Part I: Legal community

The community actively consists of the acquests made by the spouses together or separately during the marriage, and arising both from their personal industry and from savings made on the fruits and income of their own property.

All property, whether movable or immovable, is deemed to be acquired by the community unless it is proved that it belongs to one of the spouses by application of a provision of the law. If the property is one which does not in itself bear proof or mark of its origin, the personal ownership of the spouse, if it is contested, must be established in writing. In the absence of…

Each spouse retains full ownership of his or her own property. The community is entitled only to fruits collected and not consumed. But recompense may be due to it, on dissolution of the community, for fruits which the spouse has neglected to collect or has consumed fraudulently, without any search, however, being admissible beyond the last five years.

Forming private property by their nature, even if they were acquired during the marriage, are clothing and linen for the personal use of one of the spouses, actions for compensation for bodily or moral injury, non-transferable debts and pensions, and, more generally, all property which is personal in nature and all rights exclusively attached to the person. Instruments of work necessary for the profession of one of the spouses also…

Property which the spouses owned or possessed on the day of the celebration of the marriage, or which they acquire during the marriage by succession, gift or legacy, remains separate. The gift may stipulate that the property which is the subject of it shall belong to the community. The property falls into the community, unless otherwise stipulated, when the gift is made to both spouses jointly. Property abandoned or transferred…

Property acquired as an accessory to a proprietary property, as well as new securities and other increases attached to proprietary securities, form proprietary property, subject to recompense if applicable. Also forming own property, by the effect of real subrogation, are debts and indemnities which replace own property, as well as property acquired in use or replacement, in accordance with articles 1434 and 1435.

Property acquired in exchange for property that belonged to one of the spouses in his or her own right is itself his or her own property, except for the compensation due to or by the community, if there is a balancing payment. However, if the balancing payment payable by the community is greater than the value of the property transferred, the property acquired in exchange falls into the common estate,…

The acquisition made, by way of auction or otherwise, of a portion of property of which one of the spouses was the undivided owner, does not form an acquest, except for the recompense due to the community for the sum it may have provided.