Short answer. Yes. Article 1653 provides that the warranty rules contained in the Title on Sales apply to the contract of lease. So the warranty against hidden defects is not limited to sold property; a lessor can be answerable for hidden defects in the leased thing, adjusted for the time the lessee already enjoyed it.
What the law says
The provisions governing warranty, contained in the Title on Sales, shall be applicable to the contract of lease.
Civil Code, Article 1653 — Warranty in Lease. Read the full provision →
Sales warranties are carried into leases
You do not lose warranty protection just because you leased rather than bought. Article 1653 makes the connection explicit: The provisions governing warranty, contained in the Title on Sales, shall be applicable to the contract of lease. The Civil Code sets out detailed warranty rules in the law on sales — including the warranty against hidden defects and the warranty against eviction. Rather than rewrite them for leases, this article simply borrows them. So a lessee generally enjoys the same warranty protections that a buyer would, applied to the leased thing.
The hidden-defects warranty in a lease
Applied to a lease, the borrowed warranty means the lessor answers for hidden defects — faults not apparent on inspection that make the thing unfit for its intended use or seriously diminish that use, such that the lessee would not have leased it, or would have paid less, had the defect been known. The lessee who was handed defective property is not simply stuck with it. The warranty gives grounds to seek a remedy against the lessor, drawing on the same standards the law applies when a seller delivers a defective thing to a buyer.
The proportional reduction for time enjoyed
The article adds a fairness adjustment specific to leases. It states: In the cases where the return of the price is required, reduction shall be made in proportion to the time during which the lessee enjoyed the thing. Because a lease is about the use of the thing over time, a lessee who had the benefit of it for a period has already received some value. So where a remedy involves giving back what was paid, the amount returned is reduced to reflect the enjoyment the lessee actually had. This prevents a lessee from recovering as if no use at all had been obtained.
Limits and practical points
The protection has boundaries. As with sales, a warranty against hidden defects generally does not cover defects that were patent — visible or discoverable by ordinary inspection — nor those the lessee already knew about. Parties can also shape warranty terms in their contract within what the law allows. Still, the key point stands: the warranty is not confined to buyers. A lessee troubled by a serious concealed defect in the leased property can look to the same body of warranty rules the Code gives to purchasers, subject to the time-based reduction this article builds in.