Short answer. Yes. Article 1558 says the vendor is not obliged to answer for the warranty against eviction unless he is summoned in the eviction suit at the buyer's instance. Without summoning your seller into that case, you generally cannot later hold him liable for the warranty.
What the law says
The vendor shall not be obliged to make good the proper warranty, unless he is summoned in the suit for eviction at the instance of the vendee.
Civil Code, Article 1558 — Vendor Must Be Summoned. Read the full provision →
Summoning the seller is a precondition to the warranty
Article 1558 is direct about what a buyer must do before the warranty against eviction becomes enforceable: "the vendor shall not be obliged to make good the proper warranty, unless he is summoned in the suit for eviction at the instance of the vendee." If you want your seller to answer for the loss of the property to a third party's superior claim, you have to bring him into that same lawsuit yourself — it is not enough to simply notify him informally or tell him about it afterward.
Why the law requires this step
The warranty against eviction exists to protect a buyer when someone else turns out to have a better right to the property, but making a seller pay for a loss he had no chance to contest would be unfair to him. Summoning the vendor into the eviction suit gives him the opportunity to appear, present evidence, and defend the title he sold you, rather than being told after the fact that a case he never participated in already decided the property belonged to someone else.
What happens if you never summon the vendor
If the third party's suit against you proceeds and concludes without your seller ever having been brought into it, Article 1558 indicates the seller is not obliged to answer for the warranty based on that proceeding. This does not necessarily mean you have no other claim against your seller at all under different theories, but it does mean the specific warranty against eviction, tied as it is to a summoned and properly conducted eviction suit, would not be available to you on the strength of a case he was never given the chance to defend.
What this means for defending the eviction suit you are now facing
Because you are currently being sued over the property, the practical lesson from Article 1558 is that you should act promptly to bring your seller into that same case rather than waiting to see how it resolves before approaching him. Involving him now, while the suit is pending, is what preserves your ability to later invoke the warranty against eviction if the claimant's title is upheld and you end up losing the property.
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.
- Sps. Michael Uy & Bonita Uy vs. Eduardo Ariza, et al, G.R. No. 158370, August 17, 2006 — read the decision on LawPhil →