Short answer. Six causes: civil interdiction, a judicial declaration that your spouse is an absentee, loss of parental authority, abandonment or failure in obligations to the family, abuse of the power of administration granted in the marriage settlements, and separation in fact for at least a year with reconciliation highly improbable.
What the law says
That the spouse granted the power of administration in the marriage settlements has abused that power
Family Code, Article 135 — Sufficient Causes for Judicial Separation of Property. Read the full provision →
What the law says
That at the time of the petition, the spouses have been separated in fact for at least one year and reconciliation is highly improbable.
Family Code, Article 135 — Sufficient Causes for Judicial Separation of Property. Read the full provision →
What the law says
the presentation of the final judgment against the guilty or absent spouse shall be enough basis for the grant of the decree
Family Code, Article 135 — Sufficient Causes for Judicial Separation of Property. Read the full provision →
The three that a judgment proves
Article 135 divides in practice into grounds you prove with a court document and grounds you prove with evidence. The first three are the documentary ones: a spouse sentenced to a penalty which carries with it civil interdiction, a spouse judicially declared an absentee, and a decreed loss of parental authority. For these the article says the presentation of the final judgment against the guilty or absent spouse shall be enough basis for the grant of the decree. What they have in common is that the spouse has already been found, by a court, incapable of being trusted with the property.
Abandonment and abuse of administration
The fourth ground is that the spouse has abandoned the latter or failed to comply with his or her obligations to the family — the same conduct that opens the receivership and sole-administration remedies, so a spouse in that position is choosing between remedies rather than discovering a new one. The fifth is narrower and often overlooked: that the spouse granted the power of administration in the marriage settlements has abused that power. It only arises where a settlement actually gave one spouse that power, which makes it a ground for couples who signed something before the wedding.
The one most people are actually using
The sixth ground needs no misconduct at all: that at the time of the petition, the spouses have been separated in fact for at least one year and reconciliation is highly improbable. Both halves have to be established. One year is the floor, measured to the filing rather than to the falling-out, and the improbability of reconciliation is a separate finding the court makes on the facts — the length of the separation, the absence of contact, new households, the failure of any attempt to reconcile. This is the route for the couple who simply live apart and want the property question closed.
Which ground you plead decides what you must prove
Pick the ground before you gather anything, because the proof differs completely. For the first three, obtain a certified copy of the judgment. For abandonment, build the timeline of the departure and the silence. For abuse of administration, produce the settlement granting the power and the transactions that abused it. For separation in fact, the material is mundane — separate addresses, utility bills, school records, the date you last lived together. A petition supported by the wrong kind of evidence fails on the record rather than on the merits.
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.
- David A. Noveras vs. Leticia T. Noveras AM. No. P-06-2227 August 19, 2014 Office of the Court Administrator vs. Atty. Mario N. Melchor, Former Clerk of Court VI, RTC, Br. 16, Naval, Biliran (now Presiding Judge, MCTC, Calubian-San Isidro, Leyte), G.R. No. 188289, August 20, 2014 — read the decision on LawPhil →