My parents are both Filipino OFWs and signed one joint will together while working overseas — is that valid?

What makes a will 'joint'

Article 818 is the rule Article 819 refers back to: Two or more persons cannot make a will jointly, or in the same instrument, either for their reciprocal benefit or for the benefit of a third person. The defect is the shared document, not the shared intention. A husband and wife who each execute their own will on the same afternoon, before the same witnesses, in identical terms, have made two wills and the prohibition does not touch them. A husband and wife who sign one paper have made a joint will however carefully it is drafted, and the fact that they meant to benefit their children rather than each other changes nothing.

Foreign law does not rescue it

This is the striking part, because the Code is otherwise generous about foreign form. Article 815 provides that When a Filipino is in a foreign country, he is authorized to make a will in any of the forms established by the law of the country in which he may be. Many jurisdictions where Filipinos work do permit joint or mutual wills, and an OFW couple who followed local advice will usually have been told, correctly as to that country, that what they signed was fine. Article 819 removes exactly that case from the general rule: such a will shall not be valid in the Philippines, even though authorized by the laws of the country where they may have been executed.

Why the Code insists on separate instruments

Article 828 gives the reason without naming it. A will may be revoked by the testator at any time before his death. Any waiver or restriction of this right is void. That freedom is difficult to exercise honestly when the document is also somebody else's will and that somebody is still living, or has died in reliance on it. A joint will tends to lock the survivor in, or else to be revoked behind the other's back, and either outcome is a bad one. Two separate wills keep each parent's freedom intact while allowing their plans to match in substance.

Where this leaves the estate now

If nothing else was executed, there is no valid will to give effect to, and the property passes by operation of law. Who takes and in what proportion depends on which relatives survive — children, the surviving spouse, and in their absence others in the order the intestate rules fix — and, because the parents were married, on their property regime being liquidated first so that only the deceased's own share is distributed. The remedy while both are alive is straightforward and worth doing promptly: two wills, each executed in proper form, whether under Philippine formalities or those of the country they are in.

Related provisions

• Civil Code, Article 819 — Joint Wills by Filipinos Abroad Are Void
• Civil Code, Article 818 — Joint Wills Are Prohibited
• Civil Code, Article 815 — A Filipino Making a Will Abroad
• Civil Code, Article 828 — A Will Is Always Revocable