Short answer. No. Article 2023 of the Civil Code declares the annuity void if the measuring life was already dead when the contract was signed. The same rule applies if that person was fatally ill at the time and died within twenty days of the contract date.
What the law says
Life annuity shall be void if constituted upon the life of a person who was already dead at the time the contract was entered into, or who was at that time suffering from an illness which caused his death within twenty days following said date.
Civil Code, Article 2023 — Void Life Annuity. Read the full provision →
No surviving measuring life means no valid annuity
A life annuity is structurally dependent on a specific life continuing into the future. When that life is already over at the moment of contracting, there is literally nothing for the annuity to measure. Article 2023 recognizes this logical impossibility by declaring the contract void — not voidable, not rescindable, but void from the beginning. No obligation to pay ever legally arises, and any payments already made under the mistaken belief the contract was valid are recoverable because the contract produced no legal effects.
The twenty-day terminal illness rule
Article 2023 extends the voiding rule to a second scenario: the measuring life was alive at signing but was already suffering from an illness that caused death within twenty days of the contract date. The legislature treated this as equivalent to being already dead because the annuity was entered into on a life that was effectively already finished. The key criterion is causation — the illness that the person had at the time of the contract must be the same illness that caused the death. A death from a different cause within twenty days would not necessarily trigger this rule.
What the parties knew does not change the outcome
The voiding under Article 2023 is objective — it does not depend on whether either party knew the measuring life was dead or terminally ill. Even if both parties signed in genuine ignorance, the annuity is still void. This matters practically: you cannot argue that a good-faith belief in the measuring life's survival saves the contract. If the underlying fact (the life) was absent at the moment of signing, the contract failed at its foundation regardless of what anyone believed.
What this means for you
If you are the person who paid capital in exchange for annuity income, and the measuring life was dead or terminally ill at signing, you are entitled to recover what you paid — the contract never obligated anyone to pay you anything, but equally you never had a valid obligation to hand over capital. If you are the debtor who received capital and paid out some income before the discovery, the situation requires careful untangling: the void contract means neither the capital transfer nor the income payments rest on a valid legal basis. A lawyer can help you trace what was exchanged and advise on recovery options.