Civil Law 1: Natural Persons and Absentees

• Study Guide - Civil Law 1

Natural Persons and Absentees

• According to article 18 of the CCEJ, a natural person is defined as any human being.
• Article 19 states that legal personality is acquired at viable birth and extinguished upon death.
• Attributes of personality:
  • Name: Includes given name(s) and surname(s)
  • Domicile:
    • Real: Usual place of residence
    • Legal: Place designated by law
    • Conventional: Agreed upon in contracts
  • Capacity
  • Marital status: Legal relationship of a person to their family, verified by civil registry
  • Nationality
  • Patrimony
• Legal capacity represents the aptitude to acquire rights and contract obligations.
  • Includes exercise and enjoyment
  • Exercise: The power to exercise rights and fulfill obligations
  • Enjoyment: The power to acquire rights.
• Legal capacity is limited by minority age and interdiction
• Interdiction is the state of being declared legally incapable of exercising rights judicially in cases of severe disability that requires a tutor to intervene in the individual's juridical acts
• Personality rights, innate to a person, protect dignity and integrity within society.
• Characteristics of personality rights include: They are essential, highly personal, innate, inalienable, imprescriptible, and cannot be waived.
• The rights protected include: Life, physical and psychological integrity, honor and reputation, name and pseudonym, private and family life, and epistolary and communications privacy.

Patrimony Classification

• Economic: Goods and rights with monetary value
• Moral: Personality rights without pecuniary value
• Social: Ecosystems and ecological balance.
• Legal age is acquired at 18 years old.
• Emancipation allows a minor to administer their patrimony with judicial authorization, and can be requested from age 16 with good conduct and aptitude.
• An absentee is a person who has left their domicile without designating a legal representative.
• Provisional measures in case of absence: Naming a representative and a depository.
• Order of preference for designating a representative: Present spouse, adult children, youngest ascendant, and presumptive heir.
• A missing person is someone whose whereabouts are unknown and requires provisional measures for the protection of assets and family.
• Declaration of absence is the legal process to determine a person's absence and appoint an administrator for their assets.
• Time to declare absence: 3 months after the appointment of a representative, or 6 months if there is a general attorney.
• Parties who can request a declaration of absence include presumptive heirs, testamentary heirs, and the agent of the social prosecutor.
• How assets are managed after declaration of absence: The will is opened, and heirs can administer the assets under guarantee, or a general administrator can be appointed.
• Those who can administer without guarantee: The spouse, children, and ascendants.
• If the absentee reappears: They recover their assets, but administrators retain any fruits obtained from them.
• Effect on marital society if absentee is married: The society is interrupted; the spouse receives part of the assets, but it is re-established if the absentee returns.
• Presumption of death arises when certain periods have passed since a person's disappearance.
• The term to declare it is: 6 months after the declaration of absence, or 3 months if the disappearance occurred in a disaster.
• Effects of presumption of death include the opening of the succession of assets.
  • Similarly, to absence, if the person reappears, they recover their assets.

On Marriage

• CCEJ's definition of marriage: The union between two people to establish a community of life, with reciprocal rights and obligations, which must be celebrated before the civil registry.
• Essential elements of marriage: Free consent of both parties and its formalization before the Civil Registry.
• Formal requirements for contracting marriage: Celebrating it before a civil registry official with the presence of the contracting parties and witnesses.
• If consent is obtained through error or violence, the marriage can be annulled.
• Marriage must be celebrated before the civil registry for it to have legal effects.
• Absolute impediments to marriage include:
  • Minimum age
  • Consanguinity in direct line
  • Prior undissolved marriage
  • Threatening public order
• Relative impediments to marriage include:
  • Consanguinity between cousins
  • Marriage with an adopted person (between tutor and tutored)
  • Transmissible or chronic diseases that seriously affect the health
• Difference between absolute and relative impediments: Absolute impediments cannot be eliminated under any circumstances, while relatives can be dispensed with judicial authorization.
• Main obligations arising from marriage: Fidelity, respect, mutual assistance, cohabitation, and the duty to contribute to the household.
• Spouses must contribute to household expenses according to their economic possibilities, either with money or work in the home.
• Rights of spouses regarding the conjugal domicile: To decide by common agreement where they will establish their residence.
• Patrimonial regime of marriage: The set of rules that regulate the property and administration of the assets in the marriage.
• Types of patrimonial regimes recognized by law: Legal partnership, conjugal partnership, and separation of property.
• How assets are managed in a legal partnership: Shared fully. "What's mine is yours and what's yours is mine."
• How assets are managed in a conjugal partnership: Assets acquired during the marriage are common and must be administered jointly, but own can be separated through prenuptial agreements.

Prenuptial Agreements

• Prenuptial agreements are pacts that are celebrated to establish a conjugal partnership or separation of property and regulate the administration of these in one case or another.
• Prenuptials in the conjugal society should include:
  • A detailed list of movable or immovable property
  • Itemized relation of debts
  • An express statement as to whether the conjugal partnership is to include all assets of each consort or only part of them
  • A explicit statement as to whether the conjugal partnership is to include all the assets of the consorts or only its products
  • A declaration of whether the proceeds from the work of each consort corresponds exclusively to the one who performed it, or whether it should give participation of that product to the other
  • A statement about whether the future assets acquired by the spouses during the marriage belong exclusively to the acquirer, or should be distributed among them
  • The basis for liquidating the company
• Separation of property exists when all the assets, prior or future, of the spouses are administered separately, without giving the other the right to decide on them.
• Assets in marriage are classified as: Own and common.
• Separate property includes those that belong exclusively to one spouse, such as assets acquired before the marriage, inheritances and donations, and assets acquired with own money.
• Common property includes those acquired by both spouses during the marriage, such as salaries, assets purchased jointly, and income and fruits generated by such.
• A property that belongs to both spouses must be managed with both in agreement of its disposition, administration, or sale.
• It is considered community property if an asset is purchased with money from both spouses, unless the prenuptials state otherwise.
• A spouse cannot sell community property without the consent of the other spouse.
• Separate property can be converted into community property.
• Conjugal partnership is settled during divorce or annulment of marriage, death of one of the spouses, or with the change of property regime to separation of property.
• Steps to liquidate the conjugal partnership:
  • Defining own and community property
  • Paying off the debts of the conjugal society
  • Distributing the community property between the spouses.
• Debts acquired during the marriage, if a conjugal partnership exists, must be paid before the assets are divided.
• Community property will be split in equal parts , unless otherwise agreed
• If one spouse dedicated themselves exclusively to the home and acquired no property, they can request economic compensation of up to 40% of the other spouse's assets for their contribution to the family and household.
• If there is disagreement in the division of assets, a judge is approached to liquidate them.
• A spouse cannot keep all the community property: Except if the other party waives their rights or it has been agreed to that in the prenuptial agreements.
• Annulment of a marriage can be declared when it is demonstrated that consent was given through error, violence, legal incapacity, or insurmountable impediments.
• Effects of the nullity of the marriage on children: Children maintain their filiation and rights, as if the marriage had been valid.
• If one of the spouses acted in good faith in a void marriage: The acquired rights are maintained, and their patrimony is protected.
• Those who can request the annulment of marriage include the: Spouses, the public ministry, or an affected third party.
• Differences between annulment and divorce: Annulment voids the marriage from the beginning, while divorce dissolves it without affecting its previous validity.
• Ways in which marriage is dissolved are: Death of a spouse or by divorce.
• Divorce can be requested: When there is mutual agreement or serious causes that make cohabitation impossible.
• Type of divorce when both spouses agree: Administrative or uncontested divorce.
• Immediate effects of the dissolution of marriage: Extinction of conjugal rights and obligations, except those related to children.
• Difference between divorce and marital annulment: Divorce dissolves a valid marriage, while annulment declares it non-existent from the beginning.