PROPERTY FINAL OUTLINE
4 Absence of legislation or custom
When no rule for a particular situation can be derived from legislation or custom, the court is bound to proceed according to equity. To decide equitably, resort is made to justice, reason, and prevailing usages.
TITLE I. THINGS
CHAPTER 1 – DIVISION OF THINGS
SECTION 1. GENERAL PRINCIPLES
448 Division of Things
Things are divided into common, public, and private; corporeals and incorporeals; and movables and immovables.
449 Common Things
Common things may not be owned by anyone. They are such as the air, and the high seas that may be freely used by everyone conformably with the use for which nature has intended them.
450 Public Things
Public things are owned by the state or its political subdivisions in their capacity as public persons.
Public things that belong to the state are such as running waters, the waters and bottoms of natural navigable water bodies, the territorial sea, and the seashore.
Public things that may belong to political subdivisions of the state are such as streets and public squares.
451 Seashore
Seashore is the space of land over which the waters of the sea spread in the highest tide in the winter season.
452 Public Things and Common Things Subject to Common Use
Public things and common things are subject to public use in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. Everyone has the right to fish in the rivers, ports, roadsteads, and harbors, and the right to land on the seashore, to fish, to shelter himself, to moor ships, to dry nets, and the like, provided he does not cause injury to the property to the joining owners.
The seashore within the limits of a municipality is subject to its police power and the public use is governed by municipal ordinances and regulations.
453 Private Things
Private things are owned by individuals, other private persons, and by the state or its political subdivisions in their capacity as private persons.
454 Freedom of Disposition by Private Persons
Owners of private things may freely dispose of them under modifications established by law.
455 Private Things subject to Public use
Private things may be subject to public use in accordance with law or by dedication.
456 Banks of Navigable Rivers or Streams
The banks of navigable rivers or streams are private things that are subject to public use.
The bank of a navigable river or stream is the land lying between the ordinary low and the ordinary high stage of the water. Nevertheless, when there is a levee in proximity to the water, established according to law, the levee shall form the bank.
457 Roads; Public or Private
A road may be either public or private. A public road is one that is subject to public use. The public may own the land on which the road is built or merely have the right to use it. A private road is one that is not subject to public use.
458 Works obstructing the public use
Works built without lawful permit on public things, including the sea, the seashore, and the bottom of natural navigable waters, or on the banks of navigable rivers, that obstruct the public use may be removed at the expense of the persons who built or own them at the instance of the public authorities, or of any person residing in the state.
The owner of the works may not prevent their removal by alleging prescription or possession.
459 Building encroaching on public way
A building that merely encroaches on a public way without preventing its use, and which cannot be removed without causing substantial damage to its owner, shall be permitted to remain. If it is demolished for any cause, the owner shall be bound to restore to the public the part of the way upon which the building stood.
460 Construction of navigation facilities on public places by port commissions or municipalities
Port commissions of the state, or in the absence of port commissions having jurisdiction, municipalities may, within the limits of their respective jurisdictions, construct and maintain on public places, in beds of natural navigable water bodies, and on their banks or shores, works necessary for public utility, including buildings, wharves, and other facilities for the mooring of vessels and the loading or discharging of cargo and passengers.
461 Corporeals and incorporeals
Corporeals are things that have a body, whether animate or inanimate, and can be felt or touched. Incorporeals are things that have no body, but are comprehended by the understanding, such as the rights of inheritance, servitudes, obligations, and right of intellectual property.
SECTION 2. IMMOVABLES
462 Tracts of land
Tracts of land, with their component parts, are immovables.
463 Component parts of tracts of land
Buildings, other constructions permanently attached to the ground, standing timber, and unharvested crops or ungathered fruits of trees, are component parts of a tract of land when they belong to the owners of the ground.
464 Buildings and standing timber as separate immovables
Buildings and standing timber are separate immovables when they belong to a person other and the owner of the ground.
465 Things incorporated into an immovable
Things incorporated into a tract of land, a building, or other construction, so as to become an integral part of it, such as building materials, are its component parts.
466 Component parts of buildings or other constructions
Things permanently attached to a building or other construction, such as plumbing, heating, cooling, electrical or other installations, are its component parts. Things are considered permanently attached if they cannot be removed without substantial damage to themselves or to the immovable to which they are attached.
467 Immovables by declaration
The owner of an immovable may declare that machinery, appliances, and equipment owned by him and placed on the immovable, other than his private residence, for its service and improvement are deemed to be its component parts. The declaration shall be filed for registry in the conveyance records of the parish in which the immovable is located.
468 Deimmobilization
Component parts of an immovable so damaged or deteriorated so that they can no longer serve the use of lands or buildings are deimmobilized. The owner may deimmobilize the component parts of an immovable by an act translative of ownership and delivery to acquirers in good faith. In the absence of rights of third persons, the owner my deimmobilize things by detachment or removal.
469 Transfer or encumbrance of immovable
The transfer or encumbrance of an immovable includes its component parts.
470 Incorporeal immovables
Rights and actions that apply to immovable things are incorporeal immovables. Immovables of this kind are such as personal servitudes established on immovables, predial servitudes, mineral rights, and petitory or possessory actions.
SECTION 3. MOVABLES
471 Corporeal movables
Corporeal movables are things, whether animate or inanimate, that normally move or can be moved from one place to another.
472 Building materials
Materials gathered for the erection of a new building or other construction even though deriving from the demolition of an old one, are movables until their incorporation into the new building or after construction. Materials separated from a building or other construction for the purpose of repair, addition, or alteration to it, with the intention of putting them back, remain immovables.
473 Incorporea
to the thing held in indivision caused by his fault.
800 Preservation of the thing
A co-owner may without the concurrence of any other co-owner take necessary steps for the preservation of the thing that is held in indivision.
801 Use and management by agreement
The use and management of the thing held in indivision is determined by agreement of all the co-owners.
802 Right to use the thing
Except as otherwise provided in Article 801, a co-owner is entitled to use the thing held in indivision according to its destination, but he cannot prevent another co-owner from making such use of it. As against third persons, a co-owner has the right to use and enjoy the thing as if he were the sole owner.
803 Use and management of the thing in the absence of agreement
When the mode of use and management of the thing held in indivision is not determined by an agreement of all the co-owners and partition is not available, a court, upon petition by a co-owner, may determine the use and management.
804 Substantial alterations or improvements
Substantial alterations or substantial improvements to the thing held in indivision may be undertaken only with the consent of all the co-owners. When a co-owner makes substantial alterations or substantial improvements consistent with the use of the property, though without the express or implied consent of his co-owners, the rights of the parties shall be determined by Article 496. When a co-owner makes substantial alterations or substantial improvements inconsistent with the use of the property or in spite of the objections of his co-owners, the rights of the parties shall be determined by Article 497.
805 Disposition of undivided shares
A co-owner may freely lease, alienate, or encumber his share of the thing held in indivision. The consent of all the co-owners is required for the lease, alienation, or encumbrance of the entire thing held in indivision.
806 Expenses of maintenance and management
A co-owner who on account of the thing held in indivision has incurred necessary expenses, expenses for ordinary maintenance and repairs, or necessary management expenses paid to a third person, is entitled to reimbursement from the other co-owners in proportion to their shares. If the co-owner who incurred the expenses had the enjoyment of the thing held in indivision, his reimbursement shall be reduced in proportion to the value of the enjoyment.
807 Right to partition; exclusion by agreement
No one may be compelled to hold a thing in indivision with another unless the contrary has been provided by law or juridical act.
Any co-owner has a right to demand partition of a thing held in indivision. Partition may be excluded by agreement for up to fifteen years, or for such other period as provided in R.S. 9:1702 or other specific law.
808 Partition excluded
Partition of a thing held in indivision is excluded when its use is indispensable for the enjoyment of another thing owned by one or more of the co-owners.
809 Judicial and extrajudicial partition
The mode of partition may be determined by agreement of all the co-owners. In the absence of such an agreement, a co-owner may demand judicial partition.
