Page 425 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn
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CONTEMPORARY CIVIL LAW
duties were put in the different categories of the duty to safeguard and the duty to perform.99
In order to accommodate the Código to the CISG and European consumer law, the committee proposes the same unitarian approach to performance for sales in the Código.100 It replaces the seller's duty to safeguard from latent defects (saneamiento) with a duty to perform in conformity with the contract's content as a species of the contractual duty to perform (cumplimiento).101 Not only the seller's duty to safeguard from defects in the thing, but also his duties to safeguard from eviction and encumbrances on immovables are abolished.102 The committee's proposal furthermore aims to incorporate the demands of Directive 1999/44/EC on Consumer sales into the Código, so that the separate Consumer Code can be done away with. At present, the remedies for breach of safeguarding duties in the Código and those in statute 23/2003 with which Directive 1999/44/EC is implemented are incompatible. The consumer-buyer has to choose and can not bring both.103
In addition to introducing the concept of non-conformity, the proposal modifies the present Código's law of non-performance (incumplimiento). The Código had always distinguished between non-performance of contracts to give, to do, or to refrain and their corresponding remedies, which resulted in a fragmented system of remedies for non- performance.104 Contrariwise, in the proposal all these cases of non-performance produce uniform remedies.105 The creditor can demand performance, reduction of price, rescission, and compensation for loss.106
Finally, proposed article 1455 states the seller's duty to deliver the thing in conformity with the contract and free from third-party claims.107 Unlike, for example, the Dutch NBW, the proposal for a new Código thus brings the previously separately arranged duties to safeguard from defects and third-party claims together in one duty to perform.108 According to article 1190, non-performance opens the way for the buyer to claim a price reduction, rescission, or loss. Consequently, because non-conformity is a species of non-
99 Ponce de León, Propuesta, p. 25: 'Básicamente el nuevo sistema se caracteriza por utilizar un concepto unitario de incumplimiento del contrato y articular, adecuadamente, los remedios tradicionales con que cuenta en ese caso el acreedor'; Gómez Calle, 'Los remedios', pp. 36-37.
100 Ponce de León, Propuesta, p. 25.
101 Ibidem, p. 18; Gómez Calle, 'Los remedios', p. 38.
102 Ponce de León, Propuesta, pp. 26-27.
103 Ibidem, p. 25: 'Puede permitir, en su día, incorporar al Código civil la Ley 23/2003'; Law 23/2002
excludes consumers from remedies available in the Código. See art. 13 Law 23/2003: '... Disposición adicional. Incompatibilidad de acciones. El ejercicio de las acciones que contempla esta ley derivadas de la falta de conformidad será incompatible con el ejercicio de las acciones derivadas del saneamiento por vicios ocultos de la compraventa...'.
104 Artt. 1096-1099 Código.
105 Ponce de León, Propuesta, p. 25: 'Conforme al nueva sistema, la falta de ejecución de cualquier
obligación resultante del contrato constituye incumplimiento, con independencia de que la inejecución
sea o no imputable al deudor'.
106 Art. 1190 Proposal.
107 Art. 1455 Proposal: 'Por el contrato de compraventa el vendedor se obliga a entregar una cosa que sea
conforme con el contrato y esté libre de derechos de tercero que no haya sido contemplados en él...
108 See 8.2; Gómez Calle, 'Los remedios', p. 38.
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