Closing In On the End . . ..

End of what?  End of the family Usufructs Agreement.  A Usufructs is a legally binding "use" agreement.  They have been around for centuries but until the early 1980s were not recognized in Louisiana.

Well my family had a Usufructs Agreement drawn up.  My father wrote it and then his lawyer took over and put it good legal language.  He also had it "peer reviewed" and subsequently had it inserted in the Louisiana Constitution making legal.

That agreement controlled the frontage of the plantation and who could do what with what.  My brother built a log house on my father's part of the usage agreement.  There were four more or less equal area across the front of the farm.  One part had the old family house which I call Angeles House.  We subsequently sold the house to a Morrison who is a share holder.

With in a year of my brother building the log house he died.  He died intest-state ( no will) but the agreement was in force so the log house fell to my father as it was on his area of control.  There were other bank issues that were resolved and my father rented the house.  My father died in the mid 1990s at age 86 and the log house became ours.  By ours I mean his heirs; my brother's children, my sister and myself.

I was in the military and then retired to a town outside of Fort Worth, Texas so I could not provide any management help keeping the log house and it became my sisters duty as she lived closest to the house.  My nephew Johnny lived nearby but my sister did the job anyway.

My sister has since died and Johnny has taken over the responsibilities.   Herrise left it in a good lease and all he had to do was collect the rent and pay for the fire insurance.  

Well, the Usufructs Agreement expires at noon, May 28, 2020.  After that the log house reverts back to the plantation.  We will turn over a nice four thousand square foot log house and the management now falls to the plantation.  We, as share holders in the stock ownership of the plantation, will continue to participate in the proceeds but on a per share basis.  We no longer as subset of the larger family have any responsibility for and to the log houseersonaly.

Basically, it has been forty years since the agreement was placed in use.  It will expire.  Others will manage the place and we will all share in any income on  a pro rata basis.