Legitime is the minimum share of an estate that Philippine law reserves for compulsory heirs — the surviving spouse, legitimate and illegitimate children, and, in their absence, legitimate parents. You compute it in two steps: first arrive at the net hereditary estate under Civil Code Article 908 (assets at death, minus debts and charges, plus the value of donations subject to collation), then apply the fixed fraction the Civil Code assigns to each class of heir depending on who survives.
Legitime is not a share of goodwill or a rule of thumb — it is a fixed, computable fraction of the estate that the Civil Code (Republic Act No. 386) reserves by law for certain heirs, called compulsory heirs, regardless of what a will says. A testator is free to dispose of the rest of the estate as they wish, but they cannot touch the legitime; any disposition that impairs it can be reduced by the heirs whose legitime was cut into. Computing it correctly is the first real step in any estate settlement, testate or intestate.
Who the Law Calls Compulsory Heirs
Under Article 887 of the Civil Code, the compulsory heirs are: legitimate children and descendants; in their default, legitimate parents and ascendants; the surviving spouse; and illegitimate children. Legitimate children exclude legitimate parents from inheriting — parents only become compulsory heirs when there are no legitimate children or descendants to inherit ahead of them. The surviving spouse and illegitimate children, by contrast, always concur with whichever other class of compulsory heir survives.
Step 1: Get the Net Hereditary Estate First
Before any fraction can be applied, Article 908 requires you to determine the net hereditary estate, computed as follows:
- Value the property left at the time of the decedent's death.
- Deduct all debts and charges (excluding anything the will itself imposes as a charge, which cannot reduce the legitime).
- The difference between assets and liabilities is the hereditary estate.
- Add back the value, at the time they were made, of any donations the decedent made during their lifetime that are subject to collation — typically lifetime donations to compulsory heirs, which the law treats as advances on their eventual inheritance.
Only after this figure is settled do the legitime fractions get applied. Skipping the collation step is one of the most common computation errors, because it understates the estate against which the legitime fractions are measured, shortchanging heirs who did not receive lifetime donations while overcompensating those who did.
Step 2: Apply the Legitime Fraction for Each Surviving Heir
Legitimate Children and Descendants
Under Article 888, the legitime of legitimate children and descendants, taken together, is one-half of the net hereditary estate. That half is divided equally among however many legitimate children survive; the decedent is free to dispose of the remaining half, subject to the rights of the surviving spouse and illegitimate children discussed below.
The Surviving Spouse
The spouse's legitime depends on who else survives:
- If the spouse is the only survivor (no children, no ascendants), Article 900 gives the spouse one-half of the hereditary estate.
- If the spouse survives together with exactly one legitimate child, Article 892 gives the spouse one-fourth of the hereditary estate — taken from the portion the decedent could otherwise freely dispose of, not from the child's share.
- If the spouse survives together with two or more legitimate children, the spouse's legitime equals the share of one legitimate child, again taken from the free portion.
Illegitimate Children
Under Article 895, as applied together with Article 176 of the Family Code, each illegitimate child's legitime is one-half of the share a legitimate child receives. If there are no legitimate children or other compulsory heirs, illegitimate children divide one-half of the hereditary estate among themselves.
Legitimate Parents or Ascendants
Parents and ascendants only inherit as compulsory heirs when there are no legitimate children or descendants. When that condition is met, Article 889 gives legitimate parents or ascendants a legitime equal to one-half of the net hereditary estate of their child.
A Worked Example
Suppose a decedent leaves a net hereditary estate (after debts and collation) of ₱4,000,000, survived by a spouse and two legitimate children, with no illegitimate children.
- The two legitimate children's combined legitime is one-half of the estate: ₱2,000,000, or ₱1,000,000 each.
- Because there are two or more legitimate children, the spouse's legitime equals the share of one legitimate child: ₱1,000,000, taken from the free portion.
- Total legitime reserved: ₱3,000,000 out of the ₱4,000,000 estate — ₱2,000,000 for the children plus ₱1,000,000 for the spouse.
- What remains freely disposable by will is ₱1,000,000.
Add an illegitimate child to that same family, and the computation shifts again: the illegitimate child's legitime becomes one-half of ₱1,000,000 (a legitimate child's share), or ₱500,000, which is deducted from what would otherwise have been the free portion — it is never taken from the legitimate children's own one-half. These same mechanics apply however many heirs are involved — the arithmetic scales, but the order of operations does not change: net hereditary estate first, then the fixed fraction for each class of heir, with the illegitimate children's share always computed as half of what a legitimate child receives rather than as an independent fraction of the whole estate.
What's Left Over: The Free Portion
Whatever remains of the net hereditary estate after all applicable legitimes are set aside is the free portion, which the decedent may dispose of by will to anyone — a compulsory heir (as an additional share on top of their legitime), a relative outside the compulsory circle, a friend, or a charity. The size of the free portion shrinks as more classes of compulsory heir survive and stake a claim to it.
Common Computation Mistakes to Avoid
Beyond skipping collation, the most frequent errors in computing legitime are treating gross assets as the base instead of the net hereditary estate after debts are deducted, applying legitime fractions to the total estate when a surviving spouse and children are actually computed from different bases, and confusing the legitime of illegitimate children with that of legitimate children by applying the same fraction to both. Another common mistake is assuming that once legitime is set aside, whatever remains automatically goes to the heirs in equal shares — in fact the free portion belongs to the testator to distribute as they choose, subject only to the rule that a compulsory heir already entitled to a legitime cannot be given less than that legitime through any disposition in the will.
Why This Computation Matters Before, Not After, a Will Is Drafted
A will that impairs a compulsory heir's legitime is not automatically void — the invalid portion is instead reduced until each compulsory heir's legitime is restored. This means a poorly computed will does not simply fail; it triggers a separate, often contentious, legal process after the testator's death to fix what could have been avoided by computing the legitime correctly before the will was signed. Omitting a compulsory heir from a will entirely is a distinct and more serious problem called preterition, which can affect the institution of heirs itself rather than merely reducing a disposition to restore a legitime. For families with a mix of legitimate and illegitimate children, more than one marriage, or significant lifetime donations already made to some heirs, getting the legitime computation right in advance is what keeps a will from becoming a source of dispute rather than a source of clarity.
Legitime vs. Intestate Shares: Not the Same Computation
Legitime only limits how far a testator can go in a will — it is the floor beneath testamentary freedom. When there is no will, the estate is instead distributed according to the separate rules on intestate succession, which in most configurations actually give compulsory heirs more than their bare legitime, since the entire estate (not just the reserved half) passes to them by operation of law. This distinction is not academic: it is a mistake to assume that doing nothing and letting intestate succession apply automatically protects compulsory heirs the same way a will would, since the two computations start from different bases and can produce different outcomes depending on how many classes of heir survive and whether any lifetime donations complicate the collation. The two sets of fractions are related but not interchangeable, and using intestate shares to compute a will's legitime, or vice versa, is a common and costly mistake.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a parent disinherit a child and give them nothing? Only for the specific, narrow grounds for disinheritance recognized under the Civil Code, and only if stated in the will with the legal cause specified; a disinheritance that does not meet these requirements is void, and the child's legitime is restored.
Does legitime apply if the person died without a will? Legitime as a concept is specifically about limiting testamentary freedom; when there is no will, compulsory heirs instead inherit under the rules on intestate succession, which generally give them more than their legitime since the whole estate passes to them.
Are lifetime gifts to a child ever counted against their inheritance? Yes — donations a decedent made during their lifetime to a compulsory heir are generally subject to collation, meaning their value is added back to the estate for purposes of computing legitime and then charged against that heir's share.
Can the legitime be waived by an heir while the decedent is still alive? No. Future inheritance, including legitime, cannot be waived or the subject of a contract while the person whose estate is involved is still alive; any such waiver made before death has no legal effect.
This commentary is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a licensed attorney.
If you have questions about your rights or options under Philippine law, our firm is available to assist. You may reach us via Viber or WhatsApp, call us at 0995 433 5550, or send an email to vivasnobles@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.