Art. 3422.1.Small Succession Immovable Property Damaged By Disaster Or Catastrophe

Article 3422.1 addresses a recovery problem that shows up after a hurricane, flood, or similar disaster damages a home that is still tied up in a small succession. The heirs may not have formally divided the property, some may be scattered or unresponsive, and getting every co-owner to sign off on repairs can be impractical exactly when speed matters most. The article applies only to immovable property subject to a small-succession proceeding that has been damaged by a disaster or catastrophe for which an official emergency or disaster declaration, state or federal, was issued.

Its central mechanism is a presumption. Absent a written agreement among the co-owners governing use and management that has been recorded in the parish's conveyance or mortgage records, a public entity, or its agent, can conclusively presume that a co-owner who has possessed the immovable for more than a year has been appointed by all the co-owners as a managing co-owner. That presumption lets a public program administering disaster-relief funds work with one person rather than tracking down and securing agreement from every heir.

The managing co-owner's powers are specific and practical: managing, repairing, reconstructing, and restoring the property; receiving, disbursing, and accounting for funds a public entity provides for that purpose; executing mortgages limited to the amount needed for repair, reconstruction, and restoration; and encumbering the property with restrictions a public entity requires. None of these powers require the other co-owners' concurrence. Possession continues to count even through a period when the managing co-owner was forced to leave the property because of the disaster itself.

The article ties this authority to negotiorum gestio, the civil-law doctrine covering someone who manages another person's affairs without a formal mandate, to the extent that doctrine does not conflict with what Article 3422.1 provides, and it directs courts to construe the article liberally to allow the maximum possible repair and restoration of damaged small-succession property. One paragraph of the original article, Paragraph G, repealed itself roughly a year after enactment, a built-in sunset provision of the kind common in disaster-response legislation meant to address a specific, time-limited recovery period.