Short answer. At the time and place stated in the contract, if one was agreed. Article 1582 of the Civil Code requires the buyer to accept delivery and pay at the time and place stipulated. If the contract did not specify these, payment must instead be made at the time and place of delivery of the goods.
What the law says
The vendee is bound to accept delivery and to pay the price of the thing sold at the time and place stipulated in the contract. If the time and place should not have been stipulated, the payment must be made at the time and place of the delivery of the thing sold.
Civil Code, Article 1582 — Obligations of the Vendee (Accept and Pay). Read the full provision →
The contract's own terms control first
Article 1582 starts from party autonomy: the vendee is bound to accept delivery and to pay the price of the thing sold at the time and place stipulated in the contract. If you and the seller agreed on specific terms for when and where payment and acceptance would happen, those terms are what governs, and the buyer is obligated to follow them rather than choosing a different time or place that might be more convenient at the moment.
The default rule when the contract is silent
Where the contract does not specify a time and place, Article 1582 supplies a default: the payment must be made at the time and place of the delivery of the thing sold. Rather than leaving the buyer's payment obligation undefined, the article ties it directly to delivery itself, meaning payment and delivery are meant to happen together, at the same moment and location, when the parties never separately addressed the question in their agreement.
Why tying payment to delivery makes sense as a default
This default reflects a natural balancing of obligations between buyer and seller: absent some other agreement, neither side is expected to perform first and simply trust the other to follow through later. By linking the buyer's obligation to pay to the same time and place as delivery, Article 1582's default rule avoids one party being exposed to the risk of paying without receiving the goods, or delivering without receiving payment, when the contract itself did not resolve the question.
What this means practically for a sale
Because the contract's own stipulation takes priority, the clearest way to avoid uncertainty over when and where payment is due is to specify it directly in the agreement itself. Where that was not done, Article 1582 still gives a workable answer, tying payment to delivery, but disputes can still arise over exactly where or when delivery is deemed to have occurred, particularly where delivery itself was not clearly defined in the contract between the parties.
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.
- Tomas K. Chua vs. Court of Appeals, et al, G.R. No. 119255, April 9, 2003 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- ACE Foods, Inc. vs. Micro Pacific Technologies Co., Ltd, G.R. No. 200602, December 11, 2013 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- D.M. Wenceslao and Associates Inc., et al. vs. Readycon Trading Construction Corp, G.R. No. 154106, June 29, 2004 — read the decision on LawPhil →