Table of Contents

SECTION V - OF LEGACIES

Art. 139. Legacies universal and on a universal title are subject to the rules established in the preceding section relative to the institutions of heirs.
This section contemplates only particular legacies or on a particular title and the rules peculiar to them.

Art. 140. Every pure and simple institution or legacy, shall give to the heir instituted or the legatee, from the day of the testator's death, a right to the thing bequeathed, which right may be transmitted to his heirs or assigns; and this takes place as well in testamentary dispositions universal or on a universal title, as for those made on a particular title.
Nevertheless the particular legatee can take pessession of the thing bequeathed, or claim the proceeds of interest thereof, only from the day the demand of delivery formed according to the order established by article 135 above, or from the day on which that delivery has been voluntarily granted to him.

Art. 141. The interest of proceeds of the thing bequeathed shall accrue to the benefit of the legatee from the day of the decease, with out his having brought suit for the same.
1st, When the testator has expressly declared in his will to that effect;
2d, When an annuity or pension has been bequeathed by way of maintenance.

Art. 142. The costs of suing for delivery, shall be at the charge of the succession, unless the testator has directed otherwise, and provided also that those costs shall cause no deduction of the legitime reserved to the forced heirs.

Art. 143. The heirs of the testator or the debtors of a legacy, shall be personally bound to discharge it, each in proportion to the part that falls to him in the succession.
They shall be bound by mortgage for the whole, to the amount of the value of the immoveable property of the succession, with-held by them.

Art. 144. The legacy bequeathed shall be delivered with the necessary accessories, in the condition in which it was on the day of the donor's decease.

Art. 145. When a person who has bequeathed the property of an immoveable possession has afterwards augmented it by his purchases, those purchases though they be even contiguous, shall not, without a new disposition, be considered as making part of the legacy.
It shall be otherwise as to the establishments or new buildings raised on the ground bequeathed or an inclosure of which the testator has enlarged the area.

Art. 146. If prior to the testament or codicil or subsequently the thing has been mortgaged for a debt of the succession, or even for the debt of a stranger, or of it be burthened with an usufruct, he who is to pay off the legacy, is not bound to discharge it, unless he be required to do it by an express disposition to the testator.

Art. 147. When the testator has bequeathed a thing belonging to another person, the legacy shall be null, whether the testator knew or knew not that the thing did not belong to him.

Art. 148. When the legacy is of a thing indeterminate, the heir shall not be obliged to give it of the best quality, nor can he offer it of the worst.

Art. 149. A legacy made to a creditor shall not be deemed to be in compensation of the debt, nor a legacy made to a servant in compensation of his wages.

Art. 150. The legatee on a particular title, shall not be liable to the debts of the succession, except the reduction of the legacies as observed above, and except the action of mortgage of the creditors.

Art. 151. The legatees have a tacit mortgage on the property of the succession, as a security for the payment of their legacies, from the day of the testator's decease; but that mortgage can never prejudice the rights of the creditors of the deceased.

Art. 152. The rules prescribed in the present section are applicable to all kinds of testamentary dispositions on a particular title, whether they be made in form of institution of heir or otherwise.




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