Short answer. Yes. Article 456 says good faith does not necessarily exclude negligence, and negligence gives rise to a right to damages under Article 2176. A builder can honestly believe the land was theirs and still have been careless in a way that entitles the landowner to sue for damages.
What the law says
In the cases regulated in the preceding articles, good faith does not necessarily exclude negligence, which gives right to damages under article 2176.
Civil Code, Article 456 — Good Faith and Negligence. Read the full provision →
What the law says
Whoever by act or omission causes damage to another, there being fault or negligence, is obliged to pay for the damage done.
Civil Code, Article 2176 — Quasi-Delict Defined (Culpa Aquiliana). Read the full provision →
Good faith and negligence are not mutually exclusive
It is easy to assume that being in good faith automatically means someone acted carefully, but Article 456 rejects that assumption directly. It states that in the accession cases the surrounding articles regulate, "good faith does not necessarily exclude negligence, which gives right to damages under article 2176." A builder can genuinely and honestly believe the land belongs to them — satisfying the good faith standard — while still having been careless in some way that caused harm to the landowner.
Negligence opens the door to a quasi-delict claim
The article ties this negligence directly to Article 2176, which provides that "whoever by act or omission causes damage to another, there being fault or negligence, is obliged to pay for the damage done." This is the general rule on quasi-delicts. Article 456 makes clear that a builder's good faith status under the accession rules does not shield that builder from this separate basis of liability if their conduct was actually negligent and caused damage.
Good faith still matters for the accession remedies themselves
This does not erase the significance of good faith in the accession context altogether. Whether a builder acted in good or bad faith continues to determine the landowner's and builder's respective rights and obligations regarding the improvement itself — indemnity for the value added, the option to appropriate the work, and similar remedies specific to accession. Article 456 layers an additional, separate avenue for damages on top of that framework; it does not replace the accession rules with a pure negligence analysis.
What a landowner in this situation would need to show
To pursue damages under this combined rule, a landowner would need to establish that the builder's conduct, notwithstanding good faith about ownership of the land, involved actual fault or negligence that caused damage — for example, careless construction methods that damaged the property beyond what a diligent builder acting in good faith would have caused. The landowner is not automatically entitled to damages simply because there was construction on their land; the negligence itself still has to be proven, just as it would in any other quasi-delict claim.
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. D. Guinyawan etc. vs. L. Ayogat et al, G.R. No. 131913, June 8, 2007 — read the decision on LawPhil →
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 456 — Good Faith and Negligence
- Civil Code, Article 2176 — Quasi-Delict Defined (Culpa Aquiliana)