Short answer. Ordinary repairs are the usufructuary's, and he pays for them. These are the ones made necessary by normal wear and tear and indispensable to preserving the property. If he refuses after the owner demands them, the owner may carry them out and charge him for the cost.
What the law says
The usufructuary is obliged to make the ordinary repairs needed by the thing given in usufruct. By ordinary repairs are understood such as are required by the wear and tear due to the natural use of the thing and are indispensable for its preservation.
Civil Code, Article 592 — Ordinary Repairs Are the Usufructuary's. Read the full provision →
The test has two elements, not one
The Code does not define ordinary repairs by cost, and reading them as merely the small ones is the commonest mistake. The definition has two limbs, and both must be met: the repair must be required by the wear and tear due to the natural use of the thing, and it must be indispensable for its preservation. Deterioration from ordinary use that, left alone, would let the property decay — a leaking roof, a failing gutter, rotting timber, a broken drain — is the usufructuary's to fix. Damage from a cause other than natural use, or work that is merely desirable rather than indispensable, falls outside the definition.
Why the burden sits where it does
The allocation follows the enjoyment. The usufructuary is the one taking the benefit of the property day by day, and it is his use that produces the wear. Making him bear the cost of that wear keeps the arrangement honest: without the rule, a usufructuary could draw income for twenty years and hand back a building the owner must then rescue at his own expense. The obligation is a continuing one, so it is not discharged by a single round of work at the start — it runs for as long as the usufruct does.
The owner's remedy if nothing is done
The article supplies its own enforcement. Should the usufructuary fail to make them after demand by the owner, the latter may make them at the expense of the usufructuary. Two things follow. First, the demand is a precondition — an owner who quietly repairs the property and presents a bill afterwards has skipped the step the article requires. Second, the remedy is self-help with a cost claim, not a court order to compel the work. So the demand should be in writing, describe the repairs specifically, and be sent in a way that proves both its content and the date it arrived.
Sorting the bills before they are argued about
Most disputes here are really about classification: whether a given item was ordinary wear or something else. That is decided on evidence about the property, so the useful records are the inventory or condition report made when the usufruct began, dated photographs, and a contractor's account describing what failed and why rather than only what it cost. Where a repair is genuinely of a different order — the kind that arises from an extraordinary cause rather than natural use — say so and document it at the time, instead of paying quietly and raising it years later.