Real Rights, Obligations, and Contracts in Civil Law

Real Rights

Rights have been characterized as the legal relationship created between the owner of the real right and the thing, regardless of any personal debt or obligation that may exist. Example: a mortgage.

Easement

A real right of a property owner over another property to serve a certain purpose. Examples: right of way, water, drainage. This agreement remains valid even if the ownership changes. Example: The right to pass through another's property.

Enjoyment (Usufruct)

A real right to use and enjoy another's property without altering its substance. The usufructuary may hold some of the authority of the owner. The *nudodueño* (bare owner) is the legal owner, while the usufructuary is the beneficial owner. The beneficial owner cannot sell the thing itself; they can only sell the real right of usufruct. The widow or widower is entitled to 1/3 of the deceased's property; they can use and enjoy it or sell their right of enjoyment while they live; it is a life interest.

Torts and Quasi-Contracts

Torts

A mediating wrongful act or omission involving fault. Example: a flowerpot falling from a window.

Quasi-Contracts

• Undue payment: A debtor pays someone who is not their creditor.
• Irregular mandate: A neighbor watches the house of another who goes on a trip and has to change the lock. When the traveler returns, they will have to pay for it.
• Unjust Enrichment: There is a transfer of wealth in which one party is impoverished while another is enriched. Example: Work is done without explicit consent, and payment is not made. The employer must still pay for the work under the principle of quasi-contract.

Loan Agreements

• Mutual Agreement (Mutuum): The lender gives the borrower a fungible item to be returned within an agreed period. Example: a can of oil (a commodity that is consumed).
• Loan (Commodatum): Loan or use of durable goods for return in an agreed period or when required. It may be free of charge, but it is not paid.

Extinction of Obligations

The normal form of extinction of an obligation is through compliance by paying for the thing. Payment of the equivalent is followed by:

• Confusion of duties. Example: If you owe money to your father and he dies, the obligation is completed.
• Forgiveness: The remission of debt.
• Novation: Changing any of the two elements of the obligation:
  1. Subjective: Subrogation.
  2. Objective: Changing the object of the provision (e.g., agreeing to deliver three garages instead of an apartment).

Prescription

The extinction of a right by the lapse of time declared by law in each case, without the holder having exercised it. With prescription, any act of the right holder suspends the period. With expiration, the act only suspends the term; that is, the term continues from where it stopped. For prescription, a new term begins. The statute of limitations can only be opposed by the aggrieved party and alleged in trial, while expiration can be assessed automatically. Limitation periods are procedural and usually short.