Is someone occupying my property in bad faith liable if it is destroyed by a typhoon or other accident?

Why the ordinary excuse is withdrawn

The general principle is that no one answers for events that could not be foreseen or, being foreseen, were inevitable. This article takes that shield away from a particular person for a particular reason: the thing was only exposed to the typhoon in his hands because he was holding what was not his. Had he not taken or kept the property, the risk would have sat where the law puts it, with the owner. He is answerable for the whole consequence of putting the property where it should not have been, and the wording admits no exceptions — in every case.

The contrast with a possessor in good faith

The same article treats the honest possessor very differently. He is not liable for deterioration or loss at all unless it is proved that he acted with fraudulent intent or negligence, and even then only after the judicial summons. Two protections operate there: a fault requirement, and a date before which he is simply not exposed. Neither applies to the possessor in bad faith. This is why the good faith or bad faith of the occupant, which can look like a dry characterisation, decides who bears a loss that neither of you caused.

What "deterioration" reaches

Not just total destruction. The article pairs loss with deterioration, so decline in the property's condition counts — a structure allowed to rot, land degraded by how it was worked, equipment worn out or stripped. For a bad-faith possessor the source of the decline is largely beside the point, which means the practical question becomes what the property was like when he took it against what it is like now. That comparison, not an inquiry into fault, is what an accounting under this article turns on.

Establish the condition at both ends

The claim is proved by a before and an after, so the earliest reliable record of the property's state is the document worth hunting for: photographs, an appraisal, an insurance inspection, a building plan, a survey. Then a current assessment of what remains, made by someone who can put a figure to the difference. And, as with the accounting for fruits, the date bad faith began — because it marks the point from which this heavier standard applies rather than the lighter one the article gives an honest possessor.

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 Abraham and Melchora Ermino vs. Golden Village Homeowners Association, Inc., Represented By Leticia C. Inukai, G.R. No. 180808, August 15, 2018 — read the decision on LawPhil →

Related provisions

• Civil Code, Article 552 — Liability For Loss Or Deterioration