Chapter II: Joint tenancy

If, through one spouse’s disorderly affairs, maladministration or misconduct, it appears that the maintenance of the community jeopardises the interests of the other spouse, the latter may pursue the separation of property in court. Any voluntary separation is null and void.

The separation of property, although pronounced in court, is null and void if proceedings to liquidate the rights of the parties have not been commenced within three months of the judgment becoming res judicata and if the final settlement has not been made within one year of the opening of the liquidation operations. The one-year time limit may be extended by the president of the court ruling on a petition.

The application and the judgment of separation of property must be published under the conditions and under the sanctions provided for by the Code of Civil Procedure. The judgment pronouncing separation of property shall go back, as regards its effects, to the day of the application. A mention of the judgment shall be made in the margin of the marriage record and on the original of the marriage contract.

The creditors of a spouse may not apply on his or her behalf for separation as to property.

When the action for separation of property has been brought, the creditors may summon the spouses by lawyer-to-lawyer deed to communicate the application and supporting documents to them. They may even intervene in the proceedings to preserve their rights. If the separation has been pronounced in fraud of their rights, they may appeal against it by way of third-party opposition, under the conditions laid down in the Code of Civil…

The spouse who has obtained separation as to property must contribute, in proportion to his or her faculties and those of his or her spouse, both to the expenses of the household and to those of the education of the children. He or she must bear these expenses in full, if there is nothing left to the other.

The separation of property pronounced by the court has the effect of placing the spouses under the regime of articles 1536 et seq. The court, in pronouncing the separation, may order that a spouse pay his or her contribution into the hands of his or her spouse, who will henceforth assume sole responsibility with regard to third parties for the settlement of all the expenses of the marriage.

Articles 265-2 are suspended, as regards their effects, until the divorce is granted; they may not be enforced, even as between spouses, until the judgment has become res judicata. One of the spouses may request that the divorce decree modify the agreement if the consequences of the divorce fixed by that decree call into question the bases of the liquidation and partition.