If two or more credits affecting certain real property or property rights should concur, the following rules shall be observed with regard to their priority.

1. Those mentioned in Nos. 1 and 2 of article 1923 shall be preferred, according to their order, to those included in the other numbers of the same article.

2. Mortgages and agricultural credits entered or recorded, mentioned in No. 3 of said article 1923, and those included in No. 4 of the same, shall enjoy priority among themselves according to the priority of the respective entries or record in the registry of property.

3. Agricultural credits not recorded or entered in the registry, referred to in No. 5 of article 1923, shall enjoy preference among themselves in the inverse order of their priority.

ART. 1928. The residue of the estate of a debtor, after the credits which enjoy preference with regard to certain property, personal or real, have been paid, shall become part of the free property which he may possess for the payment of the other credits.

Those which enjoy preference with regard to certain property, personal or real, and which should not have been totally paid with the amount of such property, shall be paid with regard to the deficit in the order and place pertaining thereto, according to their respective characters.

ART. 1929. Credits which have no preference with regard to certain property, and those which have preference for the amount not collected, or when the right of preference should have prescribed, shall be paid according to the following rules:

1. In the order established in article 1924.

2. Those preferred by dates, according to their order, and those which have a common date, pro rata.

3. Common credits, referred to in article 1925, without consideration of their dates.

TITLE XVIII. PRESCRIPTION.

CHAPTER FIRST.-General provisions.

ART. 1930. Ownership and other property rights are acquired by prescription in the manner and under the conditions specified by law. Rights and actions, of any kind whatsoever, also are extinguished by prescription in the same manner.

ART. 1931. Persons qualified to acquire property or rights by other legal means may also acquire the same by prescription.

ART. 1932. Rights and actions shall extinguish by prescription to the prejudice of all kinds of persons, including judicial persons, in the terms prescribed by law.

Persons incapacitated to administer their property shall always retain the right to sue their legal representatives whose negligence may have been the cause of the prescription.

ART. 1933. Prescription acquired by a coproprietor or owner in common benefits all the others.

ART. 1934. Prescription produces its judicial effects in favor and against the inheritance, before the latter has been accepted, and during the time granted to make an inventory and for deliberation. ART. 1935. Persons with the capacity to alienate may renounce the prescription acquired, but not the right to prescription in the future.

Prescription shall be understood as renounced in an implied manner when the renunciation arises from facts which lead to the supposition that the right acquired has been abandoned.

ART. 1936. All things which are the object of commerce are capable of prescription.

ART. 1937. Creditors and any other person interested in validating a prescription may benefit thereby, notwithstanding the express or implied renunciation of the debtor or owner.

ART. 1938. The provisions of this title shall be understood without prejudice to what may be established in this code or in special laws with regard to specified cases of prescription.

ART. 1939. Prescription, which began to run before the publication of this code, shall be governed by the prior laws; but if, after this code became operative, all the time required in the same for prescription has elapsed, it shall be effectual, even if according to said prior laws a longer period of time may be required.

CHAPTER SECOND.-Prescription of ownership and of other property

rights.

ART. 1940. For ordinary prescription of ownership and other property rights, it is necessary to possess things in good faith and under a proper title, during the time specified by law.

ART. 1941. Possession must be in the capacity of an owner, public, peaceful, and uninterrupted.

ART. 1942. Acts of a possessory character, performed by virtue of a license, or by mere tolerance on the part of the owner, are of no effect for establishing possession.

ART. 1943. For the effects of prescription, possession is interrupted either naturally or civilly.

ART. 1944. Possession is interrupted naturally, when, for any cause whatsoever, it ceases for more than one year.

ART. 1945. Civil interruption is caused by a judicial citation of the possessor, even should it be by a mandate of an incompetent judge. ART. 1946. The judicial citation shall be considered as not made and shall not cause interruption:

1. If it should be void by reason of the absence of legal formalities. 2. If the plaintiff should withdraw his complaint or should permit the proceedings to lapse.

3. If the suit against the possessor should be dismissed.

ART. 1947. Civil interruption shall also take place by an action to avoid litigation, provided that within two months from its celebration. a complaint as to possession or ownership of the thing contested be presented to the judge.

ART. 1948. Any express or implied acknowledgment which the possessor may make with regard to the right of the owner also interrupts possession.

ART. 1949. Against the title recorded in the registry of property, the ordinary prescription of ownership or of property rights shall not obtain to the prejudice of a third person, except by virtue of another title similarly recorded, and the time shall begin to run from the date of the entry of the latter.

ART. 1950. Good faith of the possessor consists in his belief that the person from whom he received the thing was the owner of the same, and could convey his title.

ART. 1951. The conditions of good faith, required for possession in articles 433, 434, 435, and 436 of this code, are equally necessary for the determination of said requisite in the prescription of ownership and of other property rights.

ART. 1952. By a proper title is understood that which legally suffices to transfer the ownership or property right, the prescription of which is in question.

ART. 1953. The title for prescription must be true and valid.

ART. 1954. A proper title must be proven; it never can be pre

sumed.

ART. 1955. The ownership of personal property prescribes by uninterrupted possession in good faith for a period of three years.

The ownership of personal property also prescribes by uninterrupted possession for six years, without the necessity of any other condition.

The provisions of article 464 of this code shall be observed with regard to the rights of the owner to recover the personal property lost or of which he may have been illegally deprived, and also with regard to those acquired at an auction, on exchanges, at fairs or markets, or from a merchant legally established or customarily engaged in the traffic of similar objects.

ART. 1956. Personal property stolen or robbed can not prescribe to the persons who stole or robbed the same, nor to their accomplices, or harborers, unless the crime or misdemeanor or their penalties and the action to demand the civil liability, arising from the crime or misdemeanor, have prescribed.

ART. 1957. Ownership and other property rights in real property shall prescribe by possession for ten years as to persons present, and for twenty years with regard to those absent, with good faith and with a proper title."

ART. 1958. For the purposes of prescription, a person who resides in a foreign country or beyond the seas shall be considered as absent. If said person was present during part of the time and absent during another part, every two years of absence shall be considered as one year to complete the ten years of the time required to be present. Absence which is not for a whole and continuous year shall not be considered in the computation.

ART. 1959. Ownership and other property rights in real property shall also prescribe by uninterrupted possession of the same for thirty years without the necessity of title nor good faith and without distinction between present and absent persons, with the exception mentioned in article 539.

ART. 1960. In the computation of the time necessary for prescription, the following rules shall be observed:

1. The actual possessor may complete the time necessary for prescription by adding to his time that of his constituent.

2. It is presumed that the actual possessor, who may have been a possessor at a former period, has continued to be such possessor during the time intervening, unless there is proof to the contrary.

3. The day on which the time begins to run is considered as a whole day, but the last day must be wholly completed.

Amended by Order published in the Official Gazette, P. R., No. 82, Apr. 7,

CHAPTER THIRD.-Prescription of actions.

ART. 1961. Actions are prescribed by the mere lapse of time specified by law.

ART. 1962. Real actions with regard to personal property prescribe after the lapse of six years from the loss of possession, unless the possessor may have during a shorter term acquired the ownership in accordance with article 1955, and with the exception of the cases of loss and public sale, and those of theft and robbery, in which cases the provisions of the third paragraph of said article shall be observed. ART. 1963. Real actions with regard to real property prescribe after thirty years.

This provision is understood without prejudice to the prescriptions relating to the acquisition of ownership or of property rights by prescription.

ART. 1964. A mortgage action prescribes after twenty years, and those which are personal and for which no special term of prescription is fixed, after fifteen years.

ART. 1965. Among coheirs, coowners, or proprietors of adjacent estates, the action to demand the division of the inheritance, of the thing held in common, or the survey of the adjacent properties does not prescribe.

ART. 1966. Actions to demand the fulfillment of the following obligations prescribe in five years:

1. For the payment of income for support.

2. For the payment of rents, whether derived from rural or from town property.

3. That of any other payments which should have been made annually or in shorter periods.

ART. 1967. Actions for the fulfillment of the following obligations shall prescribe in three years:

1. For the payment of judges, lawyers, registers, notaries public, experts, agents, and clerks for their charges and fees and the expenses and disbursements incurred by them in the discharge of their duties or offices in the matters to which the obligations refer.

2. For payments to apothecaries for medicines which they have supplied; to professors and teachers for their salaries and stipends. for the instruction they have given, or for the exercise of their profession, art, or trade.

3. For the payment of mechanics, servants, and laborers the amounts due for their services, and for the supplies or disbursements they may have incurred with regard to the same.

4. For the payment of board and lodging to innkeepers, and to traders for the value of goods sold to others who are not traders, or who, being such, are engaged in a different trade.

The time for the prescription of actions referred to in the three preceding paragraphs shall be counted from the time the respective services have ceased to be rendered.

ART. 1968. The following prescribe in one year:

1. Actions to recover or retain possession.

2. Actions to demand civil liability for grave insults or calumny, and for obligations arising from the fault or negligence, mentioned in article 1902, from the time the aggrieved person had knowledge thereof.

ART. 1969. The time for the prescription of all kinds of actions, when there is no special provision to the contrary, shall be counted from the day on which they could have been instituted.

ART. 1970. The time for the prescription of actions, the object of which is to demand the fulfillment of obligations with regard to principal with interest or rent, runs from the last payment of rent or interest.

The same shall be understood with regard to the principal of the consignative or transferable annuity.

In emphyteutic and reservative annuities the time for the running of the prescription shall be counted from the last payment of the pension or income.

ART. 1971. The period for the prescription of actions to demand the fulfillment of obligations declared in a judgment shall begin from the day the judgment became final.

ART. 1972. The term for the prescription of actions to demand the rendering of accounts runs from the day on which those who should have rendered them ceased in their charges.

That pertaining to the action for the balance of accounts, from the date on which the latter was acknowledged by agreement of the parties interested.

ART. 1973. Prescription of actions is interrupted by their institution before the courts, by extrajudicial claim of the creditor, and by any act of acknowledgment of the debt by the debtor.

ART. 1974. Interruption of prescription of actions in joint obligations equally benefits or injures all the creditors or debtors.

This provision is likewise applicable with regard to the heirs of the debtor in all kinds of obligations.

In obligations in common, when the creditor does not claim from one of the debtors more than the part pertaining to him, the prescription is not interrupted for that reason with regard to the other codebtors.

ART. 1975. Interruption of the prescription against the principal debtor by suit for debt shall also lie against his surety; but that arising from extrajudicial claims of the creditor or private acknowledgments of the debtor shall not prejudice said surety.

FINAL PROVISIONS.

ART. 1976. All legal compilations, uses, and customs which constitute the common civil law in all matters which are the object of this code are hereby repealed, and shall remain without force or effect either as direct obligatory laws or as supplementary law. This provision is not applicable to the laws which have been declared in force by this code.

TRANSITORY PROVISIONS.

Changes introduced in this code prejudicing rights acquired according to prior civil legislation shall have no retroactive effect. In order to apply the proper legislation in the cases not expressly specified in this code the following rules shall be observed:

1. Rights arising under the legislation prior to this code, out of matters carried out under its rules, shall be governed by said prior legislation, even if the code should regulate them in another manner,