When you borrowed from a bank and mortgaged your parcels of land as a security for your loan, will a partial payment of the loan, as an advance payment thereof, allow you to demand from the bank the release of one of your lands?
Under the law, a mortgage is indivisible, hence, partial payment of the debt will not result in the extinguishment of a part thereof. Article 2089 of the New Civil Code of the Philippines provides:
"Art. 2089. A pledge or mortgage is indivisible, even though the debt may be divided among the successors in interest of the debtor or of the creditor.
"Therefore, the debtor's heir who has paid a part of the debt cannot ask for the proportionate extinguishment of the pledge or mortgage as long as the debt is not completely satisfied.
"Neither can the creditor's heir who received his share of the debt return the pledge or cancel the mortgage, to the prejudice of the other heirs who have not been paid.
"From these provisions is excepted the case in which, there being several things given in mortgage or pledge, each one of these guarantees only a determinate portion of the credit.
"The debtor, in this case, shall have a right to the extinguishment of the pledge or mortgage as the portion of the debt for which each thing is specially answerable is satisfied."
Likewise, in the case of Philippine National Bank v. Hon. Rustico De Los Reyes (GR L-46898-99, Nov. 28, 1989), the Supreme Court, speaking through then Associate Justice Florenz Regalado, explained that:
"This also means that the debtor cannot ask for the release of any portion of the mortgaged property or of one or some of the several lots mortgaged unless and until the loan thus, secured has been fully paid, notwithstanding the fact that there has been a partial fulfillment of the obligation. Hence, it is provided that the debtor who has paid a part of the debt cannot ask for the proportionate extinguishment of the mortgage as long as the debt is not completely satisfied."
Based on the foregoing principle of Indivisibility of Mortgage, you cannot compel the bank to release one of your lands even if you pay in advance a part of your loan.
Unless and until the full amount of your loan is completely satisfied, the bank may legally hold the mortgage on all the properties which form part of the contract.
Source: The Manila Times
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