Usufruct is the right of using and taking the fruits of property not one's own, without impairing the substance of that property; for being a right over a corporeal thing, it is necessarily extinguished itself along with the extinction of the latter.

1 Usufruct is thus a right detached from the aggregate of rights involved in ownership, and this separation can be effected in very many ways: for instance, if one man gives another a usufruct by legacy, the legatee has the usufruct, while the heir has merely the bare ownership; and, conversely, if a man gives a legacy of an estate, reserving the usufruct, the usufruct belongs to the heir, while only the bare ownership is vested in the legatee. 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.

2 A usufruct may be created not only in land or buildings, but also in slaves, cattle, and other objects generally, except such as are actually consumed by being used, of which a genuine usufruct is impossible by both natural and civil law. 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. And all things of this class, when delivered to the legatee, become his property, though they are first appraised, and the legatee then gives security that if he dies or undergoes a loss of status he will ay the value which was put upon them. Thus in point of fact the senate did not introduce a usufruct of such things, for that was beyond its power, but established a right analogous to usufruct by requiring security.

3 Usufruct determines by the death of the usufructuary, by his undergoing either of the greater kinds of loss of status, by its improper exercise, and by its nonexercise during the time fixed by law; all of which points are settled by our constitution. It is also extinguished when surrendered to the owner by the usufructuary (though transfer to a third person is inoperative); and again, conversely, by the fructuary becoming owner of the thing, this being called consolidation. Obviously, a usufruct of a house is extinguished by the house being burnt down, or falling through an earthquake or faulty construction; and in such case a usufruct of the site cannot be claimed.

4 When a usufruct determines, it reverts to and is reunited with the ownership; and from that moment he who before was but bare owner of the thing begins to have full power over it.