Short answer. Yes. Article 1683 requires the outgoing lessee to allow the incoming lessee or the lessor the use of the premises and other means necessary for the preparatory labor for the following year. In return, the incoming tenant must let the outgoing one gather and use his fruits — all in accordance with the custom of the place.
What the law says
The outgoing lessee shall allow the incoming lessee or the lessor the use of the premises and other means necessary for the preparatory labor for the following year
Civil Code, Article 1683 — Outgoing and Incoming Lessee. Read the full provision →
What the law says
the incoming lessee or the lessor is under obligation to permit the outgoing lessee to do whatever may be necessary for the gathering or harvesting and utilization of the fruits, all in accordance with the custom of the place
Civil Code, Article 1683 — Outgoing and Incoming Lessee. Read the full provision →
The outgoing tenant must give room to prepare
Article 1683 is built for exactly this overlap between one farming year and the next. Its first command falls on the departing tenant: The outgoing lessee shall allow the incoming lessee or the lessor the use of the premises and other means necessary for the preparatory labor for the following year. So while you finish your season, you cannot lock the incoming tenant out of the land or deny him the access he needs to ready the soil, plough, or plant for the coming cycle. The law assumes both seasons must partly share the ground, and it refuses to let the outgoing tenant treat the field as exclusively his until the very last day.
The duty runs both ways
The obligation is reciprocal, and this protects the outgoing tenant just as firmly. The article continues that the incoming lessee or the lessor is under obligation to permit the outgoing lessee to do whatever may be necessary for the gathering or harvesting and utilization of the fruits, all in accordance with the custom of the place. The person taking over cannot rush you off the land before you have brought in and used the crop you planted and are entitled to. Preparation for next year and harvest of this year are made to coexist: each side must give the other the space to do what its own stage of the cycle requires.
Custom of the place decides the details
The article does not spell out hour-by-hour who gets which corner of the field. Instead it ties everything to one standard — the arrangement must be in accordance with the custom of the place. Local farming practice fills the gaps: how much land the incoming tenant may prepare while the old crop still stands, when access begins, and what counts as reasonable. Where the parties disagree, the settled custom of the locality, not one tenant's convenience, is the measure. This keeps the rule workable across very different crops, terrains and regions.
What the article does not change
This provision governs the physical overlap of the two tenancies; it does not rewrite who owns the fruits or shorten either lease. The outgoing tenant keeps his right to the crop he lawfully raised, and the incoming tenant gains no claim to it merely by starting his preparatory labor. Nor does the article let either party exclude the lessor, who stands in the incoming tenant's shoes for these purposes. It simply forces cooperation over the shared season, measured by local custom rather than by force.