Contáctanos:
In the Dominican Republic, a lawsuit for the division of marital community property cannot be filed until the divorce has been legally pronounced; if filed beforehand, the judge must suspend it until the corresponding divorce process has run its course.
For this reason, the law provides spouses with several tools to protect their shared assets and prevent one spouse from hiding, reducing, or disposing of property to the detriment of the other during the divorce or the subsequent division. As law professor Raúl Reyes Vásquez explains, even after the divorce is pronounced, the marriage's economic regime doesn't automatically get liquidated — it shifts into a form of joint ownership that both spouses continue to administer, meaning either spouse can keep requesting administrative measures to protect their rights.
These measures are more common in fault-based divorces, since in no-fault (mutual consent) divorces, Article 28 of Law 1306-Bis already requires an inventory of all movable and real property belonging to the marital estate.
Sealing of assets Article 24 of Law 1306-bis allows either spouse who is a joint owner of marital property — whether filing for or defending against divorce — to request the sealing of the community's movable property as a protective measure; the seals can only be lifted through an estimated inventory. This procedure is governed by Articles 907 and following of the Code of Civil Procedure, which give jurisdiction to the local justice of the peace.
Third-party opposition Dominican courts have also recognized either spouse's right to freeze movable property and credits belonging to the marital estate that are held by third parties, to prevent them from being diverted in fraud of the other spouse's rights. Unlike a garnishment, this type of opposition is purely protective in nature: it doesn't require a certain, liquidated, and demandable debt, nor does it require prior judicial authorization, as the Supreme Court of Justice established in ruling No. 27 of January 27, 1984.
Judicial sequestration or administration Under Article 1961 of the Civil Code, courts may order the sequestration of movable or real property whose ownership or possession is in dispute. Dominican case law has clarified that a dispute between the parties over ownership or possession of a property is enough to justify this measure in summary proceedings, though judges must exercise caution when ordering it. The Supreme Court has also equated the role of judicial administrator — not expressly provided for in the law — with that of a judicial custodian.
Requests for financial information In practice, it's common to petition the court of first instance to order public or private institutions to disclose information about the couple's shared assets, particularly when child or spousal support needs to be set and the paying spouse's financial capacity must be established. When this route fails, it has sometimes been necessary to file a habeas data action to obtain information about jointly-owned property registered under only one spouse's name.
The Constitutional Court, in ruling TC/0278/15 of September 18, 2015, reaffirmed that under the principle of equality, both spouses have the right to know what makes up their shared estate and its status — noting that it violates procedural equality for one spouse to have full access to that information from the start of the divorce while the other does not.
Ultimately, all these measures — whether created by lawmakers or developed through case law — should be applied and strengthened to prevent either spouse from defrauding the other's property rights during a divorce.
Basado en el artículo de Mariel León Lebrón, publicado originalmente en Acento.