FORM OF CONTRACTS

FORM NOT ESSENTIAL TO BE BINDING

Contracts shall be obligatory in whatever form they have been entered into, provided all the essential requisites for their validity are present. However, when the law requires that a contract be in some form in order that it may be valid or enforceable, or that the contract be proved in a certain way, that requirement is absolute and indispensable.

WHEN FORM IS A REQUIREMENT

A contract in whatever form verbal or written, is valid if all the essential elements are present, consent of contracting parties, object certain which is the subject of the contract, and cause of consideration.

THE EXCEPTIONS TO THIS RULES ARE:

1.

When law requires form for validity. If the law requires a contract or agreement to be in writing or to be in a public instrument, a contract which is not in such form is not valid, hence, cannot be enforced.

2. When law requires a form for enforceability. When the law requires a contract or agreement to be in writing or noted in any manner to be enforceable.

3. When law requires a form for convenience. If the contract is valid and enforceable but not in a public instrument, a party interested in its registration may compel the other party to rewrite it in the proper form or complete it through placing the needed notarial acknowledgement.

REMEDY IF VALID CONTRACT, NOT IN PUBLIC INSTRUMENT If the law requires the contract or agreement to be in public document or in a special form, the contracting parties may compel each other to observe that form once the contract has been perfected. The remedy is available simultaneously with the action upon the contract.

ublic instrument may be defined as one where the act or contract and other terms and stipulations thereof is acknowledged and sworn to by the parties as their free and voluntary act or deed before a government official authorized to administer oath or a notary public bearing his seal.

ACTS WHICH MUST APPEAR IN A PUBLIC INSTRUMENT Acts and contracts which have for their object the creation, transmission, modification or extinguishment of real rights over immovable property, sales of real property or an interest therein are governed by articles 1402, No. 2 and 1405. 2. The cessation, repudiation or renunciation of hereditary rights or of these of conjugal partnership of gains.
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