Manila, June 27 -- The Supreme Court (SC) has ruled that a land sale made through a verbal, unwritten agreement can be considered valid and binding - so long as it has been partly or fully carried out.

In an 18-page decision made public Friday, the SC's 3rd Division upheld the verbal sale of land between Marcos Batara and his nephew Benedicto Ocampo after it noted that Ocampo had already received the land title, moved into the property, and made improvements on it.

The land was registered in Batara's name. After he died in 1974, his children, Noblesa and Ernesto, were unaware of the property. They only discovered it in 2007 when they received a notice to pay unpaid real estate taxes and found out that their cousin, Ocampo, was living th...