The following are essential requisites of the contracts of pledge and of mortgage:
(1) That they be constituted to secure the fulfilment of a principal obligation.
(2) That the thing pledged or mortgaged is owned by the person who pledges or mortgages it.
(3) That the persons who constitute the pledge or mortgage have the free disposition of their property, and, should they not have it, that they are legally authorized for the purpose.
Third persons, strangers to the principal obligation, may secure the latter by pledging or mortgaging their own property.
History
—Civil Code, 1930, § 1756.