ROBETO RANTAEL, PETITIONER, VS. HON. COURT OF APPEALS AND TERESA LLAVE, RESPONDENTS.

Rantael versus Llave

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari brought by Roberto Rantael against Teresa Llave and the Court of Appeals, arising from an ejectment suit over a leased apartment unit in Cubao, Quezon City. Rantael was the tenant; Llave was the owner and lessor. The case matters because it fixes the meaning of a definite period in a contract of lease, and explains why such a lease falls within the express exception to the rent-control law then in force, Presidential Decree Number 20, thereby allowing the lessor to judicially eject the tenant. It is a staple for questions on lease, on the suspension of the right of judicial ejectment under rent control, and on the effect of a month-to-month agreement terminable upon notice.

Procedural History

Llave filed an ejectment suit against Rantael in the City Court of Quezon City. After hearing, the City Court upheld Llave's right to terminate the lease, ordered Rantael to vacate and restore possession of the leased premises, and ordered him to pay two hundred pesos in attorney's fees plus the costs of suit. Rantael appealed to the Court of First Instance of Rizal at Quezon City, filing the necessary bond to stay execution, but that court affirmed the City Court's judgment in its entirety. Rantael then petitioned the Court of Appeals to review the decision of the Court of First Instance, and the appellate court dismissed his petition. From that dismissal, Rantael came to the Supreme Court on a petition for review on certiorari, which the Court gave due course and later declared submitted for decision.

Facts

Sometime in May 1970, Teresa Llave and Roberto Rantael entered into a verbal agreement by which Llave leased to Rantael unit 51-A of her four-unit apartment at Stanford Street, Cubao, Quezon City, at a monthly rental of one hundred sixty pesos. In July 1973, Llave sought to raise the monthly rental to one hundred eighty pesos. Rantael complained to the Presidential Action Unit of the Office of the President, charging a violation of Presidential Decree Number 20. At the conference called by the Office of the President, Llave agreed to roll the rent back to one hundred sixty pesos, provided that her juridical relationship with Rantael be formalized in a written lease contract, and Rantael acceded.

Thus, on the first of August 1974, the parties entered into an Agreement on Occupancy of Apartment. Under it, Rantael agreed to use, occupy and live in the apartment known as Door 51-A on a month-to-month basis, beginning that day, and the agreement expressly provided that upon thirty days notice, either party may terminate it, each fulfilling their respective obligations. Llave later wrote the Office of the President asking whether, under the agreement, she had the right to terminate the lease and eject her tenant at the end of every month after giving notice. The Assistant Executive Secretary replied that the lease is considered a lease with a definite period, falls under the exception in Section 4 of Presidential Decree Number 20, and that the lessee is therefore subject to judicial ejectment upon compliance with the Rules of Court on unlawful detainer.

By communication dated the eleventh of February 1975, Llave notified Rantael of her decision to terminate the lease and asked him to vacate after thirty days from receipt. Rantael received the notice on the seventeenth of February 1975 but refused to vacate, compelling Llave to file the ejectment suit on the thirtieth of April 1975.

Issues

• Whether or not the Agreement on Occupancy of Apartment provided for a lease with a definite period.
• Whether or not a lease with a definite period falls within the exception to Section 4 of Presidential Decree Number 20, such that the lessor may judicially eject the lessee.
• Whether or not the lessor's right to judicially eject the tenant may be upheld on the grounds allowed under the later rent law, Batas Pambansa Blg. 25.

Applicable Provisions

Section 4 of Presidential Decree Number 20 provides:

Except when the lease is for a definite period, the provisions of paragraph (1) of Article 1673 of the Civil Code of the Philippines insofar as they refer to dwelling unit or land on which another's dwelling is located shall be suspended until otherwise provided; but other provisions of the Civil Code and the Rules of Court of the Philippines on lease contracts, insofar as they are not in conflict with the provisions of this Act, shall apply.

This is the very provision in dispute: it suspends judicial ejectment as a general rule, but carves out the express exception of a lease for a definite period, which is the exception Llave invokes.

Paragraph (1) of Article 1673 of the Civil Code provides:

The lessor may judicially eject the lessee for any of the following causes: (1) When the period agreed upon, or that which is fixed for the duration of leases under articles 1682 and 1687, has expired.

This is the right of ejectment that Presidential Decree Number 20 suspends, and whose suspension the definite period lifts.

Article 1687 of the Civil Code provides:

If the period for the lease has not been fixed, it is understood to be from year to year, if the rent agreed upon is annual; from month to month, if it is monthly; from week to week, if the rent is weekly; and from day to day, if the rent is to be paid daily.

This is the legal period fixed by law when the parties have agreed on none, and the Court distinguishes it from the contractual period in this case.

Article 13 of the Civil Code provides:

When the laws speak of years, months, days or nights, it shall be understood that years are of three hundred sixty-five days each; months, of thirty days; days, of twenty-four hours; and nights from sunset to sunrise.

The Court borrows this rule of interpretation to read a month in the contract as thirty days.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the agreement did provide a definite period. Period means length of existence or duration; definite means having distinct or certain limits, fixed. A definite period, therefore, is a portion of time certain or ascertainable as to its beginning, duration and termination. Here the lease commenced on the first of August 1974, the phrase beginning today marking its starting point, and it ran on a month-to-month basis, a month being thirty days under Article 13. The relation expired after each thirty-day period and renewed for the next, until Llave exercised her express prerogative to terminate upon thirty days notice.

On the second issue, the Court held that the exception applies. Section 4 of Presidential Decree Number 20 should be understood to mean that, as a general rule, the lessor may not judicially eject the lessee upon the expiration of the period determined under Articles 1682 and 1687, but that by express exception, judicial ejectment lies when the lease is for a definite period. The lease here having a definite period, the exception rather than the general rule governs, and Llave's right to eject was duly enforceable. The Court also noted that Batas Pambansa Blg. 25, which superseded the decree, buttresses her right, since Section 5 thereof allows ejectment on the expiration of the period of a written lease contract and on the need of the owner to repossess the property for her own use or that of an immediate member of her family, and the record showed her purpose was to provide her son a dwelling.

Doctrine

A lease is for a definite period when the period is certain or ascertainable as to its beginning, duration and termination. A month-to-month lease beginning on a date certain, terminable by either party upon thirty days notice, is a lease for a definite period, and a month is counted as thirty days under Article 13 of the Civil Code.

Under Section 4 of Presidential Decree Number 20, the general rule suspends the lessor's right of judicial ejectment under paragraph (1) of Article 1673 of the Civil Code, but the express exception is a lease for a definite period. When the lease is for a definite period, the exception applies and the lessor may judicially eject the lessee. The legal periods fixed under Articles 1682 and 1687 are not the contractual period the exception contemplates.

Disposition

The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, affirmed the dismissal by the Court of Appeals, and upheld the ejectment of Rantael, with costs against him, the decision to be immediately executory upon promulgation.

Remember This

Memorize the line: a month-to-month lease beginning on a date certain and terminable on thirty days notice is a lease for a definite period, and so falls within the express exception to Section 4 of Presidential Decree Number 20, allowing judicial ejectment. Examiners use this case to test the distinction between a contractual definite period and the legal periods under Article 1687, and to test the exception to the suspension of judicial ejectment under rent control.