Short answer. Only after the builder, and only if you supplied in good faith. Article 455 makes the landowner answer subsidiarily: he pays the value of your materials but only once the person who used them turns out to have no property to pay with. He is not an alternative defendant you may choose.
What the law says
the owner of the land shall answer subsidiarily for their value and only in the event that the one who made use of them has no property with which to pay
Civil Code, Article 455 — Third Person's Materials. Read the full provision →
Subsidiary is a sequence, not a second option
The word doing the work is subsidiarily. Your debtor is the builder who took the materials and used them; the landowner stands behind him and is reached only when that primary claim comes back empty. In practice that means you cannot skip the builder because he is hard to find or because the landowner is the one with money. You are expected to pursue the person who dealt with you first, and to be able to show what came of it — that his assets were looked for and there were none to answer for the value.
Good faith on your side is a condition, not a presumption to argue about later
The article protects the supplier who has not acted in bad faith. A merchant who delivered lumber to a job site on the strength of an order, with no reason to think the builder had no right to be there, is squarely within it. A supplier who knew the builder was putting up a structure on land that was not his, or who was part of the arrangement, is not — the subsidiary route simply closes and you are left with whatever ordinary claim you have against the builder. Where the landowner disputes your claim, this is usually the ground he picks.
The landowner can also take himself out of the article
The provision does not apply where the owner exercises the right granted by article 450 — broadly, where instead of keeping the work he requires that what was built be demolished or removed and the land restored. An owner who takes that route is not appropriating your materials, so the rationale for making him answer for their value disappears. That is why the owner's own election matters to a supplier who was never a party to it, and why it is worth learning early which course the owner has taken.
What to assemble before you write to the landowner
The claim is proved by delivery, not by invoice alone: purchase orders, signed delivery receipts naming the site, and any acknowledgment of receipt from the builder or his foreman. Then the value of what was delivered, distinguished from any labour or mark-up. Keep the demand on the builder in writing and dated, because the letter that shows you went to him first is what unlocks the landowner's subsidiary liability rather than merely asserting 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.
- Capitolina Vivero Napere vs. Amando Barbarona, et al, G.R. No. 160426, January 31, 2008 — read the decision on LawPhil →
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 455 — Third Person's Materials
- Civil Code, Article 450 — Landowner's Options Against a Bad-Faith Builder