Legal Transactions: Effects, Interpretation, and Validity
Legal Transactions
Definitions
Legal Course: The situation envisioned by the law, upon which the birth, modification, transmission, or extinction of rights and obligations or specific legal situations depend.
Legal Fact: An event that occurs without human intervention, producing legal consequences.
Legal Act: A voluntary act with unintended legal effects.
Business Law: A legal act performed with the intent of producing specific legal consequences.
Validity of Legal Transactions
Legal transactions are void if they violate prohibitory laws, are against public interest or morality, or contravene decency.
Effects of Legal Transactions
Transactions Abroad
Legal transactions occurring abroad but executed within the State are governed by federal law.
Transactions Within the Republic
Legal transactions occurring within the Republic, but executed in the State, are governed by this Code.
Real estate and movable property located in the State are governed by this Code, regardless of the owner’s domicile.
The form of legal transactions is governed by the laws of the place where they occur. However, Mexicans residing outside the State may adhere to this Code’s forms for transactions executed in Quintana Roo.
Essential Elements of Legal Transactions
- Will
- Object
- Legality
- Solemnity
Manifestation of Will
Will can be express (verbal, written, or clear signs) or implied (resulting from events or acts).
Consent
Consent, broadly, is a meeting of minds where parties agree on a point. Strictly, consent means acceptance.
Interpretation of Will
Article 164: Clear agreements are interpreted literally.
Article 165: If words contradict the clear intention, the intention prevails.
Article 166: General terms exclude cases different from the parties’ intentions.
Article 167: If a provision allows multiple interpretations, the most effective one is chosen.
Article 168: Clauses are interpreted in context.
Article 169: Words with multiple meanings are interpreted according to the business’s nature and purpose.
Article 170: Local customs are considered in interpreting ambiguities.
Article 171: Clauses in general conditions favor the other party, especially the economically or culturally weaker one.
Article 172: Clauses in pre-printed forms favor the economically or culturally weaker party.
Article 173: Added clauses prevail over pre-printed ones, even if the latter are not canceled.
Article 174: The cause or motive helps define the scope and effects of unclear clauses.
Article 175: Unresolvable doubts about accidental circumstances favor the least transmission of rights in free transactions, the weaker party in onerous transactions, and greater reciprocity if parties are equal.
Article 176: If doubts about the main object cannot be resolved, the transaction is void.
Article 177: Discrepancy between will and declaration due to one party’s misconduct leads to civil liability.
Article 178: Fraud or bad faith by the recipient prevents civil liability.
Object of Legal Transactions
Direct Object: To create, transmit, modify, or extinguish rights or obligations.
Indirect Object: To give, do, or not do.
Article 179: Indirect objects include the thing to be given and the act to be done or not done.
Article 180: The object must exist, be determinable, and be tradable.
Article 181: Future goods can be objects, except inheritance from a living person.
Article 182: The object must be possible and lawful.
The Thing
Must exist, be determinable, and be tradable.
The Fact
Must be possible and lawful.
Solemnity
Essential formalities.
Article 184: Legal effects on civil status require essential formalities.
Article 185: Lack of solemnity only affects legality in cases specified by law, without analogy.