Short answer. No. In an obligation to give a specific thing, payment made by someone who does not have the free disposal of the thing and the capacity to alienate it is not valid. The law makes actual authority over the thing being handed over a condition for the payment itself to count.
What the law says
In obligations to give, payment made by one who does not have the free disposal of the thing due and capacity to alienate it shall not be valid
Civil Code, Article 1239 — Capacity to Make Payment. Read the full provision →
The rule applies to obligations to give, specifically
Article 1239 opens by limiting itself to a particular kind of obligation: "in obligations to give," — obligations where what is owed is the delivery of a thing, rather than the performance of a service. It is in this context that the article sets its condition: the person making the payment has to actually be entitled to give away the thing being delivered, not merely be the one physically handing it over.
Two things the payer must actually have
The article requires both "the free disposal of the thing due" and "capacity to alienate it." These are two distinct requirements. Free disposal concerns whether the person is actually entitled to deal with that specific thing — it might, for instance, belong to someone else, or be encumbered in a way that limits the payer's control over it. Capacity to alienate concerns the payer's own legal capacity to transfer property at all. Missing either one means the payment does not meet the article's condition.
What happens when that condition is missing
The consequence the article states is direct: payment made without both of these "shall not be valid." This means the delivery does not count, in the eyes of the law, as satisfying the obligation, even though something was physically handed over. The obligation to give is not treated as discharged simply because delivery took place — the article ties validity to the payer's actual right over the thing, not to the fact of delivery alone.
The exception the article itself points to
Article 1239 does not end at invalidity. It preserves the provisions of article 1427 under the Title on "Natural Obligations", and that cross-reference is the exception worth knowing. Article 1427 deals with a minor between eighteen and twenty-one who has entered into a contract without the consent of a parent or guardian and who then voluntarily pays a sum of money or delivers a fungible thing in fulfilment of the obligation. In that case there is no right to recover what was paid from an obligee who has spent or consumed it in good faith. The conditions are cumulative and narrow — voluntary payment, money or a fungible thing, and a creditor who consumed it in good faith — but where they are met, the payer cannot undo the payment by pointing to his own incapacity.
The mirror-image question of who receives
Capacity on the paying side is only half of what makes a payment count. Article 1240 fixes the other half: payment must be made to the person in whose favour the obligation was constituted, to his successor in interest, or to a person authorised to receive it. A payment handed to the wrong person is exposed in much the same way as one made by a person with no power to give. If you are trying to work out whether an obligation was actually discharged, both ends are worth checking — who parted with the thing, and who was entitled to take it.
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 1239 — Capacity to Make Payment
- Civil Code, Article 1427 — Payment by a Minor 18-21
- Civil Code, Article 1240 — To Whom Payment Must Be Made