Family and estate lawyers in Cebu City and across the Philippines.

The difference is whether there was ever a valid marriage. A declaration of nullity says there was not: the marriage was void from the beginning because a requisite was missing altogether, and it is also the route where psychological incapacity is alleged. Annulment says there was a valid marriage, which stands until a court sets it aside, and the ground is a defect in one of the essential requisites. Two practical consequences follow. Several of the grounds for annulment are cured if the couple freely live together afterwards, and the action to annul has to be brought within a period that differs by ground. Filing under the wrong remedy costs time.

We agree the scope and the fee in writing before any work starts. We do not publish a price, because the length of one of these cases turns on the ground, the evidence, the court’s calendar, and whether it is opposed, none of which can be known from an inquiry form. Ask us and we will give you a range and say what would move it.

It can, through a petition in a Philippine court to have the divorce recognized. It does not matter which spouse filed: the Supreme Court has held that the law only requires a divorce validly obtained abroad and does not distinguish between the Filipino spouse as petitioner or respondent. It does not matter what form the divorce took either, whether a court granted it, an administrative office recorded it, or the couple agreed it between themselves. What decides these cases is proof: the foreign divorce law itself has to be pleaded and proved as a fact, by official publication or a properly attested copy. Both of the leading cases were sent back to the trial court on that point.

The court designates which parent exercises parental authority when parents separate, taking into account all relevant considerations. The choice of a child over seven is one of them, and it carries weight unless the parent chosen is unfit. Different rules apply to younger children, and we will tell you which govern your situation.

The law sets no table. Support covers what is indispensable for sustenance, dwelling, clothing, medical attendance, education, and transportation, in keeping with the family’s financial capacity, and the amount is set in proportion to the means of the person giving it and the needs of the person receiving it. The amount can be adjusted when either of those changes.

The law does provide for it. Where two people capacitated to marry each other live together without marriage, their wages and salaries are owned in equal shares and property acquired through their work or industry is governed by the rules on co-ownership. What that means for a particular house or business is a question of proof of who contributed what.

No. Since the law changed, domestic adoption runs as an administrative process through the National Authority for Child Care instead of as a court case. Relative and step-parent adoptions do not need the child first declared legally available for adoption, and adults can be adopted too. What the process requires depends on which of those yours is.

Start with what the person left and who the heirs are. Those two answers decide whether the estate can be settled by agreement or has to go to court, and the estate tax has to be cleared before any registry will move a title. We work out which route applies before anything is filed.

Agreement opens the out-of-court route, but the settlement still has to be documented in a form the register of deeds and the tax authorities will act on. Conditions attach to that route, and we will tell you whether your situation meets them.

It depends on the property regime, which depends on whether the spouses made a marriage settlement. Spouses may agree on absolute community, conjugal partnership of gains, complete separation, or another regime; where they agreed nothing, the default applies. We establish which regime governs before anyone argues about a particular asset.