If a donation is revoked, does the donee also have to return the fruits or income earned from the property?

The general rule: fruits only from the complaint

"Fruits" means the income or produce of the property — rent from a house, the harvest from land, the offspring of animals. Article 768 sets a default that favours the donee. When the donation is revoked for a cause under article 760 (the later birth, reappearance or adoption of a child), or by reason of ingratitude, or when it is reduced because it is inofficious (it ate into what the law reserves for compulsory heirs), the donee shall not return the fruits except from the filing of the complaint. Everything the property earned up to that day, the donee keeps. Only the income accruing from the moment the case is filed must be handed back along with the property.

The exception: broken conditions

The rule flips when the donation was subject to a condition the donee agreed to perform. If the revocation is based upon noncompliance with any of the conditions imposed in the donation, the donee must return not only the property but also the fruits thereof which he may have received after having failed to fulfill the condition. Here the clock does not start at the filing of the complaint; it starts at the breach. From the moment the donee failed to do what the donation required, he is treated as no longer entitled to the income, and he must account for it. The law is stricter because the donee accepted the property on terms and then defaulted on them.

Why the two rules differ

The distinction rewards the donee who did nothing wrong and penalises the one who broke his word. Ingratitude, an inofficious gift, or the arrival of a child are causes that arise after the donation and are not the donee's fault in the way a broken promise is; so the law lets him enjoy the fruits until he is formally challenged. A conditional donation is different — the donee knew the strings attached and failed to honour them, so he loses the income from the point of default, not merely from the lawsuit. The cause of revocation, in short, fixes the date from which the fruits must be returned.

What this does not settle

Article 768 governs the fruits, not whether the donation can be revoked in the first place — that turns on separate provisions with their own grounds and time limits. Nor does it fix the value to be returned where the fruits have already been consumed or the property changed; those are accounting questions decided on the facts. Because the correct starting date for returning income depends on pinning down the exact ground for revocation — and a conditional donation must be shown to have carried a real, enforceable condition — anyone facing or bringing a revocation should take advice on how the fruits will be counted before assuming which rule applies.

Related provisions

• Civil Code, Article 768 — Return Of Fruits After Revocation
• Civil Code, Article 760 — Donation Revoked by the Birth of a Child