Quieting of Title Not Proper Remedy For Settling Boundary Dispute

First Issue: Quieting of Title Not Proper Remedy For Settling Boundary Dispute
We agree with respondent Court. The facts presented unmistakably constitute a clear case of boundary dispute, which is not cognizable in a special civil action to quiet title.

Quieting of title is a common law remedy for the removal of any cloud upon or doubt or uncertainty with respect to title to real property.^[9]

The Civil Code authorizes the said remedy in the following language:

"Art. 476.  Whenever there is a cloud on title to real property or any interest therein, by reason of any instrument, record, claim, encumbrance or proceeding which is apparently valid or effective but is, in truth and in fact, invalid, ineffective, voidable, or unenforceable, and may be prejudicial to said title, an action may be brought to remove such cloud or to quiet the title.

An action may also be brought to prevent a cloud from being cast upon a title to real property of any interest therein."

In fine, to avail the remedy of quieting of title, a plaintiff must show that there is an instrument, record, claim, encumbrance or proceeding which constitutes or casts a cloud, doubt, question or shadow upon the owner’s title to or interest in real property. Thus, petitioners  have wholly misapprehended the  import of the foregoing rule by claiming that respondent Court  erred in  holding  that  there was "no xxx evidence of any muniment of title, proceeding, written contract, xxx", and that there were, as a matter of fact, two such contracts, viz., (i) the Agreement of Partition executed by private respondent and his brothers (including the petitioners’ father and predecessor-in-interest), in which their respective shares in the inherited property were agreed upon, and (ii) the Deed of Sale evidencing the redemption by petitioner Anastacia Vda. de Aviles of the subject property in a foreclosure sale. However, these documents in no way constitute a cloud or cast a doubt upon the title of petitioners. Rather, the uncertainty arises from the parties’ failure to situate and fix the boundary between their respective properties.

THIRD DIVISION[ 95748, November 21, 1996 ]ANASTACIA VDA. DE AVILES, ET AL., PETITIONERS, VS. COURT OF APPEALS AND CAMILO AVILES, RESPONDENTS.