Short answer. In substance, yes. Knowing that the work is going on and not opposing it puts the landowner in bad faith, and Article 454 then sends the case to the rule that governs a party at fault. The comfortable set of options an innocent landowner enjoys is no longer his.
What the law says
When the landowner acted in bad faith and the builder, planter or sower proceeded in good faith
Civil Code, Article 454 — Landowner in Bad Faith, Builder in Good Faith. Read the full provision →
What the landowner normally gets to decide
Where both sides are innocent, the choice belongs to the owner of the land. He may keep the building by paying an indemnity for it, or he may require the builder to buy the land instead, and the builder has no say in which. That allocation is generous to the landowner, and it is generous on an assumption — that he was not himself a cause of the mistake. Article 454 is the provision that withdraws the assumption. It opens: when the landowner acted in bad faith and the builder, planter or sower proceeded in good faith, and it then hands the case to a different rule altogether.
How saying nothing amounts to acting in bad faith
The Code does not leave this to inference. A landowner is in bad faith where the work was done with his knowledge and without opposition on his part. Two things are required, and both are ordinary questions of fact: that he knew, and that he did not object. Nothing turns on whether he encouraged the builder or profited from the delay. The owner who watches a house rise on his lot week by week, says nothing, and appears with a demand once the roof is on has by then made his own position worse than it was on the day the first block was laid.
What that costs him
The case is then resolved under the rule made for an owner who builds with another person's materials in bad faith. He answers for the value of what went into the work and is liable for damages besides, and the innocent party may take back what belongs to him — a right that here is not cut down by the injury removal would cause to the structure. In practical terms the landowner no longer holds a menu of choices. He is the party who must pay, and the builder is the one with the election.
If you are the owner and construction has started
Object now, in writing, and keep proof that the objection was delivered and when. Silence is not neutral in this area; it is evidence. Photograph the stage the work has reached on the day you object, because how far it had gone when you first knew is exactly what will be argued about later. If you are the one building, the mirror image applies: keep whatever shows the owner saw the work and let it continue — messages, site visits, payments accepted, a signed plan. That record is the whole of your protection, and memories of who said what on site will not substitute for it.
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.
- Ophelia L. Tuatis vs. Spouses Eliseo Escol and Visminda Escol, et al, G.R. No. 175399, October 27, 2009 — read the decision on LawPhil →