Short answer. Three, bundled together: the right to enjoy the property, the right to dispose of it, and the right of action to recover it from anyone holding it. Article 428 makes each of these subject to limitations established by law, which is where most real disputes actually live.
What the law says
The owner has the right to enjoy and dispose of a thing, without other limitations than those established by law.
Civil Code, Article 428 — The Rights of an Owner. Read the full provision →
Enjoy, dispose, recover
Article 428 packs three distinct powers into two sentences. To enjoy a thing covers using it, occupying it, taking its fruits and its rents, and changing it. To dispose covers selling, donating, mortgaging, leasing, and even letting it deteriorate. The second sentence adds a separate power: a right of action against the holder and possessor, meaning the owner may go to court to get the thing itself back rather than settle for money. A registered title, a deed of sale and a tax declaration are evidence that these powers belong to you. They are not the powers themselves.
The limitation clause is doing real work
Readers usually arrive believing ownership is absolute, and the article's own wording is what corrects them. Ownership is bounded by those limitations established by law, and Philippine law establishes many: legal easements of drainage, of light and view, and of right of way for a landlocked neighbour; the rules on nuisance; expropriation for public use upon just compensation; agrarian reform coverage; and the constitutional limits on who may own land at all. A title exempts land from none of these. So when a neighbour, a local government or an occupant asserts a right over your property, the question is rarely whether you own it. It is which statutory limitation they are invoking.
The right of action is the part people forget
The right of action against the holder and possessor of the thing is why an owner out of possession is not helpless, and also why merely owning is not enough. The action has to be brought, and it is brought against a specific person actually holding the property. That means identifying the occupant, and it means the passage of time can start to matter, because possession held openly and adversely for long enough can ripen into a claim against you. Sitting on a title while somebody else lives on the land for years is the most common way an owner weakens a case they should have won easily.
What settles an ownership dispute in practice
Before anything else, find out what the occupant says their right is: a lease from a previous owner, an inheritance share, a purchase from someone claiming to be the owner, or nothing at all. That answer decides everything downstream, because each of those is a different case with a different court and a different time limit. Bring the certificate of title, the deed by which you acquired the property, the tax declarations and receipts, and any written permission you ever gave the occupant to stay. The permission matters more than owners expect: tolerated occupation that was never revoked in writing is harder to end.
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.
- Phil. National Bank vs. Court of Appeals, et al, G.R. No. 105760, July 7, 1997 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Authority Of The Freeport Area Of Bataan vs. F.F. Cruz & Co., Inc, G.R. No. 240047, May 14, 2021 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Republic of the Philippines vs. Heirs of Ma. Teresita A. Bernabe and Cooperative Rural, G.R. No. 237663, October 6, 2020 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Hacienda Luisita, Inc. vs. Presidential Agrarian Reform Council, et al, G.R. No. 171101, April 24, 2012 — read the decision on LawPhil →
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 429 — Doctrine of Self-Help
- Civil Code, Article 434 — Requisites to Recover Property