1888. Privileges may be upon the whole of the movable property, or upon certain movable property only.
1889. The claims which carry a privilege upon movable property are the following, and when several of them come together, they, except in cases governed by special laws, take precedence in the following order, and according to the rules hereinafter stated:
1. Law costs, and all expenses incurred in the interest of the creditors as a body;
2. The claims of the vendor;
3. The claims of creditors who have a right of pledge or of retention;
4. Funeral expenses;
5. The expenses of the last illness;
6. Municipal taxes;
7. The claim of the lessor;
8. Servants' wages, and sums due for supplies of provisions;
9. The claims of the Crown against persons accountable for its monies.
The privileges specified under the numbers 4, 5, 6, 8, and 9 extend to all the movable property of the debtor. The others are special, and affect only particular objects.
1890. The law costs in respect of which there is privilege under the last article, are those incurred for the seizure and sale of the movable property and those of judicial proceedings for enabling the creditors generally to obtain payment of their claims.
1891. The expenses incurred in the interest of the creditors generally include such as have served for the preservation of their common security.
1892. The unpaid vendor of a thing has two privileged rights:—
1. A right to revendicate it;
2. A right of preference upon its price.
But these rights must be exercised by the commencement of an action in respect of them within 8 days after delivery to the purchaser.
1893. The right to revendicate is subject also to the following conditions:
1. The sale must not have been made on credit;
2. The thing must still be entire and in the same condition;
3. The thing must not have passed into the hands of a third party who being in good faith has paid for it or made a loan upon it.
1894. If the thing be sold pending the proceedings in revendication, or if, when the thing is seized at the suit of a third party, the vendor be within the delay and the thing be within the conditions prescribed for revendication, the vendor has a privilege upon the proceeds in preference to all other privileged creditors hereinafter mentioned.
1895. Creditors having a right of pledge or of retention rank according to the nature of their pledge or of their claim. This privilege cannot however be exercised, unless the right is still subsisting, or could have been claimed at the time of the seizure, if the thing have been sold.
1896. Privileged funeral expenses include only what is suitable to the station and means of the deceased, and are payable out of all his or her movable property.
They include the mourning of the widow, within the same restriction.
1897. The expenses of the last illness include the charges of the physicians, apothecaries and nurses during the illness of which the debtor died, and are taken out of all the movable property of the deceased.
In cases of chronic disease, the privilege covers only the expenses during the last 6 months before the decease.
1898. The municipal taxes which rank before all other privileged claims hereinafter mentioned, are limited to taxes on persons and personal property.
1899. The privilege of the lessor attaches to rent for a term not exceeding 12 months, whether the lease be authentic or otherwise.
1900. Domestic servants and hired persons are next entitled to be collocated by preference upon all the movable property of the debtor for whatever wages may be due to them, for a period not exceeding 3 months previous to the time of the seizure or of the death.
Clerks, apprentices and journeymen are entitled to the same preference, but only upon the merchandise and effects contained in the store, shop, or workshop in which their services were required for arrears of a period not exceeding 3 months.
1901. The privileges upon ships, upon their cargoes and their freight, are declared in the Act of Parliament entitled The Merchant Shipping Act, 1894 (57 & 58 Vict. c. 60), and the Acts amending the same, or any other statute relating thereto. (Substituted by Act 34 of 1956)
1902. Other rules concerning the collocation of certain privileged claims, are contained in the Code of Civil Procedure.