Cessio bonorum

Abstract

In ancient times, debtors who failed to live up to their obligations were very severely treated. Indeed, they wore responsible with their very person for the obligations contracted by them. Unless their civil status was first destroyed, the creditors could not exercise their rights over their property. Even in those times, it was considered that things had gone much too far and steps were subsequently taken that, in effect, reversed the situation, instead of first getting to the debtor's person before getting to his property, the debtor could surrender his property to be sold for their benefit, as an effective bar against personal execution. This benefit of “cessio bonorum” must have been very frequently resorted to in Roman and Medieval times when personal execution was rampant but it was even included in a number of recent codes of laws as a means of extinction of obligations either contractually or judicially.