Short answer. The spouse claiming it is exclusive. Property acquired during the marriage is presumed to belong to the community, so the person saying otherwise carries the burden of proving that it falls within one of the exclusions. Silence or doubt on the evidence resolves in favour of the community.
What the law says
Property acquired during the marriage is presumed to belong to the community, unless it is proved that it is one of those excluded therefrom.
Family Code, Article 93 — Presumption of Community Property. Read the full provision →
A presumption decides who loses when the evidence runs out
One short sentence does a great deal of work: property acquired during the marriage is presumed to belong to the community, unless it is proved that it is one of those excluded therefrom. A presumption is not a finding about your particular house. It is an allocation of risk. The spouse asserting the community position needs to show only that the property was acquired during the marriage; from that point the other spouse must prove an exclusion. Where the proof is thin on both sides, the presumption is what breaks the tie, and it breaks it for the community.
What the title says is not the answer
The most frequent misunderstanding is that a title, a deed or an account in one spouse's sole name settles the character of the asset. It does not. Registration in one name is entirely consistent with community property, and a great deal of community property is held that way for convenience. Nor is it enough to show that the purchase money came out of one spouse's salary, since earnings during the marriage are themselves community. To overcome the presumption you must bring the property within a recognised exclusion, not merely explain who signed for it.
What actually discharges the burden
The proof has to be of the kind the exclusions call for. If the claim is that the asset came by gratuitous title, the will, the deed of donation or the settlement of the estate is the evidence, together with a clean trail from that source to the asset in dispute. If the claim is that a later purchase merely replaced excluded property, the trail has to run through the bank records without disappearing into a joint account. Testimony that everyone in the family always regarded the lot as one spouse's own carries very little weight against a documented acquisition during the marriage.
Build the record before the argument matures
This question usually surfaces at the worst moment, during a separation, a creditor's claim or the settlement of an estate, when the documents are years old and the people who could explain them are unavailable. The practical response is to assemble, for each asset in dispute, the acquisition document, the dated proof of where the money came from and any instrument creating an exclusion. A lawyer can tell you fairly quickly which items have a real chance of being taken out of the community and which are being defended out of sentiment.
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.
- Edgardo Santos, et al. vs. Maria D. Santos and/or her Successors-in-interest, G.R. No. 250774, June 16, 2021 — read the decision on LawPhil →