Short answer. Not automatically, but nearly. Article 2190 makes the proprietor responsible for damage from a total or partial collapse if it was due to the lack of necessary repairs. The injured person must tie the collapse to neglected repairs; the owner cannot simply say he did not know.

What the law says

The proprietor of a building or structure is responsible for the damages resulting from its total or partial collapse, if it should be due to the lack of necessary repairs.

Civil Code, Article 2190 — Liability for a Collapsing Building. Read the full provision →

One sentence, one condition

The provision is compact: The proprietor of a building or structure is responsible for the damages resulting from its total or partial collapse, if it should be due to the lack of necessary repairs. Two things follow. Liability attaches to the proprietor as proprietor, so a landlord who has not set foot in the property for years is still the person the article names. But it is not liability for the mere fact of a collapse. The clause that begins if it should be due to is doing real work, and it is the passerby who has to bring the collapse home to repairs that were needed and not made.

What lack of necessary repairs means in practice

It is a question about the condition of the structure, not about the owner's state of mind. An owner who genuinely did not notice the spalling concrete is in no better position than one who was told about it, because the article asks whether the repairs were necessary, not whether he appreciated that they were. That said, evidence that he was told converts a technical case into an easy one. Notices from tenants, minutes of association meetings, an engineer's earlier report and photographs of the deterioration are the ordinary way this is proved.

The neighbouring rules, and one that redirects the claim

Article 2191 extends a proprietor's responsibility to related hazards: explosion of machinery not maintained with due diligence, excessive smoke harmful to persons or property, the falling of trees near highways or lanes where force majeure is not the cause, and emanations from tubes, canals or sewers built without precautions suitable to the place. Article 2192 then points elsewhere in one situation. Where damage of this kind results from a defect in the construction mentioned in Article 1723, the injured third person may proceed only against the engineer, architect or contractor, within the period fixed there. Age is what usually keeps an old building inside Article 2190 rather than Article 1723.

What to establish early

Fix the identity of the proprietor from the title rather than from who collects the rent, since the two are often different people. Get the building's age and any record of past repairs, complaints or condemnation notices, and have the failed portion examined before it is demolished. On the damages side, Article 2199 allows compensation for pecuniary loss only as duly proved, so medical records and receipts matter more than an estimate of what the injury felt like, and Article 2202 extends recovery to consequences that follow naturally even if nobody foresaw them.

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.