Short answer. No, but you do not need everyone. Selling, donating or encumbering the family home requires the written consent of the person who constituted it, that person's spouse, and a majority of the beneficiaries of legal age. Minors are not counted, and a court decides in case of conflict.
What the law says
The family home may be sold, alienated, donated, assigned or encumbered by the owner or owners thereof with the written consent of the person constituting the same, the latter's spouse, and a majority of the beneficiaries of legal age. In case of conflict, the court shall decide.
Family Code, Article 158 — Sale or Encumbrance of the Family Home. Read the full provision →
Three consents, and they are cumulative
Article 158 allows the family home to be sold, alienated, donated, assigned or encumbered by the owner or owners thereof with the written consent of the person constituting the same, the latter's spouse, and a majority of the beneficiaries of legal age. Read the list as three requirements rather than alternatives. Ownership alone is not enough — the owner still needs the constituting person's consent, that person's spouse's consent, and the majority. And the consent must be written, so verbal agreement at a family meeting does not satisfy the article however genuine it was.
Who is in the majority you have to count
The majority is of the beneficiaries of legal age, and beneficiaries are a defined class: the spouses or unmarried head of the family, and their parents, ascendants, descendants and siblings who live in the home and depend on the head for legal support. So the count is not of everyone under the roof, and not of everyone in the family — a sibling who lives elsewhere is not a beneficiary, and a dependent adult child living there is. Minor beneficiaries do not vote, though their presence matters for other purposes. Getting the class wrong is the commonest defect in these sales.
Encumbering counts, not only selling
The article's verbs are broad — sold, alienated, donated, assigned or encumbered — so a mortgage over the family home needs the same consents as an outright sale. That is the trap for a household head raising money on the house for a business or an emergency. It also means a transaction can be attacked years later by a beneficiary whose consent was never obtained, which is why a careful buyer or lender asks who lives in the property and on what footing before accepting the owner's signature alone. A consent obtained from the wrong people is no consent at all.
If the household cannot agree
The article ends with a short remedy: in case of conflict, the court shall decide. So a sale is not hostage to one holdout — the disagreement is taken to a judge rather than left to defeat the transaction. Before it gets there, do the counting exercise properly: list every beneficiary, note which are of legal age, record who is resident and dependent, and get each consent in writing on the deed itself. Keep the marriage and birth certificates that establish the relationships, because the buyer's counsel will want to see how the majority was arrived at.
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.
- Enrico S. Eulogio and Natividad V. Eulogio vs. Paterno C. Bell, Sr., Rogelioa Calingasan-Bell, et al, G.R. No. 186322, July 8, 2015 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Rodolfo Alarilla, Sr., et al. vs. Reynaldo C. Ocampo, G.R. No. 144697, December 10, 2003 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Union Bank of the Philippines vs. Court of Appeals, et al, G.R. No. 134068, December 25, 2001 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Urduja Ortiz-Aquino vs. Letecia Ortillo, Lisette Ortillo, And Sheriff Of The Office Of The Provincial Sheriff Of Lingayen, Pangasinan, G.R. No. 257235, November 8, 2023 — read the decision on LawPhil →