Legal obligation
A statutory obligation arises between (at least) two persons, the creditor and the debtor , through the implementation of a statutory fact, for example Section 823 (1) BGB . For the debtor, this results in the obligation to perform to the obligee by virtue of law and the application of certain legal provisions. The counterpart are the contractual obligations that come about within the scope of freedom of contract through the conclusion of autonomous contracts and are therefore subject to other statutory provisions.
The legal term is located in the law of obligations .
General
According to Section 311 (1) of the German Civil Code ( BGB) , a contract is required to establish a contractual obligation . If, for example, a sales contract is concluded, the provisions of sales contract law that are part of the contractual obligations and trigger mutual contractual obligations apply. This applies to all types of contracts in everyday life. There are, however, situations to which the provisions for contractual obligations do not fit, but which the law intends to create a legal relationship between creditors and debtors.
Statutory Obligations
In order to capture these facts, the legislature has created so-called legal obligations. For example, the legal obligation of the tortious act grants compensation for damage in the event of bodily harm or damage to property, although - and precisely because - there are often no contractual relationships between the injured party and the injured party from which compensation for damage could be derived. Claims for damage and the obligation to pay damage then arise automatically from §§ 823 ff. BGB if the participants meet the requirements through their behavior.
Types of Legal Obligations
Statutory obligations arise from the fact that certain behavior fulfills the statutory requirements according to which someone is obliged to perform. These legal obligations include in particular:
- Management without engagement ( §§ 677-687 BGB),
- Vindication situation , owner-owner relationship ( §§ 987 ff.BGB ) (note: § 985 is not a debt law claim, but rather a real one, there is only a certain relationship with the debt law claims),
- unlawful act ( §§ 823-853 BGB),
- unjustified enrichment ( §§ 812–822 BGB).
With the unjust enrichment ( §§ 812 ff. BGB) illegal asset shifts are to be reversed.
The legal concept of the legal obligation is used in Section 7 (1) of the Renewable Energy Sources Act to ensure that electricity network operators are not allowed to make their obligations under this Act dependent on the conclusion of a contract. This ensures that obligations of the network operator on the basis of a legal obligation arise. In any case, an agreement under private law is not required to establish a contractual obligation.
literature
- Manfred Wandt, Statutory Obligations , 7th edition, 2015
- Marco Staake, Statutory Obligations , 1st edition, 2014
