Chapter III: Separation as to property.

Where the spouses have stipulated in their marriage contract that they will be separated as to property, each of them retains the administration, enjoyment and free disposal of his or her personal property. Each of them remains solely liable for debts arising in his or her person before or during the marriage, except in the case of article 220.

The spouses shall contribute to the expenses of the marriage in accordance with the agreements contained in their contract; and, if there are none in this respect, in the proportion determined in Article 214.

Both in relation to his or her spouse and to third parties, a spouse may prove by any means that he or she has exclusive ownership of property. Presumptions of ownership set out in the marriage contract have effect in relation to third parties as well as in relations between spouses, unless otherwise agreed. Proof to the contrary shall be by right, and shall be by any means capable of…

If, during the marriage, one of the spouses entrusts the other with the administration of his or her personal property, the rules of mandate apply. The mandating spouse is, however, exempt from rendering an account of the fruits, where the power of attorney does not expressly require him or her to do so.

When one of the spouses takes over the management of the other’s property, with the latter’s knowledge, and nevertheless without opposition on his part, he is deemed to have received a tacit mandate, covering acts of administration and management, but not acts of disposal. This spouse is answerable to the other for his management as a mandatary. He is, however, only accountable for existing fruits; for those he may have…

One of the spouses is not liable for the failure to use or reuse the property of the other, unless he or she has interfered in the disposal or collection operations, or it is proved that the funds were received by him or her, or turned to his or her benefit.

After the dissolution of the marriage by the death of one of the spouses, the division of undivided property between spouses separated by property, in all that concerns its forms, the maintenance of the indivision and the preferential allocation, the licitation of the property, the effects of the division, the guarantee and the balances, is subject to all the rules that are established in the title “Of successions” for divisions…

The rules of article 1479 apply to claims that either spouse may have against the other.