Short answer. Yes for administration. Where one spouse is incapacitated or otherwise unable to participate, the other may assume sole powers of administration. Those powers stop short of selling or mortgaging: any disposition still needs court authority, since the written consent of the other spouse is unobtainable.
What the law says
In the event that one spouse is incapacitated or otherwise unable to participate in the administration of the common properties, the other spouse may assume sole powers of administration. These powers do not include disposition or encumbrance without authority of the court or the written consent of the other spouse.
Family Code, Article 96 — Administration of the Community Property. Read the full provision →
The power arrives without a court order
The default is joint administration by both spouses, and the article makes an exception for exactly your situation. The wording is may assume: the well spouse takes up sole administration by fact, not by petition, and nothing has to be filed for the household to keep functioning. The trigger is drawn broadly, covering a spouse incapacitated or otherwise unable to participate, which reaches medical incapacity but also, for instance, a spouse whose whereabouts are unknown. What has to be true is inability to take part in decisions, not any particular diagnosis or legal declaration.
Administration is not disposition
This is the line people cross without noticing. Administration covers running the property — collecting rent, paying the taxes, repairing the roof, renewing an insurance policy, keeping a business going. It does not cover parting with the asset or burdening it. The article says the powers do not include disposition or encumbrance, so selling the house, mortgaging the lot or pledging community property as security for a loan remains outside them. A spouse acting in perfect good faith to raise money for the sick spouse's treatment is still acting beyond the power the article confers.
To sell or mortgage, you need the court
The provision offers two ways to validate a disposition: the written consent of the other spouse, or authority of the court. Where the spouse is incapacitated the first is not available — a signature guided onto a page by someone else is not consent, and a power of attorney executed before the incapacity does not survive the loss of capacity of the person who gave it. That leaves the court. Where no authority is obtained, the article makes the disposition void, subject only to the continuing-offer mechanism the same paragraph provides, which cannot help when the person whose acceptance is needed is the one unable to give it.
What to put in order now
Two things are worth doing before any transaction is contemplated. Document the incapacity as it stands — the medical records and the treating physician's assessment — because a buyer, a bank or a registrar will ask on what basis you are acting alone. And separate your list of assets into what you merely need to manage and what you may eventually need to sell, since only the second list requires going to court. Bring that list, the titles, and the medical file to a lawyer; the sequence and timing of the court application is the part worth advice.
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.
- Maryline Esteban vs. Radlin Campano, and all persons claiming rights under him, G.R. No. 235364, April 26, 2021 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Arturo Sarte Flores vs. Sps. Enrico L. Lindo, Jr. and Edna C. Lindo, G.R. No. 183984, April 13, 2011 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Philip Mattews vs. Benjamin A. Taylor and Joselyn C. Taylor, G.R. No. 164584, June 22, 2009 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Belinda Alexander vs. Spouses Jorge and Hilaria Escalona and Reygan Escalona, G.R. No. 256141, July 19, 2022 — read the decision on LawPhil →