Short answer. The same share as each child. Article 996 gives a surviving spouse left with legitimate children or descendants the same share as each of them, so your father's estate is divided into four equal parts — one for your mother and one for each of the three children.

What the law says

If a widow or widower and legitimate children or descendants are left, the surviving spouse has in the succession the same share as that of each of the children.

Civil Code, Article 996 — Spouse Takes a Child's Share. Read the full provision →

One rule, and it is deliberately simple

Article 996 provides: If a widow or widower and legitimate children or descendants are left, the surviving spouse has in the succession the same share as that of each of the children. The spouse is neither elevated above the children nor pushed below them; she is counted as one more. With three children the estate splits four ways. The rule is easy to apply once you know what it applies to — and that is where almost every family goes wrong, because it does not apply to everything your father used to own.

Liquidate the marriage first, then divide the estate

If your parents were married under the absolute community or the conjugal partnership, the property built up during the marriage is not your father's alone. That regime dissolves at death and must be liquidated before any succession takes place: your mother's own half comes off the top, and only your father's remaining half, together with whatever was exclusively his, forms the estate to be divided. So her real position is her half as a spouse, plus a one-fourth slice of the other half as an heir. Families who divide the gross assets four ways shortchange the widow badly.

How the children's side is counted

Article 980 has the children of the deceased inherit in their own right, dividing the inheritance in equal shares. Under Article 979 there is no distinction as to sex or age, children of different marriages are treated alike, and an adopted child succeeds to the property of the adopting parents in the same manner as a legitimate child. If one of the three had died before your father leaving children of his own, Article 981 lets those grandchildren take his place by right of representation, so the estate is still divided into the same number of parts.

Two things that change the arithmetic

First, debts and the obligations of the estate come off before anything is divided, so what is shared out is a net figure and not the value of the house. Second, other heirs may exist: an illegitimate child of your father is also called by law to inherit from him, which alters what each share is worth without displacing anyone. Article 1002 supplies a further qualification — in a legal separation, a surviving spouse who gave cause for the separation loses the rights granted in the preceding articles. Get the marriage certificate, the birth certificates of all children, the titles, and the outstanding debts before agreeing to any division.

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.

Related provisions

Note. Statute text quoted on this page is reproduced from the official enactment and is linked to the full provision. The explanation around it is general legal information from Vivas & Nobles Law Office, not legal advice. Whether it applies to your situation depends on facts only a lawyer reviewing them can assess.