Short answer. Yes. Under Article 1475, a contract of sale is perfected the moment the buyer and seller reach a meeting of minds on the thing being sold and on its price. From that instant each party may demand performance from the other, even though nothing has yet been delivered or paid.

What the law says

The contract of sale is perfected at the moment there is a meeting of minds upon the thing which is the object of the contract and upon the price.

Civil Code, Article 1475 — Perfection of the Sale. Read the full provision →

What the law says

From that moment, the parties may reciprocally demand performance

Civil Code, Article 1475 — Perfection of the Sale. Read the full provision →

Agreement on thing and price is enough

The law does not wait for a down payment or a handover. Article 1475 says the contract of sale is perfected at the moment there is a meeting of minds upon the thing which is the object of the contract and upon the price. Two things must be settled: what is being sold and how much it costs. Once the seller and the buyer agree on both, a binding contract already exists. Delivery and payment are not conditions for the contract to be born; they are the acts that carry out a contract that is already alive. This is why a seller cannot simply walk away by saying the goods have not yet changed hands.

You can demand that the other side perform

The practical force of perfection is in the next line: From that moment, the parties may reciprocally demand performance. If the seller refuses to deliver, the buyer may sue to compel delivery or to recover damages; if the buyer refuses to pay, the seller has the matching right against the buyer. The word reciprocally matters. Each side's duty answers the other's, so a buyer demanding delivery must be ready to pay, and a seller demanding payment must be ready to deliver. A perfected sale is therefore not a mere plan or a promise of a future deal — it is an enforceable obligation on both people the moment minds meet.

Perfection is not the same as ownership

A common and costly confusion is to treat a perfected sale as an automatic transfer of ownership. It is not. Perfection binds the parties to each other, but ownership of the thing generally passes only on delivery — actual or legal. So between the moment of agreement and the moment of delivery, the seller may still be the owner even though the buyer already has an enforceable right to demand the thing. This gap explains disputes where a seller, after agreeing to sell, tries to sell the same thing to someone else. The first buyer's remedy comes from the perfected contract, not from an ownership he may not yet hold.

What can still hold the sale back

Perfection is subject to the provisions of the law governing the form of contracts. For most sales, no particular form is needed and a verbal agreement binds. But some sales must be proved in writing to be enforced in court — a sale of real property is the leading example under the Statute of Frauds. There, the sale is not void, only unenforceable by action until it is put in writing or partly performed. The article also assumes real consent on both sides; if agreement was obtained by fraud, mistake or intimidation, the sale can be annulled. Absent those problems, though, the rule is simple: agree on thing and price, and you are bound.

Cases citing this provision

These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.

Related provisions

Note. Statute text quoted on this page is reproduced from the official enactment and is linked to the full provision. The explanation around it is general legal information from Vivas & Nobles Law Office, not legal advice. Whether it applies to your situation depends on facts only a lawyer reviewing them can assess.