Page 387 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn
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CHAPTER SEVEN
3, articles 1461 and 1474 respectively. The seller's duty to saneamiento in the Código strongly resembles the French garantie. Articles 1484-1492, which deal with the content of saneamiento, are the equivalent of the Code civil's articles 1641-1649. Article 1583 in section 4.3.1 extends the seller's duty to saneamiento to the lessor. Articles 1475-1482 are about eviction and article 1483 deals with the seller's liability for encumbrances on immovables. In addition to the seller's safeguarding duties the Código states a duty to perform in article 1096 (cumplimiento).260 Article 1293 in section 4.5 explicitly denies a general remedy for lesion beyond moiety.
7.6.2 The Código civil on latent defects
With regard to how the seller's duties are shaped, the Código follows a pattern similar to what we have observed earlier in the Code civil. Largely modelled after the French Code, the Código likewise coins an overarching concept which covers most instances of malperformance, be it only for sales and, unlike its French model, explicitly for lease. More akin to the Code civil's garantie than to the ALR's Gewährleistung, the Código's saneamiento is only a duty for the seller and, by extension, for the lessor.261 The Código does not extend a safeguarding duty to a broad category of promisors or givers as in the ALR and ABGB.262
7.6.2.1 Saneamiento in the Código civil
Similar to the Code civil, the Código divided the seller's safeguarding duty in two parts.263 First, the seller has to ensure the buyer unhampered possession of his purchase. Secondly, the seller has to safeguard against latent defects.264 Manresa y Navarro (1818- 1905), a judge of Spain's Tribunal Supremo and commentator of the Código, explains this duty by stating that the price paid has to equal the thing received. That can only be the case, if the price corresponds with the thing's fitness for the use to which it is normally put. Eviction, encumbrances and latent defects impede the object's use, thus rendering the object's value unequal to the price paid for an object thought fit for its purpose. Manresa y Navarro uses distinct natural law terminology here. However, this does not prevent him from condemning that other famous natural law remedy, the remedy for lesion beyond
260 Art. 1096 Código: Cuando lo que deba entregarse sea una cosa determinada, el acreedor, independientemente del derecho que le otorga el artículo 1.101, puede compeler al deudor a que realice la entrega...
261 Art. 1461 Código (= art. 1603 Cc): El vendedor está obligado a la entrega y saneamiento de la cosa objeto de la venta.
262 See 7.2.2.1 (ALR) and 7.4.2.1 (ABGB).
263 Art. 1474 Código (= art. 1625 Cc): En virtud del saneamiento a que se refiere el artículo 1.461, el
vendedor responderá al comprador: 1.o De la posesión legal y pacífica de la cosa vendida. 2.o De los
vicios o defectos ocultos que tuviere; Manresa y Navarro, Commentarios, vol. 10, p. 173.
264 Art. 1474 Código; art. 1484 Código (≈ 1641): El vendedor estará obligado al saneamiento por los defectos ocultos que tuviere la cosa vendida, si la hacen impropia para el uso a que se la destina, o si disminuyen de tal modo este uso que, de haberlos conocido el comprador, no la habría adquirido o habría dado menos precio por ella; pero no será responsable de los defectos manifiestos o que estuvieren a la vista, ni tampoco de los que no lo estén, si el comprador es un perito que, por razón de
su oficio o profesión, debía fácilmente conocerlos.
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