Is it ownership’s fate to be perpetual? Ownership is imprescriptible, but imprescriptibility does not equate to perpetuity. The recognition of non-perpetual ownership in France’s and Quebec’s laws raises the issue of whether perpetuity of ownership is only a symbol or a myth. The argument is made here that if ownership, as a fundamental prerogative of property law, is destined to be perpetual—contrarily to dismembered real rights or rights on the property of others, that must be limited in time so as to not impair property law’s structure and restoration of full ownership when a dismemberment ends—that perpetuity is not the essence of property, which explains cases of non-perpetual ownership and property with a term. Despite the examples of superficies and co-ownership, spatiotemporal ownership, substitution, fiduciary ownership and intellectual property can be conceived as cases of temporary ownership, challenging the dogma of a necessarily perpetual ownership. The notion of modality of ownership, which refers to ownership’s way of being, does not screen the fact that it is possible for ownership not to be perpetual.