.
- Berteni Cataluña Causing vs. People of the Philippines, G.R. No. 258524, October 11, 2023 — read the decision on LawPhil →
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 1141 — Real Actions Over Immovables — 30 Years
- Civil Code, Article 1137 — Extraordinary Prescription — 30 Years