Short answer. Yes. The Civil Code allows you to donate the ownership of property to one person and the usufruct to another, but only if every donee is already living at the time of the donation. A split donation in favor of someone not yet alive when you make it does not satisfy this condition.
What the law says
The ownership of property may also be donated to one person and the usufruct to another or others, provided all the donees are living at the time of the donation.
Civil Code, Article 756 — Separate Donation Of Ownership And Usufruct. Read the full provision →
What the law allows you to split
Article 756 of the Civil Code expressly permits a donor to separate the two main layers of ownership over a single property. One donee can receive the naked ownership — the title itself, stripped of the right to use and enjoy — while another donee, or several others, receive the usufruct, meaning the right to use the property and collect its fruits, such as rent or harvest. This is a common estate-planning arrangement: a parent might, for example, want title to pass to a child while an elderly relative keeps the right to live on the land or receive its income. The law treats this as one donation with the benefits distributed among different people, not as two unrelated transactions.
The condition: every donee must be living
The permission comes with one proviso, stated in the article itself: all the donees must be living at the time of the donation. The statute reads: "The ownership of property may also be donated to one person and the usufruct to another or others, provided all the donees are living at the time of the donation." The requirement applies to everyone who takes under the split — the person receiving the naked ownership and each person receiving the usufruct. It is checked at one moment only: the time the donation is made. What happens to a donee afterward does not retroactively change whether the condition was met when the donation took effect.
Why the timing rule matters in practice
The rule closes off attempts to use a donation as a substitute for a will. A donation is an act between living persons that transfers rights now, so the law insists that the people acquiring those rights actually exist when the transfer happens. You cannot, through this device, reserve the usufruct chain for persons who are not yet alive — for instance, grandchildren yet to be born — because a donee who does not exist cannot accept or acquire anything. If your real goal is to benefit future generations in sequence, that is territory for succession planning through a will, where different rules on institutions and substitutions apply, rather than for a straightforward donation under this article.
How to set the arrangement up safely
Before signing a deed of donation that splits ownership and usufruct, confirm that each intended donee is identified and living, and that each one accepts the donation in the manner the law requires for donations of that kind of property — donations of land have formal requirements, and acceptance is part of the donation's validity. It also pays to spell out in the deed how long the usufruct lasts, who shoulders taxes and repairs, and what happens when the usufruct ends, since at that point the naked owner's title becomes full ownership. Because a defective split can put the entire arrangement in question, having the deed reviewed by counsel before notarization is a sensible precaution.