Short answer. Yes, up to a point. Article 1062 provides that collation shall not take place among compulsory heirs if the donor has so expressly provided. But the exemption fails where the donation proves inofficious, that is, where it eats into what the Code reserves for the other compulsory heirs.
What the law says
Collation shall not take place among compulsory heirs if the donor should have so expressly provided, or if the donee should repudiate the inheritance, unless the donation should be reduced as inofficious.
Civil Code, Article 1062 — When Collation Is Excused. Read the full provision →
The parent's power, and its limit in one sentence
Collation shall not take place among compulsory heirs if the donor should have so expressly provided, or if the donee should repudiate the inheritance, unless the donation should be reduced as inofficious. The article grants the power and takes back part of it in the same breath. A parent may direct that a gift is not to be counted against a child's share, and that direction is binding on the other heirs as an accounting matter. What it cannot do is enlarge the portion the parent was free to give away in the first place.
Why inofficiousness is the real ceiling
The Code reserves a portion of the estate for compulsory heirs which the owner cannot dispose of, whether by will or by gift. A donation is inofficious to the extent it trespasses on that reserve, and the remedy is reduction rather than annulment: the gift stands, but so much of it as impairs the reserved portion is brought back. Article 1063 makes the same point from another angle when it says that property left by will is not deemed subject to collation if the testator has not otherwise provided, but the legitime shall in any case remain unimpaired. The exemption operates inside that boundary, never across it.
The second limb, and who else is affected
Article 1062 also excuses collation where the donee repudiates the inheritance, which makes sense: an heir who takes nothing from the estate has nothing to set the gift against. Two neighbouring rules are worth knowing because they are commonly misapplied. Article 1065 says parents are not obliged to collate in their own ascendants' estate property donated by those ascendants to their children. Article 1066 exempts donations to the spouse of a child, but if the gift was made to the spouses jointly, the child must collate one-half of the thing donated.
Say it in the deed, not afterwards
The word the article uses is expressly, so the exemption belongs in the instrument of donation itself, in plain terms, and not in a letter, a family understanding, or a will drawn up years later. Record the property's value as at the date of the donation too, because that is the figure the estate will eventually work from. And keep the two questions apart: an exemption from collation governs the accounting among heirs and does not by itself settle how the gift is treated for tax, which is a separate matter to raise with counsel.
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 1062 — When Collation Is Excused
- Civil Code, Article 1061 — Collation Defined
- Civil Code, Article 1063 — Property Left by Will
- Civil Code, Article 1066 — Donations to a Child's Spouse