Diagrama de fases de un nemático confinado en una cavidad circular

Actions for claiming personal rights shall prescribe with the lapse of fifteen years save the cases where the law sets another prescription period and the cases stipulated in the following articles.

Article 404

Actions for claiming any renewable periodical right such as the rental of buildings and agricultural lands, salaries, wages, fixed revenues and pensions shall prescribe with the lapse of five years.

Actions for claiming a yield due from an ill-intentioned holder, as well as the yield due for payment to beneficiaries by the trustee of an endowment shall not prescribe except with the lapse of fifteen years.

Article 405

Actions for claiming the rights of physicians, pharmacies, lawyers, engineers, experts, bankruptcy administrators, brokers, teachers and other practitioners of free profession shall prescribe with the lapse of five years, providing such rights and are due to them in return for performing jobs duties or the expenses incurred by them

Article 406

Actions for claiming taxes and dues payable to the state shall prescribe with the lapse of five years. The prescription period for annual taxes and dues shall take effect from the end of the year they are payable for, and form, for the dues payable on judiciary papers, the closing date of pleadings in the action for which these papers were drawn up, or from the date of drawing them up if no pleadings have taken place.

The above provision shall also apply if the action is for claiming the refund of taxes or dues unduly paid. The period of prescription shall take effect from the day such taxes or dues are paid.

The foregoing provisions shall not derogate the provisions prescribed in any special laws.

Article 407

Actions shall prescribe with the lapse of one year if the claim concerns one of the following rights:

A. The rights of merchants and manufacturers for objects they supplied to persons not trading in them, and the rights of hotel and restaurant owners for stay charges, the price of meals, and all expenses they spent for account of their clients.

B. The rights of workers, servants, and persons receiving daily and non-daily wages and the prices of supplies delivered by them to their masters.

A person who insists on the prescription of the action in accordance with this article shall take the oath that he has actually paid the debt. If he is a successor or legal representative of the debtor or his successors, he shall swear that he is unaware of the existence of the debt or the settlement. The court shall ask for this oath at its own discretion.

Article 408

1. The prescription period in respect of the rights stipulated in Articels 405 and 407 take effect from the time creditors complete their offers, even if they continue to submit other offers.

2. If a document is drawn up in acknowledgement of one of these rights, this right shall not lapse by prescription except with the lapse of fifteen years.

Article 409

The prescription period shall be calculated by days and not by hours.

The first day shall not be counted, and the period shall be complete upon the lapse of the last day of it unless it falls on a public holiday, in which case it shall be extended to the first working day thereafter.

Article 410

The prescription period shall take effect only from the day the debt becomes due for payment unless otherwise stipulated by the law.

The said period shall take effect with regard to a debt dependent on a suspensive condition only from the time this condition is realized, and from, with regard to guaranteeing the relevant maturity, the time such maturity is established. With respect to differed debts, the prescription period shall take effect only from the time the time limit expires.

If determining a time limit for settlement depends on the will of the creditor, the prescription period shall inure from the time the creditor is able to announce his will.

Article 411

The prescription period shall not insure whenever an impediment makes it impossible for the creditor to claim his right, even though such impediment is moral. It shall not inure either between the principle and his representative.

2. Lack of legal capacity of the creditor or his absence or sentencing him to a criminal penalty shall be considered an impediment that precludes claiming the right if the creditor has no legal representative.

Article 412

If there exists a reason discontinuing the validity of the prescription period decided for some of the creditor’s successors, such period shall not cease for the other successors.

Article 413

The prescription period shall be interrupted by a judiciary claim, even though the case is brought before a court of incompetent jurisdiction.

The period shall be also interrupted by serving an executive writ, levying an attachment or if the creditor requests accepting his claim in a bankruptcy or a distribution, and any other act the creditor performs to maintain his right in the course of procedures in an action.

Article 414

The prescription period shall be interrupted if the debtor acknowledges the right of the creditor implicitly or explicitly.

2. It shall be considered an implicit acknowledgement if the debtor leaves a property in the creditor’s possession if the property is possessorily pawned as security for settlement of his debt, or if the creditor retains such property based on his right to refrain as security for settlement of his debt, or if the creditor retains the property based on his right to refuse to return it pending the settlement of the debt involved.

Article 415

If a Prescription period is interrupted, a new period of Prescription shall begin to inure from the time the effect caused by the interruption is removed. Its period shall be same as the first Prescription period.

2. However, if a res judicata judgment is pronounced for the debt, or if the debt is one that prescribes with the lapse of five years in accordance with article 405 or one year in accordance with article 407 and its Prescription period is interrupted by the debtor's acknowledgement, the new Prescription period shall be fifteen years, unless the judgement comprises periodical and renewable obligations that shall not be payable except after issuing the judgement.

Article 416

The Prescription period of the action filed for claiming the right shall result in terminating the ancillaries of this right even if the Prescription period prescribed for the action has not expired.

Article 417

1. The court may not decide the prescription of a right at its own discretion, but upon the request of the debtors, his creditors, or any person having an interest in it, even if the debtor does not cling to it.

2. Prescription may be invoked in any condition of the case even if for the first time before the court of appeal.

Article 418

Prescription may not be waived before the right thereto has been established. It may be agreed that prescription shall occur within a period different from the one defined by the law.

However, any person having the authority to dispose of his rights may renounce even implicitly the right to prescription after that right has been established. However, such renouncement shall not be valid vis-à-vis the creditors if any damage is caused to them.