05/03/2023
Differences: Absolute Community of Property and Conjugal Partnership of Gains
People often confuse the terms absolute community and conjugal partnership relative to the property relations in marriages. Some even know only the more popular of the two in conjugal partnership. However, there are numerous distinctions between the two which drastically affect the properties which spouses either own in common or exclusively.
As to their technical meanings, absolute community of property comprises all the properties owned by the contracting parties before the marriage ceremony and those which they may acquire thereafter. The spouses become co-owners of all the properties in an absolute community of property regime. On the other hand, conjugal partnership of gains is wherein the spouses place in a common fund the fruits of their separate properties and income from their work or industry.
Illustrations of the two property regimes would be:
1. Absolute Community: Any property purchased by a husband prior to a marriage will also be owned by his wife upon marriage. The same goes with the properties of the wife acquire when she is still single which will then be co-owned by the husband at the moment of marriage.
2. Conjugal Partnership: Any property purchased or acquired by any of the spouses prior to a marriage will belong exclusively to his/her. However, at marriage, the properties of the spouses are joined together in a single regime and the proceeds, products, fruits and income from their separate properties and those acquired by either or both spouses through their efforts or chance.
It is worthy of note that when the spouses do not agree upon any specific property regime before they are married, under the Family Code the default or automatic property regime that they will be subjected to is the Absolute Community of Property.
Another important thing under absolute community are the properties which are excluded therefrom. Under Article 92 of the Family Code, such exclusions are:
1. Property acquired during the marriage by gratuitous title by either spouse, and the fruits as well as the income thereof, if any, unless it is expressly provided by the donor, testator or grantor that they shall form part of the community property;
2. Property for personal and exclusive use of either spouse. However, jewelry shall form part of the community property;
3. Property acquired before the marriage by either spouse who has legitimate descendants by a former marriage, and the fruits as well as the income, if any, of such property.
With respect to conjugal partnership of gains, Article 109 of the Family Code makes an enumeration on the properties which exclusively belong to each of the spouse:
1. That which is brought to the marriage as his or her own;
2. That which each acquires during the marriage by gratuitous title;
3. That which is acquired by right of redemption, by barter or by exchange with property belonging to only one of the spouses; and
4. That which is purchased with exclusive money of the wife or of the husband.
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