Short answer. Yes. Article 593 makes extraordinary repairs the owner's financial responsibility, but it puts an affirmative duty on the usufructuary: he must notify the owner whenever the need for such repairs becomes urgent, so the owner has the chance to act before the property deteriorates further.
What the law says
The usufructuary is obliged to notify the owner when the need for such repairs is urgent.
Civil Code, Article 593 — Extraordinary Repairs Are the Owner's. Read the full provision →
Extraordinary repairs are the owner's expense, not the usufructuary's
Article 593 opens by fixing financial responsibility: extraordinary repairs shall be at the expense of the owner. This distinguishes major, structural, or unusually costly repairs from the ordinary upkeep a usufructuary is expected to handle himself as part of enjoying the property. The usufructuary is not required to fund extraordinary repairs out of his own pocket — that burden stays with the person who holds the underlying title.
But the usufructuary must speak up when repairs are urgent
The article immediately pairs that financial rule with a notification duty. The usufructuary is obliged to notify the owner when the need for such repairs is urgent. Because the usufructuary is the one actually using and observing the property day to day, he is often the first — sometimes the only — person aware that something has reached a critical point. This duty makes his awareness useful to the owner rather than something he can simply sit on.
Why the notification requirement exists
If the usufructuary had no duty to notify, urgent structural problems could go unaddressed simply because the person who could see and feel them had no financial stake in fixing them and no legal obligation to say anything. Requiring notice bridges that gap: the owner remains financially responsible, but only once he actually knows there is a problem serious enough to require action. This protects the value of the property itself, which ultimately reverts to the owner once the usufruct ends, and it protects the usufructuary from being blamed for deterioration he flagged but the owner failed to address.
What the article leaves open
Article 593 does not spell out a specific penalty for a usufructuary who fails to give the required notice, and this text does not itself say what remedy the owner has if he learns too late that an urgent need went unreported. What it does establish clearly is the duty itself — that the usufructuary, as the person actually using and observing the property, must speak up promptly once he recognizes a repair has become urgent, and that the owner's financial responsibility for extraordinary repairs is the counterpart obligation the notice duty is meant to make workable in practice.