3.2 Louisiana Property Ownership

Louisiana's civil-law property system produces ownership concepts that look unfamiliar to common-law-trained students. Master the vocabulary, because the state portion tests it directly.

Community Property

Louisiana is a community-property state. Property a married person acquires during the marriage (except by donation or inheritance) is presumed community property owned equally by both spouses.

Exam point: To sell community-property real estate, both spouses must sign. A listing or sale signed by only one spouse on a community immovable is defective. Couples can alter the regime by matrimonial agreement (prenuptial/postnuptial).

Usufruct and Naked Ownership

Usufruct is the civil-law analog of a life estate: the right to use a thing and enjoy its fruits (rents, crops, income) without destroying it.

Common scenario: a surviving spouse receives a usufruct over the deceased spouse's share of the community home, while the children are the naked owners. The usufructuary may live in or rent the home; the naked owners cannot disturb that use but own the underlying property.

Forced Heirship and the Legitime

Forced heirship is uniquely Louisianian. A portion of the estate - the legitime - is reserved for forced heirs, defined as descendants of the first degree (children) who are 23 years of age or younger at the decedent's death, or of any age if permanently incapable of caring for themselves due to mental or physical infirmity (grandchildren can represent a predeceased child).

Precision matters: The age cutoff is 23 or younger (i.e., the child has not yet reached 24). "Under 24" is acceptable shorthand, but the statute keys to age 23/24, not a flat "under 25."

Ownership in Indivision and Servitudes

When two or more people own a thing together without partition, they own it in indivision (the civil-law cousin of tenancy in common). Shares are presumed equal unless stated otherwise, and any co-owner may demand partition - a voluntary division or a court-ordered sale - because no one can be forced to remain in indivision indefinitely.

Servitudes replace common-law easements:

Prescription, Successions, and Minerals

Note: Louisiana's oil-and-gas economy makes mineral rights a recurring closing issue. Mineral rights can be reserved or sold separately, and a mineral servitude that is not used (no drilling/production) for 10 years prescribes back to the landowner. Expect a question linking minerals to the 10-year nonuse rule.

Successions and the Order of Inheritance

A succession is the transfer of a decedent's estate. It is testate if there is a valid will and intestate if not. Even with a will, forced heirs must receive their legitime before the remaining disposable portion can be willed freely.

Intestate order (simplified)

1. Descendants (children, then grandchildren) - they inherit the decedent's separate property, and the decedent's share of community property (subject to a surviving-spouse usufruct).
2. Surviving spouse - keeps their own one-half of community property and often takes a usufruct over the decedent's half.
3. Parents, siblings, and more remote relatives in the order the Code specifies.
4. The State only if no heirs exist.

Practical point: When a seller's title comes through a succession, confirm it was properly opened and that all heirs and any usufructuary join the sale; otherwise title defects can derail the closing.

Boundaries and Encroachments

A structure crossing a property line is an encroachment: a good-faith encroacher may keep the structure (often with compensation), while a bad-faith encroacher can be ordered to remove it. A current survey is the licensee's best tool for catching boundary and encroachment issues early.