Legal Acts: Classification and Vices Affecting Validity

Classification of Legal Acts

Legal acts can be classified based on various criteria:

• Positive or Negative: Acts necessary to conduct an action or omission of a right to start or finish.
• Unilateral: When the will of one person is sufficient to form the act.
• Bilateral: When two or more people are required to form the act.
• Acts During Life (Inter Vivos): Those whose effectiveness does not depend on the death of those whose will they emanate from.
• Testamentary Provisions (Mortis Causa): Those effects that produce after death.
• Onerous: Acts in which the provision of one party corresponds to a consideration from the other.

Vices of Legal Acts: Causes for Invalidation

Vices are causes for which legal acts lose their efficacy or validity. Some of these include:

Error

A false understanding of things, which differs from ignorance (lack of knowledge). The only permissible error is one of fact, as the law cannot be invoked due to error (laws are considered known once published). The mistake of fact must be essential, not accidental. Error may fall upon:

• The Person: (e.g., "I think I'm contracting with Jose, but I do it with Paul.")
• The Nature of the Act: (e.g., "I think I'm buying a house, but I'm renting it.")
• The Main Cause of the Act: (e.g., "I think I'm buying a painting by a famous artist, but I receive one by an unknown artist.")
• The Quality of the Thing: (e.g., "I think I'm buying a purebred dog, but I get a mixed-breed one.")

Fraud (Deceit)

The assertion of what is false or the concealment of the truth. For fraud to produce the nullity of the act, it must meet the following conditions:

• It must have been severe.
• It must have been the determining cause of the act.
• It must have occasioned significant damage.
• There must not have been fraud on both sides.

Violence

May be physical or moral coercion.

Simulation

Where an act is concealed under the appearance of another. Simulation can be:

• Absolute: Where the act has nothing real about it.
• Relative: When the true character of the act is hidden.
• Licit: If it does not harm anyone.
• Illicit: When it causes harm.

Fraudulent Conveyance (Act in Fraud of Creditors)

Where the act is intended to harm another, specifically creditors. For an act to be considered a fraudulent conveyance, the following conditions must be met:

• The debtor must be in a state of insolvency.
• The prejudice to creditors must result from the act itself of the debtor.
• The credit must be dated prior to the debtor's act.

Lesion (Unfair Advantage)

Occurs when one of the parties, exploiting the need, inexperience, or lightness (recklessness) of the other, obtains an unfair wealth gap.