Short answer. No. Article 495 withholds the right to demand a physical division where cutting the thing up would render it unserviceable for the use it is intended for. The co-ownership can still be brought to an end — but by another route, not by drawing lines through the property.
What the law says
the co-owners cannot demand a physical division of the thing owned in common, when to do so would render it unserviceable for the use for which it is intended
Civil Code, Article 495 — When Physical Division Is Impossible. Read the full provision →
The limit on an otherwise absolute right
A co-owner is normally entitled to demand partition at any time, and no one can be forced to stay in a co-ownership indefinitely. Article 495 carves out the case where the demand would destroy the thing being divided: the co-owners cannot demand a physical division of the thing owned in common, when to do so would render it unserviceable for the use for which it is intended. The reasoning is straightforward. Partition exists to give each owner the value of his share, and a division that leaves everyone holding something worthless has achieved the opposite.
Unserviceable, not merely inconvenient
The test is directed at the use the property is intended for. A house cut into fractions along the middle of the rooms, a small lot sliced into strips with no access to any of them, a single vehicle, a piece of machinery — in each case the parts cannot do what the whole did. That is different from a division that is awkward or that gives one co-owner the less attractive frontage. A property does not escape partition because splitting it lowers the price, and courts are not asked to find the fairest division, only whether a workable one exists.
The co-ownership still ends
Nothing in the article traps anybody. It says only that the thing cannot be carved up, and it points to the alternative in the very next breath: the co-ownership may be terminated by other means. In practice this means the property is assigned to one of them, who pays out the others for their shares, or it is sold and the proceeds divided in the proportions each holds. Either way the co-owner who wants out gets the value of his share in money rather than in land, which is what he was entitled to all along.
What decides it in your case
Start with a survey and the technical description, since whether a lot can be divided into usable parcels with access to each is a question for a geodetic engineer before it is a question for a lawyer. Local minimum-lot and access requirements matter too, because a division on paper that cannot be approved is not a division. Then work out the value, because if the answer is that the property must be assigned or sold, the argument shifts immediately to what it is worth and who has the money — and an independent appraisal is far more use at that point than a family's estimate.
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.
- Guillerma S. Silva vs. Conchita S. Lo, G.R. No. 206667, June 23, 2021 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Reynaldo Reyes, as heir of Vitaliano Reyes vs. Sps. Wilfredo and Melita Garcia, G.R. No. 225159, March 21, 2022 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Heirs of Cesar Marasigan etc. vs. Apolonio, et al. All surnamed marasigan, et al, G.R. No. 156078, March 14, 2008 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Perla G. Patricio vs. Marcelino G. Dario III, et al, G.R. No. 170829, November 20, 2006 — read the decision on LawPhil →