The article is devoted to the research of the topical issue of the role and significance of civil law terms for the emergence and movement of legal relations and the effectiveness of its main element – the subjective right of the bearer. The paper defends the position according to which the terms cannot be reduced to a banal purpose as legal facts, i.e. external factors that give impetus to the emergence, change or termination of a certain legal status. It is proved that temporal characteristics are of great importance for the realization of the powers inherent in subjective law. They are an integral part of the legal relationship and are necessarily inherent in any subjective right, so the term is its internal dimension and is an integral part of the content of law. It is emphasized that a specific legal relationship arises or terminates not because there is a rule in the law, which refers to the beginning or end of the term, but because a person due to certain circumstances of the material world has or ceased to have any material need. In other words, the temporal manifestation cannot be considered a legal fact in the classical sense of the latter, on the contrary, the term itself is a product of the influence of the circumstances with which the law associates the occurrence of legal consequences. Indeed, the establishment of a term ensures the specificity of the scope of substantive authority, determines the beginning and end of a particular action and thus affects the nature of subjective law. In this case, the expiration of the term occurs due to the use of the disposition with the appearance of the factors specified in the hypothesis of the legal norm. The beginning or end of the term occurs as a result, usually of specific actions. Let’s say it can be a contract. It is the contract with the establishment of the limits of the right of the person and the corresponding obligation in terms of scope, quality and time of existence is the legal fact that gives rise to the right of the party to the legal relationship. In turn, the specified legal facts-impulses are necessary and conditioned by the law the legal bases which have put into action or terminated the right together with its internal property – duration. It is proposed to make some adjustments to the current legislation in the study area in order to achieve certainty in this matter.