Short answer. The Family Code answers this directly: once the absolute community or the conjugal partnership is dissolved, the provisions on complete separation of property apply. Your finances stop being governed by the community rules and instead fall under the separate-property regime from that point forward.
What the law says
After dissolution of the absolute community or of the conjugal partnership, the provisions on complete separation of property shall apply.
Family Code, Article 138 — Complete Separation Applies After Dissolution. Read the full provision →
A direct switch of regime, stated plainly
Article 138 is short and unambiguous: after dissolution of the absolute community or of the conjugal partnership, the provisions on complete separation of property shall apply. There is no gap the article leaves open between the old regime ending and a new one beginning — the moment dissolution occurs, complete separation of property is what governs going forward. The article treats this as automatic rather than something the spouses need to separately agree to or petition for.
It applies to both community regimes
The article names both the absolute community and the conjugal partnership as regimes it covers. Whichever of the two governed your marriage, its dissolution triggers the same consequence under this article: the transition to complete separation of property. The article does not draw a distinction between the two regimes in terms of what follows their dissolution — the outcome stated is identical for both.
What the article leaves for other provisions
Article 138 states that the provisions on complete separation of property apply; it does not itself set out what those provisions are or how the transition is carried out in practical terms, such as accounting for existing assets or liabilities. That detail sits in the rules on complete separation of property elsewhere in the Code, which this article points to rather than restates. What Article 138 settles is which regime takes over, not the mechanics of getting there.
What complete separation actually looks like
Those provisions are worth knowing in outline, because they are what the switch actually delivers. Under complete separation each spouse owns, disposes of, possesses, administers and enjoys his or her own separate estate without need of the consent of the other, and earnings from a profession, business or industry, together with the fruits of separate property, belong to the spouse who owns it (Article 145). Separate estates do not mean a separate household, though: Article 146 requires both spouses to bear the family expenses in proportion to their income, and makes their liability to creditors for those family expenses solidary — a creditor for a family expense may still look to either spouse for the whole of it.
Why the timing of dissolution matters
Because Article 138 speaks in terms of "after dissolution," the regime change it describes only takes effect once dissolution has actually occurred, not while the community or partnership is still subsisting or merely being questioned. Until dissolution is complete, the community or partnership rules that applied to your marriage continue to govern; Article 138 marks the point at which that governance ends and complete separation of property begins instead. Dissolution is also not the same thing as liquidation. What was already community property still has to be inventoried and settled under the rules for the regime that ended, and it is only what emerges from that accounting that each spouse holds separately afterwards.
Related provisions
- Family Code, Article 138 — Complete Separation Applies After Dissolution
- Family Code, Article 145 — Independent Ownership of Each Separate Estate
- Family Code, Article 146 — Sharing Family Expenses; Solidary Liability to Creditors