Inalienability of endowed immobile assets

Immobile assets are inalienable, except when it is: 1. To endow and settle the common issues, when both the spouses consent; 2. For the maintenance of the family when the same cannot be provided otherwise; 3. To pay the debts of the wife or of those who endowed her, prior to marriage, when they are mentioned in an authentic or authenticated document and cannot be repaid from other assets; 4. To make indispensable repairs of other dotal assets; 5. If by nature they are inseparable from the non-dotal assets; 6. In exchange of other assets of equal or greater value, the said assets being substituted in the place of the alienated ones; 7. In case of acquisition for public utility.

§ 1 - What is laid down in this article in clauses 1, 2, 3 and 4 is applicable to the dotal immobile assets, and in these cases the husband shall be deemed free from all the liability thereof. Similarly he becomes free from the liability whenever the proceeds of alienation of dotal mobiliary assets, allowed to the husband under preceding Article, has been used for any of the purposes mentioned in the said clauses. § 2 - In the cases of clauses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 the alienation cannot take place without the order of the Court. § 3 - The sale of dotal assets, whenever it takes place, shall be made by way of public auction. § 4 - The alienation dealt with in clause 1 shall not exceed the legitimate portion of the child who is going to be endowed or established, to this legitimate share being added the half share of his or her parents, all of it calculated in relation to the time when the alienation has to be made in the manner in which it would have been made if, owing to death of the parents, the marriage would stand dissolved at such time. § 5 - In the cases of clauses 5 and 7 the proceeds of the alienated assets shall be applied for the acquisition of others of equal value which shall substitute the former.

The provisions of this section are now supplemented by Arts.1480 and 1483 to 1486 of Portuguese Civil Procedure Code of 1939.