Contractual Waiver of Statutory Latent Defect Notification Period Voided

A contract stipulated that the seller would be liable for latent defects without any time limit, but the buyer failed to report the discovery of a defect within two years of the sale, as required by the Civil Code. The court of first instance dismissed the buyer's claim, citing the statutory two-year limitation period for actions regarding latent defects, despite the contractual clause purporting to waive this time limit. The Supreme Court upheld this decision, reasoning that the Civil Code provision establishing the two-year deadline for notifying the seller of a discovered latent defect is a matter of public order and therefore cannot be validly contracted away by the parties, meaning the buyer's failure to report the defect within that period extinguished the right to bring an action.