★ Must-know
📌 Capacity of rights is the aptitude to hold legal rights and duties, whereas capacity of exercise is the aptitude of a human person to exercise rights personally.
📌 The general rule is presumed capacity of exercise, and a restriction exists only when the law or a judicial decision provides otherwise.
📌 Rights acquired by an unborn person through donation or inheritance become irrevocable if the person is born alive, even for an instant, while a stillbirth causes the rights to disappear retroactively.
Further detail
📌 An unborn person has absolute incapacity of exercise and acts through the necessary representation of the parents.
Capacity of rights means holding rights; capacity of exercise means exercising them personally.
★ Must-know
📌 Under progressive capacity, minors act through representatives unless they have sufficient age and maturity to perform acts permitted by the legal order.
Further detail
📌 A minor with an official professional qualification may exercise that profession independently, freely administer and dispose of earnings from it, and litigate in civil or criminal matters connected with it.
Under 13: representatives; 13–16: graduated medical autonomy; over 16: bodily decisions as adults.
📌 A minor may work from 16 years of age under Law 26.390, and employment-related acts are presumed authorized by the parents while earnings remain under the minor’s administration and free disposal.
📌 Marriage emancipates a minor before 18 through a prior judicial dispensation, and the emancipation is anticipatory and irrevocable.
📌 Restricted capacity applies to persons over 13 with addictions or serious mental impairments creating a risk of harm, whereas incapacity is a last resort for a person absolutely unable to interact with the environment or express a will.
📌 A support system assists understanding and decision-making without replacing the person’s will, while a curator represents a person declared incapable.
📌 Capacity restrictions protect the affected person, whereas prodigality-based disqualification protects the family’s assets from compulsive spending.
Support assists the person’s will; curatorship replaces it only as a last resort.
📌 Domicile is the legally fixed seat of a person, residence is the place habitually inhabited with some stability, and habitation is a merely accidental or temporary place.
📌 A contractual domicile is freely chosen for a contract and may extend jurisdiction to the chosen courts; notifications are ineffective for a private instrument until the debtor’s signature is judicially recognized, but effective from the first day for a public instrument.
Domicile produces legal effects, residence shows habitual living, and habitation is merely temporary.
★ Must-know
📌 A child of married parents receives the first surname of either spouse, and all children of the same marriage must use the same surname combination chosen for the first child.
Further detail
📌 A spouse may add the other spouse’s surname, but divorce or annulment normally ends that use, while widowhood permits continued use until remarriage or formation of a domestic partnership.
★ Must-know
📌 A title of status is official proof through a public instrument or judgment, whereas possession of status is public treatment and conduct as if the civil status existed.
📌 Birth and death occurring in the country are principally proved exclusively by Civil Registry certificates, while supplementary evidence is admitted when the record is absent, void, or destroyed.
Further detail
📌 A notorious pseudonym used for literary or artistic activity receives the same legal protection as the name.
A title is formal proof of status; possession of status is public treatment as having it.
📌 For organ removal, death requires the cumulative and uninterrupted presence for six hours of irreversible absence of cerebral response, spontaneous breathing, cephalic reflexes with fixed non-reactive pupils, and technically confirmed brain inactivity.
📌 Death certification must be signed by two doctors, at least one of whom is a neurologist or neurosurgeon, and neither may belong to the organ-removal or transplant team.
📌 When two or more people die and the order of death cannot be established, the law presumes simultaneous death and prevents hereditary transmission between them.
★ Must-know
📌 After presumed death, heirs receive the assets under mandatory inventory and prenotation, holding imperfect ownership that prevents sale or mortgage except for extreme necessity authorized by a judge.
Further detail
📌 In simple absence, edicts are published for five days; if the person does not appear, the judge declares the absence and appoints a curator of the assets who may perform only conservation and ordinary administration without judicial authorization.
Disappearance → judicial declaration → succession with prenotation → possible restitution.
★ Must-know
📌 A legal entity generally begins to exist upon constitution under the free-constitution system, except where the law requires prior state authorization, as for civil associations and foundations.
📌 A legal entity has a personality and patrimony separate from those of its members, so entity creditors generally cannot seize members’ personal assets and members do not answer personally for entity debts.
📌 Inopposability applies when a legal entity is used to violate law, public order, good faith, or third-party rights, imputing the fraudulent conduct to the direct or indirect controllers who become jointly and unlimitedly liable.
📌 The entity is civilly liable for damage caused by directors or administrators in the exercise of or reasonably connected with their functions, while administrators are jointly and unlimitedly liable for their fault under Article 160.
Further detail
📌 Dissolution stops ordinary activity and opens liquidation, whereas liquidation sells assets and pays liabilities while the legal entity continues to exist only for liquidation acts.
Separate personality protects members, but fraud permits the veil to be lifted.
★ Must-know
📌 Civil associations may conduct profitable activities, but they may not distribute the profits to members and must reinvest all proceeds in their purposes.
📌 An expelled member must receive due process, including the opportunity to be heard, present a defense, and appeal the expulsion before the assembly; judicial review is limited to legality and reasonableness.
📌 A foundation’s purpose may be changed only when its original fulfillment becomes absolutely impossible, requiring a two-thirds council vote and subsequent state approval that prioritizes the founder’s original will.
Further detail
📌 A foundation must be created by public instrument and submit a Triennial Activity Plan with budgetary bases, renewed every three years, when requesting legal personality.
📌 Foundation council members serve strictly without pay except for reimbursement of real management expenses, whereas executive committee members may receive remuneration.
Associations unite members; foundations dedicate assets and have beneficiaries, not members.
| Type | Basis | Main effect |
|---|---|---|
| Real domicile | Habitual residence, corpus and animus | General legal seat |
| Legal domicile | Irrebuttable statutory presumption | Forced and restrictive seat |
| Contractual domicile | Choice in a contract | Notifications and jurisdiction for that contract |
| Procedural domicile | Mandatory choice in litigation | Notifications within the court’s district |
| Entity | Origin | Membership | Key liability rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Civil association | Union of persons | Members and associates | Members do not answer for entity debts |
| Simple association | Constitutive act without state authorization | Members | Administrators may be jointly liable if assets are insufficient |
| Foundation | Unilateral patrimonial contribution | No members; beneficiaries | Council is generally honorary; purpose is strictly protected |
Test your knowledge on Private Law Persons and Legal Entities with 36 multiple-choice questions with detailed corrections.
1. What does capacity of rights refer to, as distinct from capacity of exercise?
2. What is the general rule regarding a human person’s capacity of exercise?
Memorize the key concepts of Private Law Persons and Legal Entities with 80 interactive flashcards.
What is capacity of rights in legal terms?
It is the aptitude to hold legal rights and duties.
What is capacity of exercise in legal terms?
It is the aptitude to personally exercise rights.
What is the general rule regarding capacity of exercise?
Capacity of exercise is presumed unless restricted by law or judicial decision.
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