FLORO V. LLENADO

244 SCRA 713

FACTS:

Floro was the owner of a subdivision. Here comes Llenado who bought the adjoining subdivision lot, which was formerly Emmanuel Homes. A creek separates the property of Llenado from Floro. On the west side of Llenado’s property was a rice land. On the subdivision plan of Llenado’s property, there was a plan to construct an access road to McArthur Highway but no construction was made. With the two subdivisions, it was Floro’s which only had an access road. Floro allowed usage of his access road pending negotiations but later on closed the property.

HELD:

The essential requisites are the following—

1. The property is surrounded by estate of others and there is no adequate outlet to a public highway
2. It must be established at the point least prejudicial to the servient estate and insofar as consistent with this rule, where the distance from the dominant estate to a public highway may be the shortest
3. There must be payment of the proper indemnity
4. The isolation should not be due to the proprietor’s own acts Burden of proving the existence of the prerequisites to validly claim a compulsory right of way lies on the owner of the dominant estate. And it should be noted that mere convenience of the dominant estate is not what is contemplated by the law in establishing a right of way.