Short answer. Not yet a deposit. Article 1963 says an agreement to constitute a deposit is binding, but the deposit itself is not perfected until the thing is delivered. Until you hand the goods over you have an enforceable promise to deposit — not a deposit, and none of a depositary's safekeeping duties has arisen.
What the law says
An agreement to constitute a deposit is binding, but the deposit itself is not perfected until the delivery of the thing.
Civil Code, Article 1963 — Deposit Perfected by Delivery. Read the full provision →
Deposit is a real contract
Contracts come into being in different ways. Many are perfected by mere consent — the parties agree, and the contract exists. Deposit is not one of them. It belongs to the family of real contracts, which are perfected only by the delivery of the thing involved. That is why a mutual understanding that one person will keep another's goods, however clearly reached, does not yet create a deposit. The safekeeping relationship the law calls deposit begins when the goods actually change hands, and not a moment before, no matter how firm the earlier agreement was.
What Article 1963 draws a line between
The provision separates the promise from the contract itself: An agreement to constitute a deposit is binding, but the deposit itself is not perfected until the delivery of the thing. The first half matters as much as the second. Your agreement to have the goods stored is not empty — it binds. It is an enforceable undertaking, and a party who backs out of it without justification can be answerable for the loss that refusal causes. What has not yet come into existence is the deposit, with the distinct bundle of obligations the Code attaches to a depositary who is actually holding your property.
Why the distinction has teeth
Before delivery, the would-be depositary is holding nothing, so the duties that define deposit have not begun. There is no obligation to safeguard the goods, no liability if they are lost or damaged in the meantime, and no duty to return them, because they were never received. All of that switches on at delivery. Until then, if the arrangement falls apart, your grievance is about a broken promise to enter into a deposit — measured by the agreement and the harm its breach caused — rather than about a depositary who failed to keep safe what he was handed.
What to do if you need the safekeeping duties
If what you actually want is the protection deposit gives — the duty of care, the liability for loss, the obligation to return your goods — then effect delivery, whether by physically handing the goods over or by a recognised constructive delivery that puts them within the keeper's control. That single step converts a binding promise into a perfected deposit and brings the depositary's obligations to life. Until you take it, keep a written record of what was agreed; it is the promise, not any deposit, that your remedy will rest on if the other side declines to receive the goods.