Understanding Property Rights: Features, Acquisition, and Limitations
Copyright
The rights to use, enjoy, and dispose of a thing exclusively, with legal restrictions and obligations.
Features
- Exclusive: Benefits only the owner, who asserts rights against all (erga omnes).
- Perpetual: Property is extinguished in time from the descendants of succession.
- Elastic: Use and benefits may be transferred, and the owner recovers power over the thing.
- Self-Existing: Does not require the support of another right.
- Integral Element: Of the subject property, natural and legal persons.
- Objective: All goods except the public domain for public use.
Ways to Acquire Property
- Original: Right is acquired directly and independently.
- Derivative: Originates from a pre-existing relationship.
- Voluntary/Involuntary: By previous owner or independent of commitment.
- By Deed Inter Vivos: Transfer of law during people’s lives.
- General Title: Transfer of a universal or aliquot part.
- Individual: Transmission of a specific fraction of a person’s estate.
Mode of Property Transmission
- By law (accession, acquisitive prescription, judicial sale)
- By succession
- Agreements
Modes of Property Loss
- Absolute grounds (destruction of the object)
- Related causes (transfer)
- Generally voluntary and involuntary
Limited Rights
Direct power over a thing belonging to another, allowing enjoyment of all or part of its usefulness.
Features
- Independent existence (real rights).
Real Actions
Actions for protection against external interference.
Personal Actions
Recourse to a competent court to prevent or repair damage to rights.
Action Request
Recognizes property rights in the domain holder, enforceable erga omnes.
Possessory Action
Requires possession, not necessarily ownership.
Claiming Action
Recognizes the owner’s right and grants possession with fruits and accessions.
Requirements for Appropriation (Venezuelan Doctrine)
- Singular thing.
- Claimed property rights of the applicant.
- Possession of the defendant.
- Identity of the subject matter.
To Be the Actor in Trial
- Owns the thing.
- Defendant owns or holds it.
- The good’s domain is the same as what the defendant owns or holds.
Effects of Reivindication
- Declaration of ownership by the actor (erga omnes).
- Repossession by the owner from the illegitimate possessor.
The Usufruct
The real right to use and enjoy things temporarily owned by another, as if the owner.
Ways to Make Up the Usufruct
- Legal transactions and usucapion.
Object of Usufruct
Can be formed on any kind of personal property and estate (consumable, non-consumable, tangible, intangible, individual, or universal).
Creation of the Usufruct
By law or will of man, for a fixed period (not in perpetuity), for one or several persons.
Obligations of the Usufructuary
- Inventory practice.
- Giving additional expenses.
- Use rights as a good pater familias.
Extinction of Usufruct
- Death of the usufructuary.
- Waiver of the right.
- Expiration of the term.
- Consolidation of qualities of usufructuary and owner.
- Statute of limitations for non-use (15 years).
- Perishability of the thing.
- Alienation or abuse by the usufructuary.
Maximum duration: 30 years.
Right of Habitation
Power to live in a thing, limited to one’s needs and family. Cannot be transferred or leased.
Household
Allows a person to use property assets for livelihood and family, free from creditors.
Constitution Procedure Household
- Application and documentary evidence to the judge.
- Appraisal by three experts.
- Publication of application in the press (every 15 days for 90 days).
- Judicial statement and protocolization.
Extinction of Household
- Extinction of the right.
- Reversal (home cannot be alienated or encumbered).
- Divorce or legal separation.
- Death of beneficiaries.
Easement
A property right on another’s thing, limiting common law property rights. A relation between farms.
Classification of Easements
- Continuous: Exercise is or may be continuous (e.g., aqueducts, sewage).
- Discontinuous: Requires human action (e.g., passing, water samples).
- Apparent: Shown by visible signs (e.g., door, window).
- Non-Apparent: No visible signs.
- Positive: Owner performs an act on the servient estate.
- Negative: Owner prevents the servient estate owner from doing something.
Constitution of Easements
- By Juridical Part: Inter vivos or mortis causa act.
- By Usurpation: Acquisitive prescription.
- By Destination of the Parent.