Definition
In civil law, the renewal or continuation of an existing lease by the parties' conduct or agreement after the original term expires. When a tenant remains in possession after the lease period ends and the landlord does not object, the law treats this as a reconduction — a tacit relocation that revives the lease on substantially the same terms. Reconduction is the civil law analog to the common law doctrine of holdover tenancy, though the mechanisms and consequences differ meaningfully between the two traditions.
The concept originates in Roman law and persists in Louisiana, Quebec, and other jurisdictions whose private law descends from the civil law tradition. In those systems, reconduction can occur either expressly (by written or oral agreement) or tacitly (by continued possession with the lessor's acquiescence).
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Reconduction means a repeat undertaking or restoration, or the act of conveying something back to its original place — a general sense of returning or renewing.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): No entry. The term was sufficiently technical that Webster's did not record it as part of general English vocabulary.
Editorial note: The common English sense of reconduction — bringing something back or restoring it — overlaps loosely with the legal meaning but misses the specific lease-renewal context that gives the term its operative force. A researcher encountering reconduction in a legal document should not assume the general sense applies; the term almost always signals a civil law tenancy question.
Common Confusion
Reconduction is frequently conflated with two related concepts. First, relocation (in its civil law sense) is not removal of a tenant but rather a re-letting — the terms are used nearly interchangeably in the historical sources, and Black's defines reconduction directly as "relocation." Second, common law holdover tenancy addresses similar factual circumstances but operates differently: a common law holdover may create a tenancy at will or a periodic tenancy depending on jurisdiction and landlord conduct, while civil law reconduction typically revives the original lease for a full new term. Researchers moving between common law and civil law sources on the same landlord-tenant question must keep these frameworks separate.
Why It Matters in Research
Reconduction is a term of art confined almost entirely to civil law jurisdictions and civil law commentary. In the Law Mind corpus, it will appear predominantly in Louisiana case law, French and Spanish colonial-era documents, Louisiana Civil Code annotations, and treatises engaging Roman or continental civil law sources. Researchers working on early American or colonial property disputes in Louisiana, Texas, or the Southwest may encounter the term in original-language Spanish or French documents alongside its translation.
The historical dictionaries all point to Dig. 19, 2, 13, 11 (the Digest of Justinian) and Code Napoléon articles 1737–1740 as the foundational references. The Louisiana Civil Code provisions on lease renewal are the most likely domestic source in American materials — researchers should trace reconduction questions there rather than to common law landlord-tenant doctrine.
One navigational trap: because Black's defines reconduction as "relocation," searches limited to one term may miss relevant documents indexed under the other. Run parallel searches. In older Louisiana reports, the French term relocation may appear in the original even when the English translation uses reconduction.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are in close agreement, essentially restating the same definition with minor variation. All four anchor reconduction to the civil law, identify it as a renewal of a former lease, treat it as synonymous with relocation, and cite the same Roman and Napoleonic sources.
Black's first and second editions differ only in a typographical discrepancy in the Digest citation (19, 2, 13, 11 versus 19, 2, 138, 11) — the former is the correct reference to the Digest passage on locatio conductio. Bouvier matches the first Black's citation. Rapalje & Lawrence is the most compressed, offering only a one-line definition.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the distinction between express and tacit reconduction, the duration of the renewed term, the conditions under which reconduction is blocked, or any common law comparison. Researchers needing operational detail will find the dictionaries insufficient and should consult the Louisiana Civil Code directly and treatises on civil law obligations.
Jurisdictional Note
Reconduction as a legal doctrine is operative primarily in Louisiana, the only American state with a civil law property tradition. It appears in Quebec law and other mixed or civil law jurisdictions internationally. Common law states do not use the term or the doctrine; analogous fact patterns are governed by holdover tenancy rules, which differ in both structure and consequence.