Louisiana Real Estate Broker Exam — All Questions

Under Louisiana's community property regime, property acquired by either spouse during the marriage is generally:

• a.Owned by the state until the marriage ends
• b.The separate property of the spouse whose name is on the title
• c.Community property owned equally by both spouses✓
• d.Automatically owned by the couple's children

Civil Code Article 2338 defines community property to include property acquired during the existence of the legal regime through the effort, skill, or industry of either spouse, and Article 2340 supplies the presumption: things in the possession of a spouse during a regime of community of acquets and gains are presumed to be community, though either spouse may prove they are separate. Article 2336 states the ownership share — each spouse owns a present undivided one-half interest. Putting the title in one spouse's name does not convert the asset, because Article 2341 defines separate property by how it was acquired, chiefly before the marriage or by inheritance or donation to that spouse individually, not by whose name appears on the act. The state acquires no interest in a couple's property by reason of their marriage. And children take through succession when a parent dies under Article 880, not during the marriage.

A tract of land carries a house, a fence, and standing timber, all belonging to the owner of the ground. Under Civil Code Article 463 these things are:

• a.Movables until they are separated from the ground
• b.Component parts of the tract, and therefore immovables✓
• c.Separate immovables owned apart from the land itself
• d.Incorporeal immovables, being rights rather than things

Civil Code Article 462 makes tracts of land, with their component parts, immovables, and Article 463 identifies those component parts: buildings, other constructions permanently attached to the ground, standing timber, and unharvested crops or ungathered fruits of trees, when they belong to the owner of the ground. Ownership by the ground's owner is the condition, and Article 464 shows what happens when it fails — buildings and standing timber belonging to someone other than the owner of the ground are separate immovables, which is why that choice describes a different case rather than this one. Nothing here is a movable: Article 475 defines movables residually as everything the law does not consider immovable, and these things the law does. And Article 470 reserves 'incorporeal immovable' for rights such as servitudes and mineral rights, not for a house you can walk into.

In Louisiana, a usufruct of a house is:

• a.A real right of limited duration over another's property✓
• b.Ownership of the house subject to the grantor's right of repurchase
• c.A lease of the house for the lifetime of the occupant
• d.A security right over the house that secures payment of a debt

Civil Code Article 535 defines usufruct as a real right of limited duration on the property of another, and Article 539 spells out what the usufructuary of a nonconsumable such as a house may do: possess it and take the utility, profits, and advantages it produces, under the obligation of preserving its substance and using it as a prudent administrator. Ownership is not transferred — Article 478 calls what the owner retains the naked ownership — so describing it as ownership subject to a repurchase right misstates who owns what. It is not a lease either: a lease under Article 2668 is a contract for a term in exchange for rent, and it binds the lessor personally, whereas a usufruct is a real right that follows the thing. And Article 3278 reserves the security function for the mortgage, which is a nonpossessory right created to secure an obligation.

Compared with the right of use, the right of habitation under Civil Code Articles 630 to 638 is:

• a.Freely transferable and heritable, passing to the holder's heirs
• b.Available to corporations as well as to natural persons
• c.A right to collect the rents produced by another person's house
• d.Nontransferable and nonheritable, ending at the holder's death✓

Article 630 defines habitation as the nontransferable real right of a natural person to dwell in the house of another; Article 637 adds that the right is neither transferable nor heritable and may not be alienated, let, or encumbered; and Article 638 terminates it at the death of the person having it unless a shorter period is stipulated. The right of use is the deliberate contrast the outline draws: Article 641 allows it in favor of a natural person or a legal entity, Article 643 makes it transferable unless law or contract forbids, and Article 644 provides that it is not extinguished at the holder's death. So transferability, heritability, and availability to a corporation are all features of the right of use rather than of habitation. Nor is habitation a right to revenues: Article 634 entitles the holder to occupy the house and receive friends, guests, and boarders, which is a right to dwell, not to collect rent.

Under Civil Code Article 646, a predial servitude is:

• a.A charge imposed on a person for the benefit of a neighboring owner
• b.A right of a natural person to a specified use of another's estate
• c.A charge on a servient estate for the benefit of a dominant estate✓
• d.A charge that one owner may impose on two estates that he owns

Article 646 defines the predial servitude as a charge on a servient estate for the benefit of a dominant estate and adds the requirement that the two estates belong to different owners. Both halves are load-bearing. The charge runs estate to estate, not person to person, which is why the personal formulation is wrong: Article 650 makes the servitude inseparable from the dominant estate, so it passes with the land and continues to burden the servient estate when ownership changes. A right belonging to a person rather than to an estate is a personal servitude — Article 639's right of use is exactly that. And a charge between two estates in the same hand cannot be a predial servitude while the ownership is united; Article 741 treats that arrangement as destination of the owner, which ripens into a servitude only when the estates cease to belong to the same owner.

A subdivision's building restrictions forbid metal roofs. A lot owner installs one, openly, and nothing is done. Under Civil Code Article 781, an action for injunction or damages is barred after:

• a.Two years from the commencement of a noticeable violation✓
• b.Ten years from the recordation of the building restrictions
• c.One year from the sale of the offending property
• d.Five years from the day a neighbor discovers the violation

Civil Code Article 775 defines building restrictions as charges imposed by the owner of an immovable under a general plan governing building standards, uses, and improvements, and Article 781 supplies the deadline for enforcing them: no action for injunction or damages on account of a violation may be brought after two years from the commencement of a noticeable violation, after which the immovable is freed of the restriction that was violated. The article also defines noticeable — an apparent activity in violation, not the mere recordation of an instrument that provides for one. Ten years from recordation would run from the wrong event entirely, since the restrictions can sit unviolated for decades. One year from a sale ignores that the period runs from the violation, not from a transfer. And the period is not tied to a neighbor's discovery: apparent activity starts the clock whether or not anyone notices.

A married couple owns their home as community property. Under Civil Code Article 2347, selling, mortgaging, or leasing that home requires:

• a.The signature of whichever spouse is named on the act of acquisition
• b.The concurrence of both spouses✓
• c.Approval of the district court in the parish where it is located
• d.The concurrence of both spouses only if minor children live there

Article 2346 states the general rule that each spouse acting alone may manage, control, or dispose of community property, and Article 2347(A) then carves out the exceptions that matter most in a brokerage: the concurrence of both spouses is required for the alienation, encumbrance, or lease of community immovables, of standing, cut, or fallen timber, of furniture or furnishings while located in the family home, of all or substantially all the assets of a community enterprise, and of movables registered in the spouses' joint names. Whose name appears on the act is not the test; Article 2340 presumes things possessed during the regime to be community whatever the act recites. No court approval is called for — Article 2329 requires a joint petition and a judicial finding only to modify or terminate the matrimonial regime itself. And the rule does not depend on children: it attaches to the character of the property.

A Louisianian dies without a testament, survived by a spouse and two children, owning community property. Under Civil Code Article 890, the surviving spouse takes:

• a.Full ownership of the decedent's half of the community
• b.Nothing, since the descendants take by representation
• c.A usufruct over that half lasting exactly ten years
• d.A usufruct over the decedent's half, until death or remarriage✓

Article 880 provides that in the absence of valid testamentary disposition the undisposed property devolves by operation of law in favor of descendants, ascendants, collaterals, and the spouse — this is intestate succession, which Article 875 distinguishes from the testate succession of Article 874. Article 890 then supplies the spouse's share when descendants survive: a usufruct over the decedent's share of the community property to the extent the decedent has not disposed of it by testament, terminating when the surviving spouse dies or remarries, whichever occurs first. Full ownership belongs to a different case, the one Article 889 covers, where the deceased leaves no descendants at all. The spouse is plainly not excluded, and a fixed ten-year term appears nowhere in the article — the terminating events are death and remarriage.

A possessor of a Louisiana tract holds it in good faith under a just title. Under Civil Code Article 3475, he may acquire ownership by acquisitive prescription in:

• a.Ten years✓
• b.Thirty years
• c.Five years
• d.Twenty years

Civil Code Article 3473 provides that ownership and other real rights in immovables may be acquired by the prescription of ten years, and Article 3475 lists what that shorter prescription demands: possession of ten years, good faith, just title, and a thing susceptible of acquisition by prescription. Thirty years is the other prescription, and Article 3486 explains what distinguishes it — ownership may be acquired by thirty years of possession without the need of just title or possession in good faith. So thirty years is the price of lacking the very things this possessor has. Five years belongs to a different mechanism altogether, the five-year period in Article 2032 for annulling a relatively null contract. Twenty years appears in neither section; the Code offers ten and thirty for immovables, and which one applies turns on title and good faith.

A seller conveys a Louisiana tract for a price far below what it was worth. Under Civil Code Article 2589, the sale may be rescinded for lesion beyond moiety when the price is:

• a.Less than three fourths of the appraised value of the immovable
• b.More than double the assessed value carried on the parish roll
• c.Less than one half of the fair market value of the immovable✓
• d.Less than the balance still owed on the seller's mortgage

Article 2589 sets the threshold at one half: the sale of an immovable may be rescinded for lesion when the price is less than one half of the fair market value, the remedy belongs only to the seller and only in sales of corporeal immovables, and it is unavailable in a sale made by order of the court. The article adds that the seller may invoke lesion even if he renounced the right. Three fourths states the wrong fraction, and the fraction is the whole of the rule — 'moiety' means half. Assessed value is a tax figure rather than the fair market value Article 2590 directs be used, measured in the state the property was in at the time of the sale. What the seller still owes his lender is irrelevant to the comparison. Two limits are worth remembering: Article 2591 lets the buyer keep the immovable by paying the difference, and Article 2595 gives a peremptive period of one year from the sale.

Under Civil Code Article 1833, an authentic act is a writing executed before a notary public:

• a.And signed by the parties, needing no witnesses at all
• b.In the presence of one witness, and bearing the notary's raised seal
• c.And filed in the parish conveyance records within five days
• d.Before two witnesses, and signed by parties, witnesses, and notary✓

Article 1833(A) sets the form precisely: a writing executed before a notary public or other authorized officer, in the presence of two witnesses, and signed by each party who executed it, by each witness, and by each notary before whom it was executed, with each signer's name legibly printed beneath the signature. Article 1835 supplies the consequence — the act constitutes full proof of the agreement against the parties, their heirs, and their successors. One witness and a seal is not the requirement; the number of witnesses is two and the statute asks for signatures, not a seal. Dispensing with witnesses altogether describes an act under private signature, which Article 1834 says a defective authentic act may still be. Recordation is a different matter with a different purpose: Article 2442 makes an act of sale binding between the parties from the time it is made and effective against third persons only once filed for registry, and no five-day deadline applies. Note too that Article 2440 requires a sale or promise of sale of an immovable to be made by authentic act or by act under private signature, so notarization is customary in Louisiana practice rather than universally compulsory.

A buyer discovers a defect that makes a house so inconvenient to use that she would not have bought it had she known. Under Civil Code Article 2520 this is:

• a.An apparent defect, for which Article 2521 gives the seller no warranty
• b.A redhibitory defect, entitling the buyer to rescission of the sale✓
• c.A ground for rescinding the sale for lesion beyond moiety
• d.A defect remedied only under the federal fair housing statutes

Article 2520 states the seller's warranty against redhibitory defects and defines the term in two grades: a defect is redhibitory when it renders the thing useless, or its use so inconvenient that a buyer must be presumed not to have bought it had he known, and that gives the right to rescission; a defect that merely diminishes usefulness or value so that the buyer would still have bought but for a lesser price limits him to a reduction of the price. Article 2521 withholds the warranty for defects known to the buyer at the sale or discoverable by a reasonably prudent buyer, which is what makes a defect apparent rather than redhibitory — this one was hidden. Lesion beyond moiety under Article 2589 is about a price below half of value, not about condition. And fair housing law governs discrimination in the sale or rental of dwellings, not the physical soundness of what was sold. Article 2534 sets the deadlines: against a seller who did not know of the defect, two years from delivery or one year from discovery, whichever occurs first.

Under R.S. 9:2941, a bond for deed is:

• a.A surety bond guaranteeing the seller's warranties against eviction
• b.A mortgage the buyer grants the seller at the act of sale
• c.A contract to sell in which the price is paid in installments✓
• d.A deposit the closing notary holds until the price is paid in full

R.S. 9:2941 defines a bond for deed as a contract to sell real property in which the purchase price is to be paid by the buyer to the seller in installments and in which the seller, after payment of a stipulated sum, agrees to deliver title to the buyer. Two features follow and both are tested: title stays with the seller until the stipulated sum is paid, and the arrangement is a contract to sell rather than a completed sale, so the Civil Code's contract-to-sell rules apply to it. Despite the name, no surety is involved — the word 'bond' here carries its older sense of an obligation, and the seller's warranty against eviction is a separate matter governed by Article 2475. It is not a mortgage: a mortgage under Article 3278 secures an obligation over property the debtor already owns. And no notary holds the money; the installments are paid to the seller, which is why R.S. 9:2942 requires a guarantee to release any encumbrance before encumbered property may be sold this way.

A one-year apartment lease expires. The tenant stays on for a week and neither party gives notice or objects. Under Civil Code Articles 2721 and 2723, the lease is:

• a.Terminated, making the occupant a trespasser
• b.Renewed for another full year on the same terms
• c.Converted into a bond for deed by the occupancy
• d.Reconducted, and its term is now from month to month✓

Article 2721 defines reconduction: a lease with a fixed term is reconducted if, after the term expires and without notice to vacate or terminate or other opposition by either party, the lessee remains in possession for one week in the case of a lease with a fixed term longer than a week — or thirty days for an agricultural lease, or one day for a lease of a week or less. Article 2723 then supplies the new term, and for a nonagricultural lease whose term was a month or longer it is month to month; Article 2724 continues all the other provisions of the lease. So the tenancy plainly has not ended, and the occupant is not a trespasser. Nor does it renew for a second full year — reconduction shortens the term rather than repeating it, which is the practical point of the doctrine. And a bond for deed is a contract to sell under R.S. 9:2941; staying past a lease term creates nothing of the kind.