Short answer. No, not automatically. If parents entrust property management to an unemancipated child, the net proceeds still belong to the owner, though the child must get a reasonable monthly allowance at least equal to what a stranger administrator would have been paid, unless the owner grants the entire proceeds to the child.
What the law says
If the parents entrust the management or administration of any of their properties to an unemancipated child, the net proceeds of such property shall belong to the owner.
Family Code, Article 227 — Property the Child Is Entrusted to Administer. Read the full provision →
Administering property is not the same as owning its income
Letting your child manage a piece of property does not transfer the income that property generates. The article is explicit: the net proceeds of such property shall belong to the owner. As the parent who still owns the property, you remain entitled to what it earns, even though your child is the one actually running or administering it day to day. Being trusted with administration is a role, not a transfer of the underlying economic benefit.
The child is still owed a fair allowance for the work
The child's effort in managing the property is not left uncompensated. The law requires that the child shall be given a reasonable monthly allowance in an amount not less than that which the owner would have paid if the administrator were a stranger. In effect, the child has to be paid at least what you would have paid any outside administrator for the same job — the child's status as your son or daughter is not a reason to pay them less, or nothing, for genuinely doing the work.
You can choose to give more, even everything
The default sharing arrangement is not fixed in stone if the owner wants to be more generous. The article allows this outcome to shift entirely: the proceeds belong to the owner "unless the owner grants the entire proceeds to the child." A parent is free to hand over all the income from the property to the child managing it, rather than just the reasonable allowance — but that has to be a deliberate grant, not something that happens automatically just because the child is doing the administering.
Whatever the child receives does not eat into their future inheritance
There is a protection built in for how this arrangement interacts with inheritance later on. "In any case, the proceeds thus give in whole or in part shall not be charged to the child's legitime." Whether the child received only the reasonable allowance or the entire proceeds under a generous grant, none of it reduces the share the child is legally entitled to inherit. The compensation for managing the property and the child's eventual inheritance are treated as entirely separate matters.
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.
- Ma. Dulce C. Fernandez vs. Enrique C. Fernandez, G.R. No. 266145, August 19, 2024 — read the decision on LawPhil →