The Legal and Factual Function of the Family Law Agreements

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the legal and factual function of the family law agreements. The paper analyzes the views concerning the legal and factual possibilities of agreements in general and family law agreements in particular. The author concludes that despite the fact that family law agreements are not independent grounds for the emergence of legal relations between its parties, they carry out the legal-factual function. The paper describes the legal-factual function with its inherent static and dynamic aspects manifested, among other things, in the ability of family law agreements to entail non-contractual consequences of a private and public legal nature: some agreements in family law are involved in the acquisition of a particular family legal status of persons participating in them; family law agreements are able to directly generate rights and obligations of its parties in relation to other persons; a family law agreement may affect the exercise of the rights of third parties in relation to its participants (or otherwise become a legally significant circumstance in relations with other persons). Since one of the practical tasks of experts is to determine the moment of occurrence of the legal consequences of making of a family law agreement, the author touches on the practical aspects of determining the moment of occurrence of legal consequences under a marriage contract and an agreement on the division of common property of spouses. The author thoroughly analyzes the deferred effect of the marriage agreement that, at the same time, brings specifics to the limitation period calculation for claims of invalidity of the marriage contract. The paper also considers the problem of determining the moment when the legal regime of immovable property (or other property, the rights to which are subject to registration) changes due to the conclusion of a marriage agreement or an agreement on the division of common property of spouses.