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CIVIL CODE OF SAINT LUCIA
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PART THIRD THE ACQUISITION AND EXERCISE OF RIGHTS OF PROPERTY

Revised Laws of Saint Lucia (2022)

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PART THIRD
THE ACQUISITION AND EXERCISE OF RIGHTS OF PROPERTY

  1.  

    GENERAL PROVISIONS

  1.  

    529.   Ownership in property is acquired by prehension or occupation, by accession, by descent, by will, by contract, by prescription, and otherwise by the effect of law and of obligations.

  1.  

    530.   Things which have no owner are held to belong to the crown.

  1.  

    531.   There are things which have no owner and the use of which is common to all. The enjoyment of these is regulated by laws of public policy.

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    532.   The ownership of a treasure rests with him or her who finds it in his or her own property. If it is found in the property of another, it belongs half to the finder, and the other half to the owner of the property.

  1.  

    A treasure is any buried or hidden thing of which no one can prove himself or herself owner, and which is discovered by chance.

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    533.   The right of hunting and fishing is governed by particular laws of public policy, subject to the legally acquired rights of individuals.

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    534.   Things which are the produce of the sea, or are drawn from its bottom, found floating on its waters, or cast upon its shores, and which never had an owner, belong, by right of occupancy, to the finder who has appropriated them.

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    535.   Things once possessed, which are afterwards found at sea, or on the sea shore, or their price, if they have been sold, continue to be the property of the original owner, if he or she claim them, and if he or she do not, they are the property of the crown, subject, however, in either case to claims for salvage and preservation on the part of those who save and preserve them.

  1.  

    536.   Things found on the ground, on the public highways or elsewhere, even on the property of others or which are otherwise without a known owner may, when there are no special laws relating to them, be reclaimed by the owner who has not voluntarily abandoned them in the ordinary manner, he or she being, however, subject to the payment, when due, of an indemnity to the person who found and preserved them. If they are not claimed they belong to such person by right of occupancy.

  1.  

    Rivers are, for the purposes of this article, considered as land.

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    537.   Among the things subject to the special law mentioned in the preceding article are:

    1.  

      1.     Unclaimed goods in the hands of wharfingers, warehouse-keepers, and carriers either by land or by water;

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      2.     Articles remaining in the post office with dead letters;

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      3.     Things suspected to have been stolen, remaining in the hands of officers of justice;

    1.  

      4.     Animals found straying.

  1.  

    538.   Certain matters which come under the heading of the present Book are incidentally treated in the Books preceding.

BOOK FIRST
SUCCESSIONS

  1.  

    GENERAL PROVISIONS

  1.  

    539.   “Succession,” “a succession,” and “the succession,” mean respectively as described in article 1.

  1.  

    540.   An intestate succession is established by law alone, and a testamentary succession is derived from a will. The former exists only in the absence of the latter.

  1.  

    Gifts in contemplation of death partake of the nature of testamentary successions.

  1.  

    The person to whom a succession of any kind devolves, or, in the case of a succession devolving on or after the 5th day of April 1952, the person entitled to the residuary succession after administration thereof, is called heir. (Amended by Act 34 of 1956)

  1.  

    541.   (Repealed by Act 4 of 1988)

  1.  

    542.   The law, in regulating a succession, considers neither the origin nor the nature of the property composing it. The whole forms but one inheritance which is transmitted and divided according to uniform rules, or the dispositions made by the proprietor.

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