Short answer. No. Article 1606 provides that when there is an agreement on the redemption period, that period cannot exceed ten years. A stipulated period of fifteen years exceeds this limit, so the agreed period is not valid as written, though the sale with right to repurchase itself is not necessarily invalidated.

What the law says

The right referred to in article 1601, in the absence of an express agreement, shall last four years from the date of the contract. Should there be an agreement, the period cannot exceed ten years.

Civil Code, Article 1606 — Period to Repurchase. Read the full provision →

What the law says

Conventional redemption shall take place when the vendor reserves the right to repurchase the thing sold, with the obligation to comply with the provisions of article 1616 and other stipulations which may have been agreed upon.

Civil Code, Article 1601 — What Conventional Redemption Is. Read the full provision →

Ten years is a hard ceiling on the agreed period

Article 1606 sets out the timeframe for exercising the right of repurchase under a pacto de retro sale, which the Code calls conventional redemption: the right referred to in article 1601, in the absence of an express agreement, shall last four years from the date of the contract. Should there be an agreement, the period cannot exceed ten years. Since your contract specifies fifteen years, that stipulation exceeds the ceiling the law sets. A period this long simply is not one the law will enforce as agreed.

What conventional redemption actually reserves

Article 1601 defines the right your agreement is built around: conventional redemption shall take place when the vendor reserves the right to repurchase the thing sold, with the obligation to comply with the provisions of article 1616 and other stipulations which may have been agreed upon. This is the right whose duration Article 1606 limits. The vendor, meaning the party who sold the property and reserved the right to buy it back, is the one whose exercise of that right the ten-year ceiling governs.

The default period if no valid agreement controls

Article 1606 also provides the fallback rule: in the absence of an express agreement, shall last four years from the date of the contract. Since your fifteen-year stipulation exceeds what the law allows, it is worth understanding that the general default, when no valid agreement on the period exists, is four years from the date of the contract. Whether your excessive stipulation is simply reduced to the ten-year maximum or treated differently depends on how the specific provision is applied, but either way, fifteen years is not an enforceable period on its own terms.

A separate thirty-day window tied to litigation

Article 1606 adds one more layer: however, the vendor may still exercise the right to repurchase within thirty days from the time final judgment was rendered in a civil action on the basis that the contract was a true sale with right to repurchase. This gives a vendor a further opportunity to repurchase after a court has confirmed, through final judgment, that the contract genuinely was a sale with right to repurchase, separate from and in addition to the four-year default or the agreed period within the ten-year ceiling.

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.