Page 125 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

EARLY MODERN CASTILAN LAW
3.3.4 Liability for encumbrances on immovables.
Similar to their medieval colleagues, Castilian jurists discussed to what extent the aedilician remedies could be brought in the event land bought turned out to be encumbered with taxes or servitudes. In the event of servitudes or taxes Justinian's code sometimes seems to favour a regime in which the seller of encumbered land can less easily be held liable in comparison to the text dealing with movables.211 We have seen that an unknowing seller could not be held liable at all and that a seller with knowledge about the encumbrances was liable for price reduction at most. Some medieval legal scholars put much effort into streamlining the unruly texts with the principle of D. 19.1.13pr in which a knowing seller was liable for all loss and an ignorant seller for price reduction. Others, however, stuck to a literal reading of the Roman law texts. As will be discussed here, Castilian law intends to do away more definitely with this different liability for servitudes or taxes as regards the regime for defects.
The Siete Partidas clearly opt for streamlining the seller's liability for encumbrances on immovables to the seller's liability for defects in movables. Provision 5.5.63 reads:
'A seller who, while keeping silent, sells another man a house or tower on which lies a servitute or which is liable for taxes and he who buys it is not aware of it, then the buyer can on that account rescind the sale. The seller is consequently held to pay back the price and compensate for all damages suffered on that ground. Moreover, we decree that when a man sells another any kind of land or meadow on which he knows that there grow weeds which are detrimental to cattle that graze there and when he sells it while keeping silent, not willing to tell the buyer, the seller is liable to pay back the price and compensate for all damages suffered on that ground. Furthermore, if the seller was ignorant while selling, he is only held to pay back no more than the price'.212
In sum, the knowing seller of an encumbered house or of land is liable for all loss, whereas the ignorant seller cannot be held liable for more than the agreed price or rent. Hence, again the rule in D. 19.1.13pr. not to hold an ignorant seller liable for more than the agreed
| yendo que la dicha negra hera buena | e sana'; reg. ej., caja 362, 44 (1523), sc. 1: 'e se lo vendio | por trese ducados de oro por sano e bueno e syn enfe- | rmedad alguna'; reg. ej., caja 364, 6 (1523), sc. 2: 'lo bendiera | por sano con ciertas condiciones...'; reg. ej., caja 332, 8 (1518), sc. 3: 'e que no hera fugetivo ni ladro ni borracho'; reg. ej., caja 349, 13 (1521), sc. 2 (top left): 'e por saber el dicho Juan de Beldedo el dicho | biscio antes del tiempo que bendio el dicho esclavo... | ... hera proposito que | ansy el dicho contrato de venta fueyera ninguna' ; similarly, reg. ej., caja 374, 20 (1524); reg. ej., caja 308, 65 (1516); reg. ej., caja 392, 28 (1526); reg. ej., caja 333, 17 (1518); reg. ej., caja 307, 41 (1516); reg. ej., caja 316, 11 (1517); reg. ej., caja 324, 46 (1517); reg. ej., caja 338, 68 (1519).
211 See 2.2.4.
212 SP 5.5.63: Casa o torre que debe servidumbre a otra o que fuese tributaria vendiendo un home a otro
callando el vendedor et non apercebiendo dello a aquel que la compraba, por tal razon como esta puede desfacer el comprador la vendida et es tenudo el vendedor de tornarle el prescio con todos los daños et los menoscabos quel vinieron por esta razon. Otrosi \[además\] decimos que si vendiese un home a otro algunt campo o prado que sopiese que criaba malas yerbas et dañosas para las bestias que la pasciesen et quando lo vendiese se callase que lo no quisiese decir al comprador, que es tenudo el vendedor por ende de tornar el prescio al comprador con todos los daños que vinieron ende; mas si eso no sopiese el vendedor quando lo vendió, no serie tenudo de tornar mas del prescio tan solamente, in: Los códigos españoles, vol. 3, p. 631.
113