How do you create a housing charge?
How do you create a housing charge?
"I own a plot of land and the villa built on it. I would like to create a right of habitation over the house for my daughter and her husband.
Do I need to set up one or two rights?
Can I make provision for my daughter's husband's rights to be extinguished in the event of divorce and not passed on to my grandchildren?
Miguel, Carouge
The right of habitation is the right to live in a house or to occupy part of it.
You have several options. You can create a single co-ownership right between your daughter and her husband. The rules on co-ownership would apply by analogy. However, this situation is not expressly regulated by law. It is therefore unwise to choose this solution, especially if you want to ensure that your daughter's husband's right is extinguished in the event of divorce.
Instead, you can create a single right in favour of your daughter. Article 777 paragraph 2 of the Civil Code stipulates that this right includes, if it has not been expressly limited to the person of the person to whom it has been granted, the right for that person to live in the encumbered property with his family and the people in his household. If you create a right of habitation in your daughter's name over the villa, she will be able to live there with her husband. However, if you prefer, you can also create a right per person.
In the event of divorce, case law accepts resolutory conditions in relation to rights of dwelling, in the sense that it is possible to make the validity of the right in time conditional on the non-occurrence of an event. You can therefore stipulate that the right will lapse in the event of divorce. It should be noted that the courts require very precise wording when describing the conditional event. The occurrence of the condition must be easily identifiable on reading the deed.
Lastly, under article 776 paragraph 2 of the Civil Code, the right of habitation is non-transferable and does not pass to the heirs. This is the essential difference between the right of habitation and usufruct. There is therefore no need to include any specific clause to ensure that the right of dwelling does not pass to your grandchildren.
