G.R. No. 244129 - ELEONOR SAROL, VS. SPOUSES GEORGE GORDON DIAO AND MARILYN A. DIAO, ET AL..D E C I S I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

Accordingly, the Original Certificate of Title (OCT) No. FV-44750 registered in the name of Claire Chiu was cancelled and Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) No. 103-2012000605 was issued in the name of Sarol on February 16, 2012. [4] Sarol had been in possession of the property since 2007 and began developing a beach resort. She eventually left the Philippines to reside in Germany. Her father, Emproso Sarol, was made to manage all her assets in the Philippines, including the beach resort and Lot No. 7150. Sarol also left Marie Jeane Alanta-ol to manage the beach resort. [5] Spouses Diao claim that their property is adjacent to Lot No. 7150. Prior the sale of said property to Sarol, Claire Chiu caused to survey the property yielding an area of 1,217 square meters. However, the area, as surveyed, is erroneous because it included 464 square meters of Spouses Diao's property. In 2009, Spouses Diao learned of this overlap. They immediately demanded Claire Chiu and Sarol to return their portion of the property, but to no avail. [6] In 2015, Spouses Diao filed a complaint [7] with the RTC Branch 44, Dumaguete City docketed as Civil Case No. 2015-15007 entitled Spouses George Gordon Diao and Marilyn Diao v. Claire Chiu, joined by her husband Ginghis Gamaliel D. Chiu, the Register of Deeds of Negros Oriental and Eleanor Sarol . Spouses Diao sought to partially cancel the contracts from which Claire Chiu derived ownership over Lot No. 7150, to reconvey an area of 464 square meters from said property in their favor and to hold Claire Chiu and Sarol liable for damages. [8] Ruling of the Regional Trial Court In the course of the proceedings for the abovementioned case, summons [9] was issued for service to Claire Chiu, her husband Ginghis Chiu, the Register of Deeds of Negros Oriental, and Sarol. The address of Sarol indicated in the summons states "Guinsuan, Poblacion, Zamboanguita, Negros Oriental," [10] or the location of the property she purchased from Claire Chiu. OnApril16, 2015, respondent Sheriff Tale issued a Sheriffs Return of Summons, [11] which states that summons was served on Claire Chiu but could not be served to Sarol "on the ground that she is out of the country." [12] Spouses Diao then moved for the issuance of alias summons. [13] In the Sheriffs Return dated July 25, 2015, [14] Sheriff Tale stated his three failed attempts to personally serve the alias summons to Sarol at Guinsuan, Poblacion, Zamboanguita, Negros Oriental. Sheriff Tale narrates that on July 10, 2015, the alias summons was not served because nobody was around the location. In the evening of the same date, he, again, failed to serve the alias summons after receiving information from the caretaker that Sarol left a few days ago. Early morning of July 11, 2015, Sheriff Tale spoke with the caretaker and learned that Sarol arrived the Philippines on July 3, 2015 and left for Germany on July 7, 2015; that the caretaker had no idea of Sarol's return. [15] For this reason, Spouses