Short answer. He must hand them over. If the seller of an inheritance already profited from the fruits or received anything out of the estate before the sale, Article 1632 obliges him to pay that to the buyer, unless the contract says otherwise.
What the law says
Should the vendor have profited by some of the fruits or received anything from the inheritance sold, he shall pay the vendee thereof, if the contrary has not been stipulated.
Civil Code, Article 1632 — Fruits Already Received by the Seller of an Inheritance. Read the full provision →
What is being sold, and why this rule exists
A sale of an inheritance is not a sale of any particular house, lot or bank account. The heir sells his share in the estate as a whole — an abstract fraction of whatever is left after debts, before the estate has been settled and divided. Because the buyer takes the share as it stands, the law has to say what happens to money the heir already pulled out of the estate before the sale. Article 1632 supplies the answer: should the vendor have profited by some of the fruits or received anything from the inheritance sold, he shall pay the vendee thereof, if the contrary has not been stipulated. The share is transferred whole, not stripped.
"Fruits" and "anything received" are both covered
The article uses two expressions, and the second is wider than the first. Fruits are what the estate's property produced — rents collected from an estate building, harvests taken from estate land, interest earned on estate deposits. Anything received from the inheritance sold reaches beyond that: a partial advance on the heir's share, proceeds of an estate asset already disposed of, a distribution made by the administrator. Both must be accounted for to the buyer. In practice this makes an accounting the first thing to ask for. A buyer who signs without asking what has already been drawn is buying a share whose value he has not actually checked.
The parties can agree otherwise
The closing words — if the contrary has not been stipulated — matter as much as the rule itself. This is a default, not a prohibition. Seller and buyer are free to agree that rents already collected stay with the seller, that a named advance is excluded from the sale, or that the price was set precisely because certain sums had already been taken. Such clauses are common and perfectly valid. What causes disputes is silence: where the deed says nothing, the statutory rule applies and the seller must pay over. If you are the seller and intend to keep what you have already received, say so in the contract in plain terms.
What this article does not settle
Article 1632 governs the accounting between seller and buyer. It does not warrant that the estate is solvent, that the share is worth anything, or that particular assets will end up allotted to it — the seller of an inheritance generally warrants only his character as an heir, not the quality of the individual items. It does not bind the estate's administrator or the other heirs, who deal with the estate under separate rules and may not even be aware of the sale. It does not dispense with settlement of the estate, the estate tax, or the registration steps needed before any title actually moves. And other heirs may have their own rights in respect of a share sold to a stranger. Practically: get a written accounting of everything the seller has drawn, list the excluded items expressly in the deed, notify the administrator, and take the papers to a lawyer before paying.
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.
- Perpetua Vda. De Ape vs. The Honorable Court of Appeals, et al, G.R. No. 133638, April 15, 2005 — read the decision on LawPhil →