Privileges on Movable Property

Section I: General Privileges on Movables (Article 1435–1436)

Article 1435 notes that privileges on movables can be general (affecting all movables) or particular (on specific items).

Article 1436 establishes the hierarchy of general privileges on movables, in strict order of priority:

1. Costs of justice — court fees and legal expenses come first, because without them, no one could enforce any claim.

2. Funeral expenses — the dead must be buried with dignity, regardless of their debts.

3. Expenses of the last illness — of whatever kind, shared concurrently among all those to whom they are owed. Doctors, pharmacists, and caregivers all had equal claim.

4. Wages of servants — for the past year and whatever is owed on the current year. This protected domestic workers and laborers.

5. Provisions for the last six months — food and necessities supplied to the debtor and their family by retail merchants (bakers, butchers, etc.); for wholesale merchants and boarding-house keepers, only the last year.

Section I, §II: Privileges on Specific Movables (Article 1437)

Article 1437 lists privileges on particular movables: (1) rents and leases on crops and furnishings; (2) the creditor's claim on property they hold as pledge; (3) preservation expenses; (4) unpaid purchase price of movable effects still in the debtor's possession; (5) innkeeper's claim on a traveler's effects; (6) transport costs on the thing transported.