Short answer. Yes, but only as to partnership property. Article 1827 gives partnership creditors first claim over partnership assets ahead of any individual partner's personal creditors. A partner's own creditors are not shut out entirely, though — they may still go after that partner's share in the partnership, just not the partnership's property directly, and only after partnership debts are satisfied.
What the law says
The creditors of the partnership shall be preferred to those of each partner as regards the partnership property. Without prejudice to this right, the private creditors of each partner may ask the attachment and public sale of the share of the latter in the partnership assets.
Civil Code, Article 1827 — Preference of Partnership Creditors. Read the full provision →
Why partnership creditors go first
A partnership's assets exist to satisfy the obligations the partnership itself incurred, and Article 1827 protects that purpose by giving the creditors of the partnership priority over those of each partner when it comes to partnership property. A partner who is personally in debt cannot let their own creditors reach into the partnership's assets ahead of the people the partnership itself owes money to. That preference exists precisely because the partnership's creditors extended credit on the strength of the partnership's own resources, not any one partner's personal finances.
What a partner's personal creditors can still reach
The preference for partnership creditors is not an absolute exclusion of everyone else. The article expressly preserves a second right: a partner's private creditors may still ask for the attachment and public sale of that partner's share in the partnership assets — that is, the partner's interest in whatever remains after the partnership's own obligations are met, not the underlying partnership property itself. A partner's personal debt does not vanish just because the debtor happens to be in a partnership; it simply cannot jump the queue ahead of the partnership's own creditors.
The practical order of payment
Put together, the two sentences describe a sequence rather than a wall. Partnership property answers for partnership debts first. Only the partner's residual interest — what is left of that partner's share once the partnership's creditors are paid — becomes available to that partner's personal creditors, and even then only through the specific remedy the article names: attachment and sale of the partner's share, not a direct claim against partnership assets. Anyone extending credit to an individual partner is, in effect, lending against what may be left over, not against the partnership's own property.
The remedy a personal creditor actually has
Two neighbouring articles show how narrow the personal creditor's route is. Article 1811 provides that a partner's right in specific partnership property is not subject to attachment or execution, except on a claim against the partnership — so the truck, the stock or the building cannot be levied on for a partner's private debt at all, whatever the size of that partner's stake. What a judgment creditor of a partner can do is set out in Article 1814: on application to a competent court, and expressly without prejudice to the preferred rights of partnership creditors under article 1827, the court may charge the debtor partner's interest with payment of the unsatisfied judgment and appoint a receiver of his share of the profits and of other money due to him from the partnership. The creditor reaches a stream of value, in other words, not the assets producing it.
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 1827 — Preference of Partnership Creditors
- Civil Code, Article 1811 — Co-Ownership of Specific Property
- Civil Code, Article 1814 — Charging Order Against a Partner's Interest