Sec. 31. Admission by privies.—
Where one derives title to property from another, the act, declaration, or
omission of the latter, while holding the title, in relation to the property,
is evidence against the former.
Requisites:
1. There must be a
relation of privity between the party and the declarant;
2. The admission was made
by the declarant, as predecessor in interest, while holding title to the
property;
3. The admission is in
relation to said property.
Who are privies?
“Privies”
are persons who are partakers or have an interest in any action or thing, or
any relation to another (Black’s, 5th
Ed., 1077). Examples: (a) A lessor and his lessee, a grantor and a grantee,
an assignor and an assignee are privies in estate or a contract; (b) An
executor or an administrator and the estate of the deceased are privies in
representation; or (c) An heir and his ascendants are privies in blood or
succession.
Privity in estate may have
arisen by succession, by acts mortis causa or by acts inter vivos.
Example
Assume
that X, father of Z, while the former was alive, openly told his acquaintances,
that the land where his house stood had already been sold to Y. Is this
declaration by X admissible against Z, the sole heir of Y? It is not because
that statement was made after X held his title to the land. For an admission of
a predecessor-in-interest to be admissible against the successor-in-interest,
the following requisites must be present:
(a) There must be an act, declaration or an
omission by a predecessor-in-interest;
(b) The act, declaration or omission of the predecessor
must have occurred while he was holding (not after) the title to the property;
and
(c) The act, declaration or omission must be in
relation to the property (Sec. 31, Rule
130, Rules of Court).
●
Accordingly, when the former owner of the property made the declaration after
he ceased to be he owner of the property, the rule on admission by privies does
not apply and what applies is the general rule that the rights of a party
cannot be prejudiced by an act, declaration, or omission of another (Gevero vs. Intermediate Appellate Court,
189 SCRA 201
Cases
Alpuerto v. Pastor, 38 Phil. 785 (1918) – “privies” denotes any act
whereby the successor is substituted in the place of the predecessor in
interest; purchaser at execution sale is a privy of the execution debtor; “3rd parties”
are persons who have not intervened in the execution of the instrument either
as principals or witnesses
City of Manila v. Del Rosario, 5 Phil. 227 (1905) –
admission must be made while one holds title
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