85. Article 1357.

 If the law requires a document or other special form, as in the acts and contracts
enumerated in the following article, the contracting parties may compel each other to observe that
form, once the contract has been perfected. This right may be exercised simultaneously with the action
upon the contract.

Article 2125. In addition to the requisites stated in article 2085, it is indispensable, in order that a
mortgage may be validly constituted, that the document in which it appears be recorded in the Registry
of Property. If the instrument is not recorded, the mortgage is nevertheless binding between the parties.

The persons in whose favor the law establishes a mortgage have no other right than to demand the
execution and the recording of the document in which the mortgage is formalized. (1875a)

ARTICLE 1602. The contract shall be presumed to be an equitable mortgage, in any of the following
cases:

(1) When the price of a sale with right to repurchase is unusually inadequate;

(2) When the vendor remains in possession as lessee or otherwise;

(3) When upon or after the expiration of the right to repurchase another instrument extending
the period of redemption or granting a new period is executed;

(4) When the purchaser retains for himself a part of the purchase price;

(5) When the vendor binds himself to pay the taxes on the thing sold;

(6) In any other case where it may be fairly inferred that the real intention of the parties is that
the transaction shall secure the payment of a debt or the performance of any other obligation.

In any of the foregoing cases, any money, fruits, or other benefit to be received by the vendee as rent or
otherwise shall be considered as interest which shall be subject to the usury laws. (n)

Article 1603. In case of doubt, a contract purporting to be a sale with right to repurchase shall be
construed as an equitable mortgage. (n)

Article 1604. The provisions of article 1602 shall also apply to a contract purporting to be an absolute
sale.

Article 2126. The mortgage directly and immediately subjects the property upon which it is imposed,
whoever the possessor may be, to the fulfillment of the obligation for whose security it was constituted.
(1876)

86. Article 2124. Only the following property may be the object of a contract of mortgage:

(1) Immovables;

(2) Alienable real rights in accordance with the laws, imposed upon immovables.

Nevertheless, movables may be the object of a chattel mortgage. 

Article 415. The following are immovable property:

(1) Land, buildings, roads and constructions of all kinds adhered to the soil;

(2) Trees, plants, and growing fruits, while they are attached to the land or form an integral part
of an immovable;

(3) Everything attached to an immovable in a fixed manner, in such a way that it cannot be
separated therefrom without breaking the material or deterioration of the object;
 (4) Statues, reliefs, paintings or other objects for use or ornamentation, placed in buildings or on
lands by the owner of the immovable in such a manner that it reveals the intention to attach
them permanently to the tenements;

(5) Machinery, receptacles, instruments or implements intended by the owner of the tenement
for an industry or works which may be carried on in a building or on a piece of land, and which
tend directly to meet the needs of the said industry or works;

(6) Animal houses, pigeon-houses, beehives, fish ponds or breeding places of similar nature, in
case their owner has placed them or preserves them with the intention to have them
permanently attached to the land, and forming a permanent part of it; the animals in these
places are included;

(7) Fertilizer actually used on a piece of land;

(8) Mines, quarries, and slag dumps, while the matter thereof forms part of the bed, and waters
either running or stagnant;

(9) Docks and structures which, though floating, are intended by their nature and object to
remain at a fixed place on a river, lake, or coast;

(10) Contracts for public works, and servitudes and other real rights over immovable property.
(334a)

Article 2127. The mortgage extends to the natural accessions, to the improvements, growing fruits, and
the rents or income not yet received when the obligation becomes due, and to the amount of the
indemnity granted or owing to the proprietor from the insurers of the property mortgaged, or in virtue
of expropriation for public use, with the declarations, amplifications and limitations established by law,
whether the estate remains in the possession of the mortgagor, or it passes into the hands of a third
person.

Article 2053. A guaranty may also be given as security for future debts, the amount of which is not yet
known; there can be no claim against the guarantor until the debt is liquidated. A conditional obligation
may also be secured. (1825a)

Article 2129. The creditor may claim from a third person in possession of the mortgaged property, the
payment of the part of the credit secured by the property which said third person possesses, in the
terms and with the formalities which the law establishes. (1879)

Article 2130. A stipulation forbidding the owner from alienating the immovable mortgaged shall be void.
(n)

90. REPUBLIC ACT No. 4882

An Act to Amend Section One of Republic Act Numbered One Hundred Thirty-Three, Entitled "An Act
to Authorize the Mortgage of Private Real Property in Favor of Any Individual, Corporation, or
Association Subject to Certain Conditions", as Amended by Republic Act Numbered Forty-Three
Hundred Eighty-One

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippine Congress Assembled:

Section 1. Section one Republic Act Numbered One hundred thirty-three as heretofore amended by
Republic Act Numbered Forty-three hundred eighty-one, is hereby further amended to read as follows:

"Sec. 1. Any provision of law to the contrary notwithstanding, private real property may be mortgaged in
favor of any individual, corporation, or association, but the mortgage or his successor in interest, if
disqualified to acquire or hold lands of the public domain in the Philippines, shall not take possession of
the mortgaged property during the existence of the mortgage and shall not take possession of
mortgaged property except after default and for the sole purpose of foreclosure, receivership,
enforcement or other proceedings and in no case for a period of more than five years from actual
possession and shall not bid or take part in any sale of such real property in case of
foreclosure: Provided, That said mortgagee or successor in interest may take possession of said property
after default in accordance with the prescribed judicial procedures for foreclosure and receivership and
in no case exceeding five years from actual possession."

Section 2. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.