Short answer. Yes. A possessor in good faith keeps the fruits he received before his possession was legally interrupted. The harvest he gathered and the rent that accrued up to that moment are his, and he does not account for them even though he ultimately loses the property itself.
What the law says
A possessor in good faith is entitled to the fruits received before the possession is legally interrupted.
Civil Code, Article 544 — Good-Faith Possessor's Right to Fruits. Read the full provision →
The cut-off is interruption, not judgment
Everything on this page turns on one date, and it is not the date you lose the case. The article speaks of fruits received before the possession is legally interrupted — the moment the possessor is served with the action that questions his right, not the moment the court finally rules on it. Litigation that runs for years therefore does not extend the window; it merely determines, long afterwards, whether the window closed rightly. Income produced after interruption belongs to the winner, and the possessor holds it for him, so a possessor who keeps collecting rent through the case is collecting money he will have to hand over.
Gathered fruits versus rent that runs day by day
The article treats the two kinds of income differently because they arise differently. Natural and industrial fruits — a rice harvest, the mangoes, whatever the land produces by nature or by cultivation — are considered received from the time they are gathered or severed. A crop still standing when possession is interrupted was never received, however close it was to harvest. Civil fruits, chiefly rent and interest, are deemed to accrue daily, so they are simply split at the interruption date in proportion to the days on each side of it. A single month's rent can straddle the line and be divided.
Good faith is the whole basis of the right
The rule rewards nothing except honest belief. A possessor is in good faith while he is unaware of the flaw in his title — a buyer from a seller who turned out not to own, an heir who occupied under a will later set aside. Once he learns of the defect, the belief that justified keeping the income is gone, and so is the entitlement. That is why a demand letter or a formal notice of an adverse claim matters so much in practice: it can end good faith before any case is filed, and it does so on a date the sender can prove.
The record that decides it
If you are on either side of this, the documents worth locating first are the ones that fix the two dates. On the timing, that means the sheriff's return or the registry receipt showing when the action or the demand actually reached the possessor. On the money, it means the harvest and delivery records, the receipts, and the lease with its payment schedule, because the split of an accruing rent is arithmetic once the schedule is in front of you. A possessor with no records of what he took in is in a poor position to argue about which side of the line it fell on.
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.
- Spouses Godfrey and Ma. Teresa Teves vs. Integrated Credit and Corporate Services, Co. (now CAROL AQUI), G.R. No. 216714, April 4, 2018 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Pen Development Corporation and Las Brisas Resort Corporation vs. Martinez Leyba, Inc, G.R. No. 211845, August 9, 2017 — read the decision on LawPhil →