Short answer. It takes effect from the very beginning, not from the date you ratify. Ratification cleanses the contract of its defects retroactively, as of the moment the contract was constituted, so the agreement is treated as having been sound from the day it was made rather than only from the day it was confirmed.
What the law says
Ratification cleanses the contract from all its defects from the moment it was constituted.
Civil Code, Article 1396 — Retroactive Effect of Ratification. Read the full provision →
Why the backdating matters more than it sounds
If ratification worked only from the day it was given, everything done in the intervening period would sit in a legal gap — payments made, goods delivered, interest that ran, rights that third parties acquired. Retroactivity closes that gap in one move. The contract is treated as having been free of the defect from the outset, so performance already rendered is performance under a valid contract, and periods that were running continue uninterrupted. The practical consequence is that a party who ratifies cannot later pick and choose: he cannot keep the benefits earned in the interim while disowning the obligations that arose in the same stretch of time.
The rule applies to voidable contracts, not to void ones
This is the distinction that trips people up. A voidable contract is valid until annulled — it suffers from a defect such as vitiated consent, given through mistake, violence, intimidation, undue influence or fraud, or the incapacity of one of the parties. That kind of contract may be ratified, and this article tells you from when. A void contract is a different animal: it produces no legal effect at all, and no amount of confirmation, silence, or later approval can turn it into a binding agreement. Contracts with an unlawful cause or object, or those the law declares inexistent, fall in that second group. Ratification cannot rescue them.
Ratification does not have to be a signed document
It may be express, but it is more often tacit — inferred from conduct. A person who knows of the defect, is by then free of whatever vitiated his consent or has since acquired capacity, and nonetheless performs the contract, accepts its benefits, or otherwise treats it as binding, will generally be taken to have ratified it. That is why parties who intend to challenge an agreement are careful about continuing to collect under it. Note that ratification is the act of the party entitled to sue for annulment; it does not require the agreement of the other side, and it extinguishes the action to annul.
What is not swept away
Cleansing the contract of its defects is not the same as erasing every consequence of what happened. Ratification concerns the contract's validity between the parties; it does not automatically wipe out an independent liability for damages, and it does not settle criminal responsibility where the conduct that produced the defect was itself an offence. Rights genuinely acquired by third persons in good faith deserve separate attention. Timing also matters in the other direction, because the action to annul a voidable contract is subject to a prescriptive period, and letting it lapse produces its own result. Whether a particular course of dealing amounts to ratification depends closely on the facts and documents involved.
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.
- Jesus E. Ulay vs. Maranguyod Bustamante/Jesus E. Ulay vs. Salome Bustamante-Sarol, Heirs of Adelaida, G.R. No. 231721 / G.R. No. 231722, March 18, 2021 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Atty. Leonardo Florent O. Bulatao vs. Zenaida C. Estonactoc, G.R. No. 235020, December 10, 2019 — read the decision on LawPhil →