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B. Form of Contracts

Forms of a contract refer to the manner in which a contract is executed or manifested

• General Rule: There is no need for a specific form, but there must still be some manifestation of

consent. Contracts are binding and therefore, enforceable reciprocally by the contracting parties,

whatever may be the form in which the contact has been entered into to provided all the three

essential requisites (consent, object, cause) for their validity are present.

• Exception: When the written form is required

1. For validity

• If it not written, the same is void.

• Examples are donations (Articles 748, 749), antichresis (Article 2134), interest in a loan (Article 1956),

sale of land by an agent (Article 1874), contribution of immovables in a partnership (Article 1773)

2. For enforceability

• The contract is unenforceable if it is not written.

a. An agreement that by its terms is not to be performed within a year from the making thereof (Article

1403 (a))

b. A special promise to answer for the debt, default or miscarriage of another (Article 1403 (b))

c. An agreement made in consideration of marriage, other than a mutual promise to marry (Article 1403

(c))

d. An agreement for the sale of goods, chattels or things in action, at a price not less than P500, unless

the buyer accepts and receives part of such goods and chattels, or the evidence, or some of them, of

such things in action, or pay at the time some part of the purchase money; but when a sale is made by

auction and entry is made by the auctioneer in his sales book, at the time of sale, of the amount and

kind of property sold, terms of sale, price, names of the purchasers and person on whose account the

sale is made, it is a sufficient memorandum (Article 1403 (d))

e. An agreement of lease for a period of more than 1 year, or the sale of real property or of an interest

therein (Article 1403 (e))

f. A representation as to the credit of a 3rd person (Article 1403 (f))

g. No express trusts concerning an immovable or any interest therein may be proved by parol evidence

(Article 1443)

3. For registrability

• The following must appear in a public instrument:

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a. 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 of an interest therein

governed by Articles 1403 (2) and 1405

b. The cession, repudiation or renunciation of hereditary rights or of those of the conjugal partnership of

gains

c. The power to administer property, or any other power which has for its object an act appearing or

which should appear in a public document, or should prejudice a 3rd person

d. The cession of actions or rights proceeding from an act appearing in a public document

• Contracts enumerated in Article 1358 are valid as between the contracting parties even when they

have not been reduced to public or private writings.

• Except in certain cases where public instruments and registration are required for the validity of the

contract itself, the legalization of a contract by means of a public writing and its entry in the register are

not essential solemnities or requisites for the validity of the contract as between the contracting parties,

but are required for the purposes of making it effective as against 3rd person.

• Article 1357 gives the contracting parties the coercive power to reciprocally compel the execution of

the formalities required by law, as soon as the requisites for the validity of the contracts are present.