Short answer. Yes. When two or more things are jointly sold, whether for a lump sum or a separate price for each, and it clearly appears the buyer would not have purchased one without the other, eviction from one lets the buyer demand rescission of the whole sale, not just of the property lost.
What the law says
The same rule shall be observed when two or more things have been jointly sold for a lump sum, or for a separate price for each of them, if it should clearly appear that the vendee would not have purchased one without the other.
Civil Code, Article 1556 — Partial Eviction. Read the full provision →
The joint-sale rule extends the partial-eviction remedy
This article first establishes that a buyer who loses, through eviction, a part of the thing sold so important that the buyer would not have bought it without that part, may demand rescission of the whole contract. It then extends the same rule to a joint sale of two or more things — whether sold for a single lump sum or with a separate price fixed for each — where it clearly appears the buyer would not have purchased one without the other.
How this fits your situation
Buying two properties together and being evicted from one mirrors exactly the scenario this extension addresses. If it clearly appears you would not have bought the remaining property without the one you lost — because they were meant to function together, or the deal was conditioned on having both — this article lets you demand rescission of the entire sale, covering both properties, rather than being limited to a remedy over just the property from which you were evicted.
The pricing structure does not defeat this right
The article is explicit that this applies whether the properties were sold for a lump sum, or for a separate price for each of them. Even if your contract assigned a distinct price to each property rather than one combined figure, that separate pricing does not by itself block rescission of the whole sale, so long as the interdependence between the two properties is clearly shown.
What you would need to show, and what rescission requires of you
The key factual question is whether it clearly appears that you would not have bought one property without the other — a genuine interdependence, not merely that owning both would have been convenient. If rescission is granted, the same underlying rule requires you to return what you received, with an obligation to return the thing without other encumbrances than those it had when you acquired it, since rescission works to restore both parties to their original positions rather than to let you keep an advantage from the transaction.
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.
- Heirs of Sofia Quirong, etc. vs. Development Bank of the Philippines, G.R. No. 173441, December 3, 2009 — read the decision on LawPhil →