Classification of Property

Question 1

How is property classified in LA?

Answer 1

Things are divided into common, public, and private; corporeals and incorporeals; and movables and immovables.

Question 2

What are common things?

Answer 2

Common things may not be owned by anyone, and may be used freely by everyone in the manner that nature intended (e.g. the air and the high seas).

Question 3

What are public things?

Answer 3

Public things are vested in the state or one of its political subdivisions in its public capacity. Use of public things is open to all, but may be restricted for the public’s benefit. Public things include natural navigable waters, the territorial sea, seashore, highways, streets, and public squares. Public things are inalienable.

Question 4

What are private things?

Answer 4

Private things are owned by private individuals or by the state or one of its political subdivisions in its private capacity. Anything that is not common or public is private. Private things are susceptible to alienation.

Question 5

What are “water bodies?”

Answer 5

All natural navigable bodies of water are owned by the state as public things, and their use is free to all. If it is navigable in fact, it is navigable in law. Generally, a body of water is navigable if it is susceptible to commercial use. The body of water need not be currently navigated; it only needs to be capable of being so used. Note that private canals are not natural and are therefore private things.

Question 6

Sea and Seashore

Answer 6

The high seas are a common thing. The territorial sea (including the portions of the Gulf of Mexico within the territorial limits of Louisiana, Lake Pontchartrain, and bodies of water overflowed by tides of the Gulf) is a public thing. The seashore (the space of land over which waters of the sea spread at high tide) is also a public thing.

Question 7

Navigable Rivers and Streams classified

Answer 7

The waters and bottoms of natural navigable water bodies are public things.

a) Beds
The state owns the beds of navigable rivers and streams to the ordinary low water mark.

b). Banks
Banks (land between the ordinary high- and low- water mark) are private things subject to public use incidental to navigation on the stream (e.g. mooring a ship).

Question 8

Non-Navigable Rivers and Streams

Answer 8

The waters of non-navigable rivers and streams are a public thing, but the beds of non-navigable rivers and streams are privately owned, to the middle of the stream.

Question 9

Lakes

Answer 9

The waters and bottoms of natural navigable lakes in Louisiana are public things. The state’s ownership of natural navigable water bodies that are not rivers is not limited to the land lying below the ordinary low water mark, since the definition of “bank” applies only to the banks of rivers.

Tip: Because the state’s ownership rights are different for rivers than they are for other water bodies, it is important to determine not only whether the water body is naturally navigable but also whether it is a river or lake.
- Use four factors to distinguish between rivers and lakes:
1. size and shape,
2. depth,
3. history, and
4. current

Question 10

What is Accretion, Alluvion, and Dereliction?

Answer 10

Accretion is the build-up of soil on the bank of a body of water that is not a river or stream. (e.g. lakes, ponds)

Alluvion is the build-up of soil on the bank of a river or stream.

Dereliction is the receding of water from the bank of any body of water from the bank of any body of water.

Accretion and dereliction belongs to the state.

Alluvion and dereliction belongs to the riparion landowner.

Question 11

What are other changes in bodies of water besides Accretion, Alluvion, and Dereliction?

Answer 11

Erosion:
occurs when land subsides, resulting in once dry land being permanently submerged into the river bed. When erosion occurs in any type of navigable body, the state gains ownership of the submerged land.

Avulsion:
occurs when an identifiable piece of ground is moved from one place to another by the “sudden action” of the water of a river or stream. The original owner of the land may claim avulsion.

Change in Course:
When a stream changes course, all who lost land in the process will be able to take from the abandoned riverbed in proportion to the land lost.

Question 12

Roads

Answer 12

Roads may be either public and private.

a). Public Roads:
A public road may either be owned by the public or privately owned and subject to public use.

b). Private Roads:
A private road is one that is not subject to public use.

Question 13

Incorporeal Things

Answer 13

All things are either corporeal or incorporeal.

Incorporeals are things with no body that are comprehended solely by the understanding (e.g., rights of inheritance, servitudes, obligations, and property actions).

Incorporeals can be either movable or immovable.

Incorporeal immovables (rights and actions that apply to immovables):
mineral royalties, mineral royalties, and mineral leases.

Incorporeal movables (rights/actions that apply to movables): usufructs over vehicles and interests in corporations

Question 14

Corporeal Things

Answer 14

Corporeals are things that have a body and can be felt or touched.

Corporeal movables are things animate or inanimate that have a body and can be moved or move normally from place to place.

Question 15

What is a component part? (“fixture” at common law)

Answer 15

A thing that is so closely connected to another thing that it takes its classification from that other thing to which it is connected, either physically or otherwise.

Question 16

What are things always classified as immovable?

Answer 16

1) Land: Tracts of land with their component parts

2) Buildings:
When there is no unity of ownership between the ground and the building, the building is a separate immovable and is not a component part of the land. When there is unity of ownership between the ground and the building, the building is still an immovable because it is a component part of a tract of land.

3) Standing Timber:
Is treated the same as buildings if there is no unity of ownership between the ground and standing timber. The owner of the land can compel the owner of the separately owned timber to remove it within a reasonable time.

4) Integral Parts
A thing that is incorporated into a tract of land, a building, or other construction in such a way as to become an integral part of the thing into which it is incorporated is a component part of that thing.

5) Permanent Attachments:
a). Things that complete a building, such as windows, doors, and plumbing are permanent attachments.
b). Things that are attached to a construction other than a building and serve its principal use are permanent attachments. The use of component and its purpose is critical. An antenna attached to a cell phone tower is a permanent attachment, but an antenna attached to a water tower is not.
c). Things that are attached to a building or other construction to such a degree that they cannot be removed without substantial damage to themselves or to the building or other construction are permanent attachments of that construction, regardless of their purpose.

Question 17

What are things that are Sometimes Movable and Sometimes Immovable?

Answer 17

1. Other Constructions Permanently Attached to Ground:
   Constructions other than buildings that are permanently attached to the ground (e.g., a large advertising billboard embedded in concrete) turns on unity or separateness of ownership. Unlike buildings and standing timber, which are (separate) immovables when there is no unity of ownership, “other constructions” are movables when there is no unity of ownership.
2. Unharvested Crops and Ungathered Fruits of Trees:
   Unlike buildings and standing timber, which are (separate) immovables when there is no unity of ownership, “unharvested crops and ungathered fruits of trees” (like other constructions) are movables when there is no unity of ownership. But, when there is unity of ownership, they are component parts of the immovable property.
   –Standing crops are called “movables by anticipation” when they are secured by a third-party interest.
3. Immovables by Declaration
   Owners may “declare” and register things such as appliances, farm equipment, and machinery as component parts of an immovable, so long as
   (i) the owner of the immovable owns the thing,

(ii) the immovable is not a private residence,

(iii) the thing to become a component part is placed on the immovable for the “service and improvement of the immovable”, and

(iv) the declaration is filed for registry in the conveyance records of the parish where the immovable is located.

Question 18

Deimmobilization of Component Part

Answer 18

Deimmobilization of a component part occurs when a component part of an immovable is converted from an immovable to a movable. This can occur is two ways:
1) Damage
When the component part is so damaged or deteriorated that it can no longer serve the use of the immovable, it is deimmobilized.

2) Detachment and Removal
When the owner of the immovable detaches or removes the component part, it is deimmobilized. When third-party rights exist, detachment and removal generally do not deimmobilize a component part. Nonetheless, deimmobilization will occur, even to the prejudice of such third persons, when the owner of the immovable has transferred the thing and delivered it to an acquirer in good faith.
a). Materials separated from a building for repair with the intent of returning them are not deimmobilized. Such things remain immovable.

Question 19

What is a movable?

Answer 19

Anything that is not immovable is movable.