Short answer. Yes, but a reduced one. The Civil Code rules on hidden defects apply to judicial sales as well, with one important subtraction: the judgment debtor is not liable for damages. You may have remedies over the defect itself, but not the full money claim an ordinary buyer would have.
What the law says
The preceding articles of this Subsection shall be applicable to judicial sales, except that the judgment debtor shall not be liable for damages.
Civil Code, Article 1570 — Warranties in Judicial Sales. Read the full provision →
A court sale is still a sale
Buyers at auction often assume they are taking the property entirely as it lies, with no recourse whatsoever. Article 1570 of the Civil Code says otherwise: the preceding articles of this Subsection shall be applicable to judicial sales, except that the judgment debtor shall not be liable for damages. The subsection referred to is the one on hidden defects — faults in the thing sold that were not apparent, that the buyer could not have discovered by ordinary examination, and that make the thing unfit for its intended use or so diminish its usefulness that the buyer would not have bought it, or would have paid far less, had he known.
What the exception takes away
The carve-out is deliberate. In an ordinary sale, a seller who knew of the defect and concealed it can be made to answer for damages on top of returning the price. In a judicial sale the property is being sold by the authority of the court to satisfy a judgment, not by a seller who chose to trade and who set out to describe the goods. The judgment debtor did not solicit the buyer and often had no say in the sale at all. So the law leaves the buyer the remedies attached to the defect itself while removing the damages claim against the debtor. What remains is materially narrower than an ordinary buyer's position.
The risks this article does not touch
Hidden defects are only one of several things that go wrong at auction, and Article 1570 does not address the others. It does not deal with the redemption period that may allow the former owner or a redemptioner to take the property back, nor with occupants who must still be removed, nor with unpaid taxes and association dues that follow the property. It does not cure a defective title, an irregularity in the levy or publication, or a claim by a third person who says the property was never the judgment debtor's to sell. Those are separate battles with separate rules and, often, separate time limits.
How to protect yourself before you bid
Do the work in advance, because the room to complain afterwards is small and the periods for acting on hidden defects are short. Get a certified true copy of the title and read every annotation on it. Check the tax records for arrears. Inspect the property physically and find out who is living there and under what claim. Read the notice of sale and confirm exactly what is being sold and whether a right of redemption exists. Keep the certificate of sale and every receipt. If a serious defect surfaces after the fact, move quickly and take the auction documents to a lawyer — delay is what usually forecloses the remedy.