Short answer. No. Article 485 ties each co-owner's share of the charges to the size of his interest, and expressly voids any stipulation to the contrary. You cannot decouple who pays from who owns. What you can do is prove the interests themselves are unequal, because the law only presumes them equal.
What the law says
The share of the co-owners, in the benefits as well as in the charges, shall be proportional to their respective interests. Any stipulation in a contract to the contrary shall be void.
Civil Code, Article 485 — Shares in Benefits and Charges. Read the full provision →
Costs follow ownership, both ways
Article 485 lays down a single proportion that governs the whole relationship: the share of the co-owners, in the benefits as well as in the charges, shall be proportional to their respective interests. Benefits and charges move together. The co-owner entitled to the larger slice of the rents and fruits is the same one who must shoulder the larger slice of the taxes and repairs. You cannot keep the upside of a bigger interest while contracting out of its costs, and you cannot be handed a bigger bill than your interest without a matching increase in what you own.
The stipulation the law strikes down
The second sentence is blunt: any stipulation in a contract to the contrary shall be void. What it voids is an agreement that breaks the link between interest and cost — one owner of a third agreeing to pay half the taxes, or an owner of half agreeing to carry none of the repairs. The clause is void, not merely voidable, so no lapse of time and no signature cures it. A co-owner who paid more than his proportion under such a deal can still recover the excess from the others.
Where unequal cost-sharing is legitimate
The route to different cost shares is not a side agreement but a difference in the interests themselves. The Code presumes the portions equal unless the contrary is proved, and that presumption yields to evidence — the deed of sale, the contributions each made to the purchase price, the shares fixed in a will or partition. If one co-owner genuinely owns two-thirds, then two-thirds of the charges are his, and that is proportion, not a forbidden stipulation. The distinction is between reallocating cost away from interest, which fails, and establishing what the interests actually are, which controls.
What settles a dispute over shares
When co-owners quarrel over who pays what, the document that fixes their interests decides it, so start there: the title, the deed, the records of who put in how much, any prior partition. Absent proof of unequal interests, each pays an equal share and can compel the others to contribute. An informal understanding that one will always pay the taxes has no force against Article 485, however long it has been honoured, so a co-owner carrying more than his proportion should keep the receipts rather than assume the arrangement has hardened into a right.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- Edilberto U. Ventura, Jr. vs. Sps. Paulino and Evangeline Abuda, G.R. No. 202932, October 23, 2013 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- In the matter of the Intestate of Reynaldo Guzman Rodriguez; Anita Ong Tan vs. Rolando C. Rodriguez, et al, G.R. No. 230404, January 31, 2018 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Dominador M. Apique vs. Evangeline Fahnenstich, G.R. No. 205705, August 5, 2015 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Aurora L. Tecson, et al. vs. Minverva, Maria, et al. all surnamed Fausto and Isabel Vda. De Fausto, G.R. No. 180683, June 1, 2011 — read the decision on LawPhil →