MBTC VS.

PASCUAL
GR # 163744 / FEB 29, 2008
547 SCRA 246

FACTS:
Nicholson Pascual and Florencia Nevalga were married on January 19, 1985. During the union, they
acquired a 250 square meter lot from Clarito and Belen Sering with a three door apartment
standing thereon located in Makati City. They had their marriage annulled in 1994 then went on
their separate ways without liquidating properties. In 1997, Florencia mortgaged the aforesaid
property as a security for the loan she obtained with spouses Oliveros. Nicholson filed an action to
annul the mortgage alleging that the subject property is still a conjugal property and it was
executed without his consent.

ISSUE:

Whether or not the properties in contest form part of the conjugal properties of Nicholson Pascual
and Florencia Nevalga?

RULING:

The property is deemed conjugal while the declared nullity of marriage of Nicholson and Florencia
severed their marital bond and dissolved the conjugal partnership, the character of the properties
acquired before such declaration continues to subsist as conjugal properties until and after the
liquidation and partition of the partnership. In this pre-liquidation scenario, Art 493 of the Civil
Code shall govern the property relationship between the former spouses. Applying the provision to
the present case, the effect of the alienation or the mortgage with respect to the co-owners shall
be limited to the portion which may be allotted to him in the division upon the termination of the
co-ownership. Thus, the mortgage contract insofar as it covered remaining undivided portion of
the lot is null and void, Nicholson not having consented to the martgage of his undivided half.