Short answer. Yes. Under Article 1905, an agent who sells on credit without your express or implied consent may be required to pay you in cash, regardless of whether the buyer has actually paid. The one exception: the agent still keeps any interest or benefit that the credit sale happened to generate.
What the law says
The commission agent cannot, without the express or implied consent of the principal, sell on credit. Should he do so, the principal may demand from him payment in cash, but the commission agent shall be entitled to any interest or benefit, which may result from such sale.
Civil Code, Article 1905 — Sale on Credit Without Consent. Read the full provision →
Selling on credit requires consent
Article 1905 establishes the baseline: "The commission agent cannot, without the express or implied consent of the principal, sell on credit." A commission agent's authority is defined by the principal. Unless you authorized credit sales — expressly in the agency agreement or by implication from the circumstances and your conduct — the agent had no right to extend credit to buyers on your behalf. An agent who exceeds that authority has acted without mandate and bears the consequences.
Your remedy: demand payment in cash
When the agent sells on credit without authorization, Article 1905 gives you a straightforward remedy: "the principal may demand from him payment in cash." You do not have to wait for the buyer to pay. You do not have to chase the third-party buyer that your agent chose without your approval. The agent who made an unauthorized credit sale steps into the position of the buyer — they owe you the proceeds as if the sale had been for immediate cash payment. The agent's unauthorized extension of credit is their risk, not yours.
The agent's share of benefits from the unauthorized sale
There is a qualification in Article 1905 that prevents windfall recovery by the principal: "the commission agent shall be entitled to any interest or benefit, which may result from such sale." If the unauthorized credit sale generated interest charges, financing income, or other economic benefits for the principal — perhaps because the buyer paid a premium for the credit terms — the agent is entitled to those benefits. The principal cannot demand cash plus keep the extra benefits that arose from the very credit sale they are objecting to. The remedy is to be made whole, not to profit from the agent's unauthorized act.
What counts as implied consent
Article 1905 mentions both express and implied consent. Implied consent can arise from the nature of the business, from prior practice where the agent consistently sold on credit and the principal accepted the proceeds without objection, or from other circumstances that reasonably indicate credit sales were expected or condoned. If you have never objected to credit sales in previous transactions with this agent, or if the agency was established in a trade where credit sales are customary, an agent may argue implied consent existed. Whether that argument succeeds depends on the specific facts of the relationship. To avoid the ambiguity, a clear written instruction — either authorizing or prohibiting credit sales — is the safer approach.