This is an excerpt of the French Code Civil Book II of Property and the various modifications of ownership.
THE VARIOUS KINDS OF PROPERTY
Art. 516
All property is movable or immovable.
CHAPTER I - OF IMMOVABLES
Art. 517
Property is immovable, either by its nature or by its destination or by the object to which it applies.
Art. 518
Lands and buildings are immovables by their nature.
Art. 519
Windmills or watermills, fixed on pillars and forming part of a building, are also immovables by their nature.
Art. 520
Harvests standing by roots and the fruit of trees not yet gathered are also immovables.
As soon as crops are cut and the fruit separated, even though not removed, they are movables.
Where only a part of a harvest is cut, this part alone is movable.
Art. 521
The normal cutting of underwood or of timber periodically cut becomes movable only as the cutting down of trees proceeds.
Art. 522
Animals which the owner of a tenement delivers to a farmer or share cropper for farming, whether they are appraised or not, shall be deemed immovables so long as they remain attached to the tenement under the terms of the agreement.
Animals leased to other than farmers or share croppers are movables.
Art. 523
Pipes used to bring water into a house or other immovable are immovables and form part of the tenement to which they are attached.
Art. 524
"Animals and things that the owner of a tenement placed thereon for the use and working of the tenement are immovable by destination" (Act n° 99-5 of 6 Jan. 1999).
Thus,
Animals attached to farming;
Farming implements;
Seeds given to farmers or share croppers;
Pigeons in pigeon-houses;
Warren rabbits;
Beehives;
"Fishes of waters not referred to in Article 402 [L. 231-3] of the Rural Code and of stretches of water referred to in Articles 432 and 433 [L. 231-6 and L. 231-7] of the same Code" (Act n° 84-512 of 29 June 1984); [now Articles L. 431-6 and L. 431-7 of the Code of the Environment]"
Wine pressers, boilers, stills, vats and barrels;
Implements necessary for working ironworks, paper-mills and other factories;
Straw and manure,
are immovables by destination where they have been placed by the owner for the use and working of the tenement.
All movables which the owner has attached to the tenement perpetually are also immovables by destination.
Art. 525
An owner shall be deemed to have attached movables perpetually to his tenement, where they are fastened with plaster or mortar or cement, or where they cannot be removed without being broken or damaged, or without breaking or damaging the part of the tenement to which they are affixed.
The mirrors of an apartment shall be deemed perpetually placed where the flooring to which they have been fastened is part of the panelling.
It shall be the same as to pictures and other ornaments.
As regards statues, they are immovables where they are placed in a recess designed expressly to receive them, even though they can be removed without breakage or damage.
Art. 526
The usufruct of immovable things;
Servitudes or land services;
Actions for the purpose of recovering an immovable,
are immovables by the object to which they apply.
CHAPTER II - OF MOVABLES
Art. 527
Property is movable by its nature or by prescription of law.
Art. 528
(Act n° 99-5 of 6 Jan. 1999)
Animals and things which can move from one place to another, whether they move by themselves, or whether they can move only as the result of an extraneous power, are movables by their nature .
Art. 529
Obligations and actions having as their object sums due or movable effects, shares or interests in financial, commercial or industrial concerns, even where immovables depending on these enterprises belong to the concerns, are movables by prescription of law. Those shares or interests shall be deemed movables with regard to each shareholder only, as long as the concern lasts.
Perpetual or life annuities, either from the State or private individuals, are also movables by prescription of law.
Art. 530
Any annuity established in perpetuity for the price of sale of an immovable, or as condition to a conveyance, for value or gratuitous, of an immovable tenement, is essentially redeemable.
A creditor may nevertheless regulate the terms and conditions of the redemption.
He may also stipulate that the annuity may be redeemed only after a certain time, which may never exceed thirty years: any stipulation to the contrary is void.
Art. 531
Boats, ferry-boats, ships, floating mills and baths, and generally all works which are not fastened to pillars and do not form part of a house, are movables: a seizure of some of these things may however, owing to their importance, be subject to certain special proceedings, as explained in the Code of Civil Procedure.
Art. 532
Materials coming from the demolition of a building, those gathered for erecting a new one, are movables until they are used by a worker in building operations.
Art. 533
The word movable, used alone in provisions of law or of man, without any other addition or designation, does not include ready money, precious stones, credits, books, medals, instruments of sciences, arts and professions, clothing, horses, carriages, weapons, grain, wine, hay and other commodities; neither does it include what is involved in a business.
Art. 534
The words furnishing movables include only movables intended for use and ornamentation of apartments, such as tapestries, beds, seats, mirrors, clocks, tables, china and other articles of such kind.
Pictures and statues that form part of the furniture of an apartment are also included therein, but not collections of pictures which may be in galleries or special rooms.
It shall be likewise of china: only that which is part of the decoration of an apartment is included under the denomination of furnishing movables.
Art. 535
The expression movable property, that of furniture or movable effects include generally every thing which is deemed to be a movable according to the rules above set forth.
Art. 536
A sale or gift of a house, with all that is found therein, does nor include ready money, or credits and other rights whose instruments of title may have been deposited in the house; all other movable effects are included.
CHAPTER III - OF PROPERTY IN ITS RELATIONS WITH THOSE WHO OWN IT
Art. 537
Private individuals have the free disposal of property which belongs to them, subject to the modifications established by legislation.
Property which does not belong to private individuals is administered and may be transferred only in the forms and according to the rules which are peculiar to it.
Art. 538
Ways, roads and streets of which the State is in charge, navigable or floatable rivers and streams, beaches, foreshore, ports, harbours, anchorages and generally all parts of French territory which are not capable of private ownership are deemed to be dependencies of the Public Domain.
Art. 539
All property without a claimant and a master, and that of private persons who die without heirs or whose successions are abandoned, belong to the Public Domain.
Art. 540
The gates, walls, ditches and battlements of fortified places and fortresses, are also part of the Public Domain.
Art. 541
It shall be likewise with lands, fortifications and battlements of places which are no longer fortified places: they belong to the State, unless they have been lawfully transferred, or ownership has been acquired by prescription against it.
Art. 542
Common property is that to whose ownership or revenue the inhabitants or one or several communes have a vested right.
Art. 543
One may have a right of ownership, or a mere right of enjoyment, or only land services to be claimed on property.
TITLE II
OF OWNERSHIP
Art. 544
Ownership is the right to enjoy and dispose of things in the most absolute manner, provided they are not used in a way prohibited by statutes or regulations.
Art. 545
No one may be compelled to yield his ownership, unless for public purposes and for a fair and previous indemnity.
Art. 546
Ownership of a thing, either movable or immovable, gives a right to everything it produces and to what is accessorily united to it, either naturally or artificially.
That right is called right of accession.
