Understanding Legal Personality, Capacity, and Contracts in Chilean Law

Posted on Aug 17, 2024 in Law & Jurisprudence

The Attributes of Personality

Name

The name consists of the given name and the surname. It is used to identify a person legally and socially. It is an extra-economic good that is indivisible, inalienable, imprescriptible, non-transferable, and immutable.

Nationality

Nationality is the bond between a person and a state, establishing reciprocal rights and obligations. Article 56 of the Chilean Constitution states, “Chileans are those whom the Constitution declares as such. The rest are foreigners.”

Article 10 of the Constitution highlights ways to acquire Chilean nationality:

  1. By being born in Chilean territory (ius solis).
  2. Being the child of a public official in active service to the Republic, born abroad (ius sanguinis).
  3. By a letter of nationalization.
  4. By special grace of a nationalization law.

Capacity

Capacity is the power to be a subject of legal relations, the legal ability to have rights and be entitled to exercise them. We distinguish between the capacity to enjoy rights and the capacity to exercise them (e.g., suffrage).

Capacity is the general rule, and incapacity is the exception.

Incapacity

Incapacity can be absolute or relative.

Absolute incapacity applies to:

  • The insane
  • Prepubescent individuals (males under 14 and females under 12)
  • The deaf who cannot understand in writing

Relative incapacity applies to:

  • Adult children under guardianship
  • Individuals under interdiction to manage their own affairs

Domicile

Domicile is the legal seat of a person for exercising their rights and fulfilling their obligations. It consists of residence, coupled with actual or presumptive intention to remain there (Article 59 of the Chilean Civil Code).

It is divided into:

  • Political domicile: Chileans have their domicile in Chile, and foreigners acquire it by residing in Chile.
  • Civil domicile: (e.g., Street Cuevas 550). Whoever has a political domicile in Chile necessarily has a civil domicile in Chile.

Civil Status

Article 304 of the Chilean Civil Code defines civil status as “the quality of an individual, as it enables them to exercise certain rights or contract certain civil obligations.”

Another definition: “It is the consistent quality that an individual occupies in society, resulting mainly from family relations.”

Sources of Civil Status:

  1. Legal facts: birth, age, and death
  2. Acts: marriage, legitimation, voluntary recognition of natural children
  3. Court judgments: such as the decree of nullity of marriage, forced recognition of an illegitimate child

Legal Acts

Definition

Legal acts are voluntary and conscious human acts intended to produce a predetermined and legal effect intended by the author. They may be unilateral or bilateral.

Classification of Legal Acts

Legal acts can be classified by:

  1. Time of effect:
    • Inter vivos: Take effect during the author’s lifetime (e.g., lease)
    • Mortis causa: Take effect upon the author’s death (e.g., testament)
  2. Immediacy of effect:
    • Instantaneous: All effects occur immediately (e.g., sale)
    • Successive: Effects occur over time (e.g., lease)
  3. Nature of the act:
    • Real: Require the delivery of the thing in question (e.g., deposit)
    • Solemn: Require specific formalities (e.g., public deed for real estate)
    • Consensual: Perfected by mere consent (e.g., sale of goods)
  4. Ability to subsist independently:
    • Principal: Do not need another contract for subsistence (e.g., sale)
    • Accessory: Exist only in relation to another contract (e.g., guarantee)
  5. Reciprocity of benefits:
    • Gratuitous: Only one party undertakes an obligation (e.g., donation)
    • Onerous: Both parties agree to obligations (e.g., sale)

Elements of Legal Acts

Legal acts have essential, natural, and accidental elements.

  • Essential elements: Those without which the act would not exist or would degenerate into a different contract.
  • Natural elements: Belong to the nature of the contract without a special clause. The law supplies them if the parties do not stipulate them (e.g., seller’s obligations).
  • Accidental elements: Neither essential nor natural, added by special provisions.

Conditions for Existence and Validity of Legal Acts

Requirements for Existence:

  • Will
  • Object
  • Cause
  • Formalities, where required by law

Requirements for Validity (Article 1445 of the Chilean Civil Code):

  • Capacity of the parties
  • Free and informed consent (free from error, force, and fraud)
  • Lawful subject matter
  • Lawful cause

Contracts

General Principles of Contracts

  • Freedom of contract (Articles 12, 1445, 1437, 1450, 1444, etc. of the Chilean Civil Code)
  • Good faith (Article 1546)
  • Compensation for unjust enrichment (Article 1578)
  • Disclaimer

Definition of a Contract

A contract is a voluntary agreement designed to create obligations. Article 1438 of the Chilean Civil Code defines it as “an act by which one party agrees to another to give, do or not do something. Each party may be one or many people.”

Difference Between Convention and Contract

A convention can create, modify, or extinguish an obligation (e.g., agreeing to a new term in a contract). A contract only creates obligations (e.g., lease, insurance).

Classification of Contracts

Contracts can be classified as:

  1. Unilateral and bilateral
  2. Gratuitous and onerous
  3. Commutative and aleatory
  4. Principal and accessory
  5. Nominate and innominate
  6. Real, consensual, and solemn

Supreme Law on Interpretation of Contracts

The supreme law on interpretation of contracts prioritizes the real intention of the parties over the literal words used. “Knowing clearly the intention of the parties, one should attend more to it than to the literal words.”