Short answer. Yes. Article 1111 provides that prescription obtained by a co-proprietor or a co-owner shall benefit the others. What one co-owner acquires by possession accrues to the co-ownership, so completing the period does not convert a shared interest into a sole one.
What the law says
Prescription obtained by a co-proprietor or a co-owner shall benefit the others.
Civil Code, Article 1111 — Prescription by a Co-Owner. Read the full provision →
One sentence, and it does not qualify itself
Prescription obtained by a co-proprietor or a co-owner shall benefit the others. So the co-owner who stayed on the land, paid the taxes and completed the period has not bought himself out of the co-ownership by doing it. What he acquired came in for the group. The others need not have contributed, or even to have been present, for the article to apply, which is why it so reliably disappoints the relative who did all the work and assumed the law would notice.
Why it works that way
A co-owner's possession is not adverse to his co-owners in the ordinary case. He is on the property because he is entitled to be there, and the law reads what he does as done in the character he already holds. That is also why his acts do not usually put the others on notice of anything. Nothing about occupying, improving or declaring the property for taxation announces a claim against the people who share it with him, because all of it is consistent with his being exactly what he is.
The question this article does not answer
Whether a co-owner can ever acquire against his co-owners is separate, and it is argued on the character of the possession rather than on this provision. Article 1118 requires possession in the concept of an owner, public, peaceful and uninterrupted, and possession held in the character of a co-owner is not possession in the concept of the sole owner. What would have to be shown is a clear and known change in that character at an identifiable date, and the burden of showing it sits heavily on whoever asserts it.
What each side should be gathering
If you are the co-owner who was away, establish the co-ownership itself: the title, the extrajudicial settlement or partition if there was one, the estate proceedings, and the family tree that places you within it. If you are the one who stayed, the article does not leave you empty-handed either. What you spent on taxes, necessary repairs and preservation is the subject of a claim within the co-ownership, and it is far easier to make with receipts kept year by year than reconstructed later.
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 1118 — Possession That Ripens Into Ownership
- Civil Code, Article 1137 — Extraordinary Prescription — 30 Years