Short answer. Article 1555 lets you recover five things from the seller: the property's value at the time of eviction, any income or fruits you had to turn over to the winning party, the costs of both suits, contract expenses you paid, and, if the sale was in bad faith, damages and ornamental expenses too.
What the law says
The return of the value which the thing sold had at the time of the eviction, be it greater or less than the price of the sale
Civil Code, Article 1555 — What the Buyer May Recover on Eviction. Read the full provision →
What the law says
The income or fruits, if he has been ordered to deliver them to the party who won the suit against him
Civil Code, Article 1555 — What the Buyer May Recover on Eviction. Read the full provision →
What the law says
The costs of the suit which caused the eviction, and, in a proper case, those of the suit brought against the vendor for the warranty
Civil Code, Article 1555 — What the Buyer May Recover on Eviction. Read the full provision →
What the law says
The expenses of the contract, if the vendee has paid them
Civil Code, Article 1555 — What the Buyer May Recover on Eviction. Read the full provision →
What the law says
The damages and interests, and ornamental expenses, if the sale was made in bad faith
Civil Code, Article 1555 — What the Buyer May Recover on Eviction. Read the full provision →
Return of the property's value at eviction, not the price you paid
Article 1555's first item is the return of the value which the thing sold had at the time of the eviction, be it greater or less than the price of the sale. This is a deliberate choice: you recover what the property was worth when you lost it, not simply a refund of what you originally paid. If the property had appreciated by the time of the eviction, you recover the higher figure; if it had depreciated, you recover the lower one.
Income or fruits you had to hand over to the person who evicted you
If the outcome of the eviction case required you to also turn over income or fruits from the property to the party who won the suit against you, Article 1555 lets you recover those as well from your seller. This item exists because losing the eviction case can carry consequences beyond losing the property itself, and the seller who sold you a defective title should not leave you to absorb that further loss alone.
The costs of the litigation
You can also recover the costs of the suit which caused the eviction, and, in a proper case, those of the suit brought against the vendor for the warranty. In other words, the expenses of defending the case that took the property from you are recoverable, and so — where applicable — are the costs of your separate proceeding to enforce the warranty against your seller.
Contract expenses you actually paid
Article 1555 additionally covers the expenses of the contract, if the vendee has paid them. If you personally shouldered costs connected to putting the sale together — the expenses tied to executing that particular contract — those are part of what you can claim back from the seller, provided you were the one who actually paid them rather than the seller, and provided the expense is genuinely traceable to that transaction rather than some unrelated cost.
Damages and ornamental expenses, but only if the sale was in bad faith
The last item is conditional: the damages and interests, and ornamental expenses, if the sale was made in bad faith. Unlike the first four items, this one is not automatic — it only becomes available where the sale itself was made in bad faith, so recovering for damages, interest, and ornamental spending depends on that additional fact being established, not merely on the eviction having occurred.