Philippine Laws -Simplified | Free Legal Advice

Welcome! I'm Giancarlo Enrico S. Pozon, a Wushu instructor, investor and Barrister... That's right, Barrister; I graduated from law school and took the Bar Exams, now I'm waiting for the results. I created this blog to make Philippine Law easy to understand for the average person. It's all about free legal advice. There are many law blogs. But the problem is that many of them are written for lawyers and law students. They use words that can't be understood by ordinary people. Many lawyers, judges and law students consider themselves as superior to most human beings because of their knowledge of the law. It bothers me since the law is supposed to serve society. Since the law is meant to serve society as a whole, it is important that is must be understood by everybody. This does not mean that we should all become lawyers. It means that although law is a highly specialized profession, the first duty of everybody in this profession is to make the law understandable to all; that's why all these articles are free legal advice. Like I said, this blog is about law -but it's for the ordinary people, not the lawyers. It's for the ordinary folk so they will know what is good and bad for them, and that making them aware of the law will help us all improve society as a whole. This is free legal advice for everybody!

Hidden Treasure

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Here's a post I think you will find interesting; it's about hidden treasure. Art. 438 to 439 of the Civil Code govern the division of hidden treasure.

Hidden treasure is any unknown deposit of money, jewelry or other precious objects. The owner of the treasure should be unknown. So if you find a stash of hidden jewelry in the garden of a friend's house, it isn't yours even if your friend doesn't know about it. Hidden treasure, under Art. 438, belongs to the person who owns the land where the treasure is found. If, however it was found by someone else, the following rules shall apply:

1.) If the treasure is found by another person by pure chance, ½ of the treasure belongs to him and ½ goes to the landowner.
2.) If the person who found the treasure was given permission to find it, it's still divided 50-50.
3.) If it was found on government property, the 50-50 rule still applies. The other half goes to the government.
4.) If the finder is a stranger or a lessee/usufructuary, he isn't entitled to a share.
5.) If The person who found the treasure is an employee of the landowner, 50-50 once again. But if he was actually paid to look for the treasure, all he gets is his salary.

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