Petitioners assail the Decision1 [Rollo, pp. 18-27.] dated September 20, 1991, as well as the Resolution.2 [Id. at 29.] dated November 4, 1991, of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CV No. 27758, which reversed the judgment dated June 2, 1990, of the Regional Trial Court of Makati, Branch 145, in LRC Case No. M-1586.3 [CA Records, pp. 7-11.] The trial court’s judgment disposed as follows:

The Court of Appeals in turn ruled:

The antecedent facts culled by the Court of Appeals from the findings of the trial court, are as follows:

On September 20, 1991, the Court of Appeals, Second Division, promulgated a decision reversing the June 2, 1990 decision of Branch 145 of the Regional Trial Court of Makati. The Court of Appeals dismissed the petition before the trial court and upheld the transfer certificate of title of respondent-appellants Evelyn T. Bautista and Ramon T. Bautista.7 [Id. at 26.] Esmsoâ

Petitioners now assign the following errors:

In Part VIII of the petition, petitioners identify the "ultimate" issue at bar to be:

This Court is thus asked by petitioners to resolve two conflicting rights, to determine who should acquire title to the subject property. These are: the right of one party to acquire title to registered land from the moment of inscription of an attachment on the day book (or entry book) on one hand; and on the other, the right of the other party to rely on what appears on the owner’s duplicate certificate of title for purposes of voluntary dealings with the same parcel of land.

It was established by both the trial court and the Court of Appeals that respondents Evelyn and Ramon Bautista purchased the subject property on October 18, 1982, from Renato C. Plata, the petitioners’ judgment debtor in Civil Case No. 82-12668. On said date, Plata’s Transfer Certificate of Title No. S-33634 was cancelled and Transfer Certificate of Title No. 57006 was issued in the name of respondents. They relied on Plata’s duplicate certificate of title, free from the notice of attachment. However, the notice of attachment was entered on the primary entry book of the Register of Deeds of Pasay City. When respondents verified the original title with the Office of the Register of Deeds, they found the same unblemished by any liens or encumbrances. It appears that the then Register of Deeds had failed to annotate the notice of attachment on the original copy of the title. EsmmÓ is

From the facts, respondent spouses clearly had no notice of any defect, irregularity or encumbrance in the title of the property they purchased. Neither did they have any knowledge of facts or circumstances which should have put them on inquiry, requiring them to go behind the certificate of title. Respondent spouses were clearly innocent purchasers for value and in good faith at the time they acquired the subject property. Petitioners themselves admitted in their petition, "Neither can negligence be ascribed to respondents for their failure to go beyond their certificate of title…"10 [Id. at 14.] In Sandoval vs. Court of Appeals,11 [260 SCRA 283, 295 (1996)] we reiterated a long line of decisions and ruled "that one who deals with property registered under the Torrens system need not go beyond the same, but only has to rely on the title. He is charged with notice only of such burdens and claims as are annotated on the title."12 [Legarda vs. C.A., 280 SCRA 642, 655 (1997)]

Likewise, negligence cannot be imputed to petitioners in this case. The records show that petitioners successfully obtained a writ of preliminary attachment of the subject property in Civil Case No. 82-12668, and the notice of attachment was then entered in the primary entry book of the Register of Deeds of Pasay City on October 6, 1982. But as earlier stated, the notice of attachment was not annotated on the original copy of the transfer certificate of title TCT No. S-33634. Petitioners later obtained a favorable judgment and purchased the subject property at the execution sale. When they sought to inscribe the certificate of sale on Plata’s title covering the subject property, they discovered that the latter had been sold to respondent spouses, the new title thereto - TCT No. 57006 - now in their name. The notice of attachment was later inscribed on the cancelled certificate of title on November 22, 1983, but it was made to appear that it had been annotated on October 6, 1982.13 [Rollo, p. 61.] This belated inscription is reflected since said inscription followed the earlier entry on October 18, 1982, of the sale of the subject property to respondent spouses.14 [Records, p. 56, 64.] The notice of attachment dated October 6, 1982, was also later annotated on TCT No. 57006.15 [Id. at 58.]

In its Decision, the Court of Appeals stated that the petitioners did not "take any step to annotate the attachment on TCT No. S-33634" and that "No action was taken by petitioners-appellees to annotate the attachment."16 [Supra, note 13 at 19.] The respondents likewise contend that "the problem in this case would not have arisen were it not for the negligence and very long delay on the part of petitioners in annotating their attachment in the original certificate of title in the possession of the Register of Deeds."17 [Id. at 45.] xä law

We disagree. Petitioners paid the corresponding fees for the annotation of the notice of attachment and they had every right to presume that the register of deeds would inscribe said notice on the original title covering the subject property. The register of deeds had the duty to inscribe the notice on the original title. This was not a duty of petitioners. This Court has held that a party which delivers its notice of attachment to the register of deeds and pays the corresponding fees therefor has a right to presume that the official would perform his duty properly.18 [Director of Lands vs. Abad, 61 Phil. 479, 486 (1935)] In involuntary registration, such as an attachment, levy upon execution, lis pendens and the like, it has been held that entry thereof in the day book is a sufficient notice to all persons of such adverse claim.19 [Levin vs. Bass, et al., 91 Phil. 419, 437 (1952), citing Villasor vs. Camon, et al., 89 Phil. 404 (1951)] The notice should, of course, be annotated on the back of the corresponding original certificate of title, but this Court has said that this is an official duty of the register of deeds which may be presumed to have been regularly performed.20 [Yu vs. C.A., 251 SCRA 509, 513 (1995), citing Rivera vs. Tirona, 109 Phil. 505 (1960)] As we have held in DBP vs. Acting Register of Deeds of Nueva Ecija, "current doctrine thus seems to be that entry alone produces the effect of registration, whether the transaction entered is a voluntary or involuntary one, so long as the registrant has complied with all that is required of him for purposes of entry and annotation, and nothing more remains to be done but a duty incumbent solely on the register of deeds."21 [162 SCRA 450, 459 (1988)]

Given this parity of good faith and the absence of negligence on the part of both parties, who between them has a better right to the property in question?

Article 1544 of the New Civil Code, provides:

In the case at bar, the notice of attachment covering the subject property was annotated in the entry book of the Register of Deeds of Pasay City on October 6, 1982, while the new transfer certificate of title in the name of respondent spouses was issued on October 18, 1982, the date when Plata sold the property to said respondents. Petitioners’ levy on preliminary attachment was put into effect when the property was sold on execution to petitioners, after the latter obtained a writ of execution by virtue of a favorable judgment in Civil Case No. 82-12668.

This Court has repeatedly held that in involuntary registration, such as an attachment, levy on execution, lis pendens and the like, entry thereof in the day book or entry book is a sufficient notice to all persons of such adverse claim.22 [Yu vs. Court of Appeals, supra; Sumaya vs. Intermediate Appellate Court, 201 SCRA 178, 185 (1991); DBP vs. Acting Register of Deeds of Nueva Ecija, 162 SCRA 450, 458 (1988); Garcia vs. Court of Appeals, 95 SCRA 380, 388 (1980); all citing Levin vs. Bass, 91 Phil. 419 (1952)] Petitioners’ lien of attachment was properly recorded when it was entered in the primary entry book of the Register of Deeds on October 6, 1982. Scä

We have also consistently ruled that an auction or execution sale retroacts to the date of levy of the lien of attachment.23 [Oliva vs. Court of Appeals, 166 SCRA 632, 637 (1988); Campillo vs. Philippine National Bank, 28 SCRA 220, 228 (1969); Philippine Executive Commission vs. Abadilla, 74 Phil. 68, 69 (1942) [citing Hernandez vs. Katigbak, 69 Phil. 744, 749 (1940); Vargas vs. Tancioco, 67 Phil. 308, 311 (1939)] When the subject property was sold on execution to the petitioners, this sale retroacted to the date of inscription of petitioners’ notice of attachment on October 6, 1982. The earlier registration of the petitioners’ levy on preliminary attachment gave them superiority and preference in rights over the attached property as against respondents.

Accordingly, we rule that the execution sale in favor of the petitioner Caviles spouses was anterior and superior to the sale of the same property to the respondent Bautista spouses on October 18, 1982. The right of petitioners to the surrender of the owner’s duplicate copy of TCT No. 57006 covering the subject property for inscription of the certificate of sale, and for the cancellation of said certificate of title and the issuance of a new title in favor of petitioners cannot be gainsaid.

Anent the matter of the existence of another case involving the same issue as raised in Part IX of the petition,24 [Rollo, p. 14.] suffice it to state that our present disposition of this case is not inconsistent with the decision of the Court of Appeals in CA G.R. SP No. 16359, promulgated on September 28, 1990.25 [Id. at 60-63.] This ruling was elevated to this Court as G.R. No. 98343 by way of a petition for certiorari, but it was denied for failure to comply with the Rules governing the filing of petitions with this Court.26 [Id. at 67.]

WHEREFORE, the appealed Decision of the Court of Appeals in CA G.R. CV No. 27758 dated September 20, 1991, and its Resolution dated November 4, 1991, are hereby SET ASIDE, and the Decision of Branch 145 of the Regional Trial Court of Makati dated June 2, 1990, is hereby AFFIRMED and REINSTATED.

No pronouncement as to costs.