If a builder uses construction materials that belong to someone else without paying for them, who is responsible to that material owner?

The landowner's liability is subsidiary, not primary

Article 455 says that if the materials belong to a third person who has not acted in bad faith, 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. "Subsidiarily" is the operative word: the landowner is a backup source of payment, not the first target. As the material owner, you would first need the builder to be unable to pay before the landowner's subsidiary liability comes into play at all.

An exception tied to a bad-faith builder

Article 455 adds a limit: this provision shall not apply if the owner makes use of the right granted by article 450. That right belongs to a landowner facing a builder who built in bad faith — it lets the landowner demand demolition of the work, or compel the builder to pay for the land, at the builder's expense. If the landowner exercises that option instead, Article 455's subsidiary-liability rule for the material supplier does not apply in the same way.

What happens if the landowner already paid the builder

Article 455 also covers the reverse situation, where the material owner has already been paid: if the owner of the materials, plants or seeds has been paid by the builder, planter or sower, the latter may demand from the landowner the value of the materials and labor. In that scenario the builder, having settled with the supplier, gets a claim of their own against the landowner for the value of the materials and the labor involved — a separate accounting from the supplier's original claim.

What this means for pursuing payment

As the unpaid material owner, your claim runs to the builder in the first instance. The landowner only becomes answerable if the builder genuinely has nothing to pay with, and even that fallback does not apply if the landowner instead exercises the bad-faith remedy under Article 450. Establishing that the builder cannot pay is therefore a necessary step before the landowner's subsidiary responsibility becomes relevant to your 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.

• 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