Text of the provision
Art. 1642. The contract of lease may be of things, or of work and service.
(1542)
Civil Code of the Philippines, Republic Act No. 386, approved June 18, 1949, effective August 30, 1950. Reproduced in full; verified verbatim against the LawPhil and ChanRobles renderings and the Official Gazette, all three of which agree word for word.
What this article means
One sentence that organises the whole Title: a contract of lease may be of things, or of work and service. Leasing a house and hiring someone to build one are, in the Civil Code's scheme, branches of the same contract.
The Code's use of a single word — lease — for two very different arrangements can be confusing to a modern reader used to treating renting an apartment and hiring a contractor as unrelated transactions. Historically, both share the same underlying structure: one party grants the temporary use of something, whether a thing, one's own labor, or a defined service, in exchange for compensation, without transferring ownership. Later articles in this Title branch off from this single provision to set separate rules for each kind, but the shared starting point explains why concepts like term limits and rescission rules echo across both.
Questions about this provision
Related provisions
- Article 1602 — When a Sale Is Really a Mortgage.
- Article 1643 — Lease of Things, and the Ninety-Nine-Year Ceiling.
Cases interpreting this article
- Authorities on this article will be added here as each is verified against primary sources.