dation en paiement

DATION EN PAIEMENT, civil law. This term is used in Louisiana; it signifies 
that, when instead of paying a sum of money due on a pre-existing debt, the 
debtor gives and the creditor agrees to receive a movable or immovable. 
     2. It is somewhat like the accord and  satisfaction of the common law. 
16 Toull. n. 45 Poth. Vente, U. 601. Dation en paiement resembles in some 
respects the contract of sale; dare in solutum, est quasi vendere. There is, 
however, a very marked difference between a sale and a dation en paiement. 
1st. The contract of sale is complete by the mere agreement of the parties 
the dation en paiement requires a delivery of the thing given. 2d. When the 
debtor pays a certain sum which he supposed he was owing, and be discovers 
he did not owe so much, he may recover back the excess, not so when property 
other than money has been given in payment. 3d. He who has in good faith 
sold a thing of which he believed himself to be the owner, is not precisely 
required to transfer the property of it to the buyer and, while he is not 
troubled in the possession of the thing, he cannot pretend that the seller 
has not fulfilled his obligations. On the contrary, the dation en paiement 
is good only when the debtor transfers to the creditor the property in the 
thing which he has agreed to take in, payment and if the thing thus 
delivered be the property of another, it will not operate as a payment. 
Poth. Vente, n. 602, 603, 604.