The Supreme Court (SC) has clarified the appropriate legal remedies for recovering a piece of land, whether for possession or ownership, and when to file the cases in courts.

In a full court decision written by Associate Justice Ricardo R. Rosario, the SC said the three legal remedies are ejectment, accion publiciana, and accion reivindicatoria.

The SC said a summary ejectment case is filed to recover physical possession of the land when the dispossession was due to force, intimidation, threat, strategy, or stealth and has not lasted for more than a year.

An accion publiciana is filed to recover possession when more than a year has passed since the dispossession, or even within a year if no force or similar means was involved, it also said.

An accion reivindicatoria is filed to recover both ownership and possession based on that ownership, it added.

The SC explained that in accion publiciana, the issue is who has the better right to possess the land, without necessarily claiming ownership.

In contrast, that SC pointed out that accion reivindicatoria involves determining who owns the land, with possession granted to the rightful owner.

A summary of the decision issued by its Office of the Spokesperson, the SC ruled that Lea Victa-Espinosa correctly filed an accion publiciana to recover possession of her land in Camarines Norte.

After purchasing the property, Espinosa found that spouses Noel and Leny Agullo were occupying a portion of the land.

When the espouses Agullo refused to leave despite her demand, Espinosa filed a complaint for recovery of possession before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Daet, Camarines Norte.

The RTC dismissed the complaint with a ruling that it was filed too early. The trial court said that Espinosa still had the option to file an ejectment case, which must be done within one year from the time she discovered the unauthorized occupation of her land.

The trial court also said that since an accion publiciana can generally be filed only after that one-year period has passed, her complaint was premature.

However, the Court of Appeals (CA) reversed the RTC’s decision, finding that Espinosa’s complaint was not an accion publiciana but an accion reivindicatoria, as she sought to recover possession based on her ownership of the property.

The Agullo spouses elevated the issue before the SC and claimed that Espinosa filed an accion publiciana case that was filed prematurely.

The SC denied the petition and directed the RTC “to conduct further proceedings with reasonable dispatch and to decide the case on the merits in accordance with this decision.”

It said that Espinosa filed an accion publiciana since her complaint sought to recover possession -- not ownership -- and did not allege that the Agullo spouses disputed her title.

It also said that the action was not premature, because an accion publiciana may be filed even within one year from dispossession if no force, intimidation, threat, strategy, or stealth was used.

It added that Espinosa did not allege force, intimidation, threat, strategy, or stealth in her complaint before the trial court.