Usufruct

“ If a father give a present to his daughter—either marriageable or a prostitute [unmarriageable] —and then die, then she is to receive a portion as a child from the paternal estate, and enjoy its usufruct so long as she lives. Her estate belongs to her brothers.
181. If a father devote a temple-maid or temple-virgin to God and give her no present: if then the father die, she shall receive the third of a child's portion from the inheritance of her father's house, and enjoy its usufruct so long as she lives. Her estate belongs to her brothers. ”

“ Similarly, he can give to one man a legacy of the usufruct, to another one of the estate, subject to the other's usufruct. If it is wished to create a usufruct in favour of another person otherwise than by testament, the proper mode is agreement followed by stipulation. However, lest ownership should be entirely valueless through the permanent separation from it of the usufruct, certain modes have been approved in which usufruct may be extinguished, and thereby revert to the owner. ”

“ Among them are wine, oil, grain, clothing, and perhaps we may also say coined money; for a sum of money is in a sense extinguished by changing hands, as it constantly does in simply being used. For convenience sake, however, the senate enacted that a usufruct could be created in such things, provided that due security be given to the heir. Thus if a usufruct of money be given by legacy, that money, on being delivered to the legatee, becomes his property, though he has to give security to the heir that he will repay an equivalent sum on his dying or undergoing a loss of status. ”

“ When it ceases to exist, the usufruct passes on to the succeeding generation, free and unincumbered, and so on, successively, from one generation to another for ever. We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country. Or the case may be likened to the ordinary one of a tenant for life, who may hypothecate the land for his debts, during the continuance of his usufruct ”

“ If the wife marries, the usufruct is reduced one-half. As to sons and daughters,—in the father’s estate the sons have a preferred right to take the real estate, with the appurtenances, against payment of a moderate valuation; sons also have a preferred right to take the property pertaining to the paternal industry, such as tools, professional implements, cattle, etc., without, however, any deduction from the actual value thereof; sons take without compensation the paternal wardrobe, arms, outfit, and seal. ”

“ There need be no unemployed: there are no paupers in our sense of the word. It should be added, that the right of usufruct under the system of communal possession, can be converted into that of "hereditary individual ownership." ”

“ I ask, then, in the first place, how possession can become property by the lapse of time? Continue possession as long as you wish, continue it for years and for centuries, you never can give duration—which of itself creates nothing, changes nothing, modifies nothing—the power to change the usufructuary into a proprietor. Let the civil law secure against chance-comers the honest possessor who has held his position for many years,—that only confirms a right already respected ”

“ Where a right to usufruct, such as a right to contractual management of land, a right to use a lot of land for construction purposes, and a right to use a house site, has already been created on a lot of land, the owner of the lot of land may not create an easement on the lot without the consent of the usufructuary. ”

“ By right of his marriage the husband takes an interest in his wife's real estate, and during their joint lives the law gives him a right to the crops, profits and products of her lands. He has the usufruct of all her freehold estate. The husband is entitled to the profits of all lands held by the wife for her life, or for the life of another. ”

“ This, however, is not allowed to one who takes possession of land which to his knowledge belongs to another person, and therefore he is obliged not only to restore the land, but to make compensation for fruits even though they have been consumed.
36 A person who has a usufruct in land does not become owner of the fruits which grow thereon until he has himself gathered them; consequently fruits which, at the moment of his decease, though ripe, are yet ungathered, do not belong to his heir, but to the owner of the land. ”

“ There is a conflicting contention in the argument for the appellant that, if there be doubt as to the meaning of the word 'remainder,' that doubt should be resolved in favor of the right of the widow to a usufruct in the portion of the property not belonging to her husband, and as to which, therefore, she was not his usufructuary heir. We do not stop to analyze the matters thus relied upon, as we think it suffices to say that, after an examination of the whole contract, we find nothing in it which would justify the construction of the word 'remainder' which is asserted. ”

“ As human life also grew more and more refined, abundance of conveniences were devised to render it more easy, commodious, and agreeable; as, habitations for shelter and safety, and raiment for warmth and decency. But no man would be at the trouble to provide either, so long as he had only an usufructuary property in them, which was to cease the instant that he quitted possession ”

“ After much expert testimony, the District Court found the law of Germany pertaining to such usufruct agreement to be as follows (82 F.Supp. 605) :
' (52.) A right of usufruct, once established, is under German law an in rem right in property. A person having a usufruct in property has a right: ' (a) to the enjoyment of the property or, in the case of money or securities, to the income from the securities;
' (b) to co-possession of the property together with the person holding legal title to the property ”

“ The widow instituted the necessary preliminary probate proceedings in the proper court to open the estate, and became executrix and the tutrix of her minor children and usufructuary of their estate, and, in one or both capacities, went into possession and control of the entire property, including in such property her community estate, if any there was. ”

“ Without going into detail or considering irrelevant questions, it suffices to say that the principal right which the widow asserted was that she was entitled under the agreement to hold as usufructuary the whole proceeds of the property on the Escolta making the payments specified in the agreement. ”

“ Article 120 In exercising its rights, the owner of the usufructuary right shall abide by the regulations respecting the protection and reasonable exploration of the resources. The obligee may not intervene in the exercise of rights by the owner of the usufructuary right.
Article 121 Where the expropriation of the real or movable properties lead to the lapse of the usufructuary right or affect the exercise of the usufructuary right, the owner of the usufructuary right shall be entitled to gain relevant compensations pursuant to the provisions of Article 42 and 44 of this Law. ”

“ Accordingly, if such a slave is instituted heir, or made legatee or donee, the succession, legacy, or gift is acquired, not for the usufructuary, but for the owner. And a man who in good faith possesses a free man or a slave belonging to another person has the same rights as a usufructuary; what they acquire by any other mode than the two we have mentioned belongs in the one case to the free man, in the other to the slave's real master. After a possessor in good faith has acquired the ownership of a slave by usucapion, everything which the slave acquires belongs to him without distinction ”

“ I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living: that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. ”

“ In such exclusive use he is as much supported and upheld by natural justice and moral right as in the case of personal property. His labor and capital have improved it, beautified it, rendered it more productive, and enhanced its utility; and, so far as value is concerned, it will be argued hereafter that land has no value except as labor has made one for it. So I suggest the possessory and usufructuary interest of the individual in land is not the absolute ownership and proprietorship of the soil. ”

“ Those who became possessed of larger properties through the causes mentioned tried to secure [31] an increased value of their possessions by colonization, in which especially the slaves or serfs were utilized. These often became freedmen, paying rent in product or labor, and acquiring the rights of usufruct in the property, out of which developed the so-called servitudes or rights of user, the praedium of the Romans, a limited right to use the property of another. ”

“ A woman’s property brought into the marriage remains her property; the interest only to be appropriated by the husband for the benefit of the family.
In the Canton of Zurich there is no limitation as to right of testator to dispose of his property by will, except as to interest of surviving wife. When the wife survives she is first entitled to withdraw the property she brought into the marriage, also the household furniture, in case it does not exceed one-fourth of the net estate; and if there be children, she takes the usufruct of one-half of the estate, or the fee-simple of one-eighth ”

“ There are three forms of usury: interest on money, rent of land and houses, and profit in exchange. Whoever is in receipt of any of these is a usurer. And who is not? Scarcely any one. The banker is a usurer; the manufacturer is a usurer; the merchant is a usurer; the landlord is a usurer; and the workingman who puts his savings, if he has any, out at interest, or takes rent for his house or lot, if he owns one, or exchanges his labor for more than an equivalent,—he too is a usurer. The sin of usury is one under which all are concluded, and for which all are responsible. ”

“ They become virtually the property of their employers, the purchase-money ranging from a few scores to thousands of dollars. In the absence, therefore, of a son by the wife, the eldest son of one of the handmaids is regarded as the heir. If the heir lives to have a family of his own, but predeceases his father, his eldest son becomes the heir to the sacrificial property; if he predeceases his father, and leaves no family, the son next in order of age inherits; but if a man has no son, either by his wife or his handmaids, it is competent for him to adopt one of his brother's sons as his heir. ”

“ One may create an estate which will descend in unbroken succession down the line of inheritance prescribed in the original gift as long as that line should last, instead of descending to all heirs. The successive occupants might draw the rents and cut the wood, but on the death of each, his heir would take possession of an unencumbered interest, unfettered by any liability for the debt of his ancestor or by any disposition made by him during his lifetime e.g. a wife's estate in dower or a husband's estate in courtesy. ”

“ Nay even if the ancestor devises his estate to his heir at law by will, with other limitations or in any other shape than the course of descents would direct, such heir shall take by purchase [4] . But if a man, seised in fee, devises his whole estate to his heir at law, so that the heir takes neither a greater nor a less estate by the devise than he would have done without it, he shall be adjudged to take by descent [5] , even though it be charged with incumbrances [6] ; for the benefit of creditors, and others, who have demands on the estate of the ancestor. ”

“ If a Lord will not render unto an heir his land when he comes of age or takes possession away from an heir of age or removes anything from the land, he shall pay damages. (The king retained the right to take possession of an heir's land for a year or, in lieu of this, to take one year's profit from the land in addition to the relief.)
Kinsmen of a minor heir who have custody of his land held in socage shall make no waste, sale, nor destruction of the inheritance and shall answer to the heir when he comes of age for the issues of the land, except for the reasonable costs of these guardians. ”

“ His estate can be neither divided nor alienated—it is not even liable for the personal debts of the deceased owner. On attaining the age of twenty-one he can, if he and his father, or the present owner, agree, make a settlement, "cutting off the entail," and restoring to the owner the power of sale or bequest. But it is very seldom that either party desires this while there is every inducement for the heir to wish to tie up the land to his own heir. It is very easy to see how this has favoured the accumulation of land in a few hands. ”

“ As, if the grant be to a man and his issue of his body, to a man and his feed, to a man and his children, or offspring; all these are only estates for life, there wanting the words of inheritance, his heirs [49] . So, on the other hand, a gift to a man, and his heirs male, or female, is an estate in fee-simple, and not in fee-tail; for there are no words to ascertain the body out of which they shall issue [50] . Indeed, in last wills and testaments, wherein greater indulgence is allowed, an estate-tail may be created by a devise to a man and his feed, or to a man and his heirs male ”

“ One third could be disposed by will of the decedent. If there were no children, one half went to the spouse and one half went according to will. If an heir was under 15 years old, his next of kin to whom inheritance could not descend was to be his guardian. A wife who remarried or bore a child lost her dower land. A husband lost his dower if he remarried. If a tenant withheld rent or services, his lord could seek award of court to find distress on his tenement and if he could find none, he could take the tenement for a year and a day in his hands without manuring it. ”