COMMON LAW

Settling Property issues with an Ex-Spouse

By Atty. Luvim Amores
Manila
October 4, 2015



In my modest years of practice as a lawyer, I really find confrontations between and among family members relating to money, properties, inheritance, ”controversial” ( for lack of word to describe something that is different, unique, sometimes  exciting, often times bitter, painful). The issues confronting the lives of couples, married or not, remind me that union between two individuals is more than just feelings, sex, bearing children and waking up all the mornings of your life beside the one whom you think you are in love with. In every union (especially those that eventually turned sour), economic as well as property rights issues will surely be brought up.

Dante, came to my office one day, having property issues. He is legally married to Teri with whom he has five children. Their marriage has been rocky since the time Teri went to Canada and work there as a nurse.

While his wife was in Canada, Dante had an affair with Angie. A year after, they decided to live together. When the legal wife, Teri learned about Dante’s affair, she stopped communicating.

Angie’s family is well connected as well as conservative. To appease Angie’s parents who find live-in partnership as offensive to their family’s reputation, Angie brought Dante to an office where they signed a purported Marriage Contract without having obtained a marriage license. Considering Dante’s marital status, the said document was not registered with the Civil Registrar and the National Statistics Office. Angie just needed the document to be shown to her parents and to give their union a semblance of legality.

While living together, they bore three children and were able to acquire ten properties all in the name of Dante married to Angie. It was also during this time when Dante’s father died and being the sole heir, Dante inherited all fifteen properties of his father, including their ancestral house. These properties were all transferred in the name of Dante married to Angie.

His relationship with Angie eventually turned sour. They mutually agreed to separate after ten years of being together.

Representing Dante, we filed a Petition for declaration of Non Existent Marriage/Declaration of Nullity of Marriage on the ground that his marriage to Angie lacks formal requisites of a valid marriage. We also asked for the partition of the ten properties they acquired during the cohabitation in accordance with Article 148 of the Family Code which provides that :

” In cases of cohabitation not falling under the preceding Article, only the properties acquired by both of the parties through their actual joint contribution of money, property, or industry shall be owned by them in common in proportion to their respective contributions. In the absence of proof to the contrary, their contributions and corresponding shares are presumed to be equal. The same rule and presumption shall apply to joint deposits of money and evidences of credit.”  

In her answer, Angie argued that said provision is not applicable in their case and wanted to have her share in all twenty five properties including those inherited by Dante because all were registered in the name of Dante married to Angie. Is Angie’s contention correct?

In determining the property rights of persons living together, it is important to first determine the existence of marriage. Here, there was no marriage between Dante and Angie. They only signed a purported Marriage contract without having obtained a marriage license, the same was not also recorded in the Office of the Civil Registrar and with the National Statistics Office. Hence, the marriage between Dante and Angie did not exist. Theirs is a “live-in” relationship, also called “common law marriage” and thus, Art. 148 is applicable to them.

 In other words, under Art. 148, only the properties acquired through their ACTUAL JOINT contribution of money, property or industry shall be owned by them in common (in proportion to their actual contributions). There is no presumption that properties were acquired through the partners’ joint effort. The properties inherited by Dante shall be excluded in the partition. Please also note that if one has a prior marriage, in this case Dante, his share shall be forfeited in favor of that previous marriage with Teri. (as an aside, the children under the second relationship shall be considered as illegitimate).

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