Short answer. No, not by default. Article 2024 says non-payment of a life annuity does not authorise you to reclaim the capital or retake the property you handed over. Unless your contract stipulates otherwise, your remedy is to sue for the arrears and demand security for future payments — not rescission.
What the law says
The lack of payment of the income due does not authorize the recipient of the life annuity to demand the reimbursement of the capital or to retake possession of the property alienated
Civil Code, Article 2024 — Non-Payment of the Annuity. Read the full provision →
What the law says
he shall have only a right judicially to claim the payment of the income in arrears and to require a security for the future income
Civil Code, Article 2024 — Non-Payment of the Annuity. Read the full provision →
What the law says
unless there is a stipulation to the contrary
Civil Code, Article 2024 — Non-Payment of the Annuity. Read the full provision →
Why an annuity is not an ordinary sale
It is natural to think that if someone stops paying for what you gave them, you can simply take it back — that is how a sale for non-payment often works. A life annuity is built differently. You transferred capital or property in exchange for a promise of periodic income for as long as a named person lives, and the law regards that transfer as complete. The annuity is an aleatory contract: both sides accepted the risk of how long the payments would run. Because the property genuinely passed, a default in the income does not automatically unwind the transfer the way it might undo a conditional sale.
No reimbursement, no retaking the property
Article 2024 makes the limit explicit: The lack of payment of the income due does not authorize the recipient of the life annuity to demand the reimbursement of the capital or to retake possession of the property alienated. Two things you might instinctively reach for are ruled out. You cannot demand your capital back, and you cannot retake the property you alienated, merely because payments have stopped. The default has consequences, but self-help of that kind is not among them. The transfer stands, and the failure to pay is treated as a debt to be enforced rather than a condition that reverses the whole arrangement.
What you can do instead: arrears and security
What the article gives you instead is a pair of enforcement rights: he shall have only a right judicially to claim the payment of the income in arrears and to require a security for the future income. The first is to go to court for the unpaid instalments already due. The second is more protective — to require the debtor to put up security guaranteeing the payments still to come, so that a history of default does not leave you exposed for the rest of the annuitant's life. These are real remedies, but they operate through the courts and leave the property where it now sits.
The escape hatch: a stipulation to the contrary
The article twice adds the phrase unless there is a stipulation to the contrary, and that is the practical key. The default rule can be reversed by agreement: if the contract creating the annuity expressly provides that non-payment lets you rescind and recover the property, or reclaim the capital, then that stipulation governs and you may pursue it. So the first document to read is the annuity contract itself. Where it is silent, Article 2024 confines you to arrears and security; where it grants a right to take back, the wording of that clause — and any conditions on it — decides what you can actually recover.