Article II. On Use and Usufruct

Use is the right of using another's thing, its substance being preserved. Usufruct is the right of at once using and receiving fruit from another's things, their substance likewise being preserved.

593. • Principles. I. A usufructuary has the full use and fruit of another's thing, so that he makes all the fruits of the thing his own, and can dispose of them according to his pleasure, whether by himself or through another. The reason is that the usufructuary is judged to act as the person of the proprietor as regards useful dominion. - Thus by Roman Law and French Law.

II. The burden lies on the usufructuary both of furnishing custody and of undergoing expenses, if they are moderate, so that the thing may be preserved in its whole state, and also of making expenses so that he may receive natural fruits from it. He is also held to pay the ordinary burdens by which the usufructuary thing is burdened, such as salaries, annual taxes, and similar things.

III. The usufructuary must use another's thing as a good father of a family, and return it such as it ought to be found after good administration. But the proprietor can do nothing by which the condition of the usufructuary is made worse, because he suffers him to enjoy. - Thus various laws.

594. • Questions. Q. 1. How is usufruct acquired?

Resp. It is acquired 1. from law, and then it is called legal: such is the usufruct of parents from the goods of children, or of a husband from the goods of a wife; 2. from agreement or contract, and therefore it is called conventional.

Q. 2. How does usufruct cease?

Resp. It ceases 1. by the natural or civil death of the usufructuary; 2. by the time established; 3. by the destruction of the whole thing; 4. by consolidation, for example, if the usufructuary becomes owner of the thing; 5. by an all-mannered change, for example, if a meadow becomes a pond; 6. by abuse, by which through the fault of the usufructuary the thing is made worse; 7. by the renunciation of the usufructuary, provided it is not made in fraud of creditors ¹.

¹ These same things are valid as regards the acquisition or cessation of mere use. For (as L. 3, § 3, ff. De usufructu et quemadmodum, etc., has it) by the same modes by which usufruct both is constituted and is ended, by the same modes also bare use is customarily both constituted and ended.

595. • Resolutions. 1. Things consumable by a single act, such as wine, oil, bread, etc., do not come under use and usufruct, because by such use the substance of the thing is not preserved ².

² Usufruct can be had insofar as someone can consume things of this sort and then return their valuation.

2. The usufructuary has the faculty of receiving whatever is born on the estate, namely crops, hay, fruits of trees, etc.; to him also pertains the yield of fishing, the offspring of animals, their wool, milk, etc. Likewise he can cut in woods a certain portion of timber, namely that which a father of a family is accustomed to cut.

3. The usufructuary can cede his right to another by title of sale, leasing, or donation. But the very same cannot be said of a user; who nevertheless, if he has the right of using some house, will be able to dwell in it with his family, even if at the time when he acquired the use he was not married.

4. Natural and industrial fruits hanging at the beginning are received by the usufructuary without the burden of paying for cultivation, or seed, etc. And reciprocally, if he departs before the maturity of the fruits, he can reclaim nothing. But civil fruits are acquired from day to day, and therefore must be divided according to the proportion of time during which the usufruct lasted.