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310
III. CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION.
stricted competence for the individual inheritors of the estate of on
deceased to undertake the winding up of the estate themselves and th
distribution of the proceeds of the same; finally, a system for the settle
ment of the devisor’s debts, responsibility for which devolves in th
first place on the devisees, combined however with their right to dives
themselves of further liability in respect thereto by handing over th
bankrupt property of the deceased to the creditors, "urarvakonkurs".
In respect to the relationship of one individual to another in th
economic sphere, the leading ideas that have determined the tenor of th
Law of Obligations for the most part are: The right on the one han
for the individual to decide for himself what obligations towards othei
he chooses to assume, and on the other the duty to stand by and keep hi
word, even if that has not been given under special forms or circuit
stances.
General liberty of contract therefore exists, even though it has been restricte
in one or two points with a view to protecting the weaker party from the effei
of too onerous stipulations. Thus, usurious interest may not be charged, n<
may the labour of an indefinite number of days be exacted from a cottar i
exchange for his holding; certain over-severe conditions too that a landowni
or a landlord may have induced his tenant to accept in the form of clausi
embodied in the lease, are by law subject to annulment. In ordinary casi
no specially prescribed form is obligatory to render a contract valid; provide
it is indubitably apparent that the parties are at one, the mutual engagemei
is established. In the case of some few contracts, mostly those relating to tl
conveyance of real estate, the law does prescribe the drawing up of a du
certified document in order to preclude measures being precipitated and wroi
thereby arising; in regard to some other contracts or agreements (e. g. advano
of money, loans, gifts of personal property, valuables lodged for safe keepin
no legal obligation arises until the advance, gift, or deposit shall have bet
actually effected.
Apart from those exceptional cases, a word given is therefore binding
itself. Whatever a person of full age and responsibility has said or writt|
constitutes an obligation upon him in such wise as the other party, to who
the statement has been addressed, has without deception or negligence u
derstood its contents. Any error consequently that may have occurred, eith
verbally or in writing, which has conveyed to the statement a sense other thi
that intended by its originator, a false conception lying behind the stateme
as its necessary proviso, is of no consequence as far as the other party is co
cerned, he not having observed the mistake. In respect to certain negotiat
documents issued for the discharge or acknowledgment of debt — bills
exchange, cheques, promissory notes — the good faith with which the hold
took them is of still greater import, depriving, as it does, the debtor of tl
right of raising such objections as he otherwise might (e. g. concerning tl
holder’s mode of acquisition, earlier instalments of the debt paid off, conti
accounts against the original creditor); on the other hand the creditor’s goi
faith is in adequate to overcome a debtor’s disability to enter into a bond,
to render a forged document valid.
During the last two decades a great deal of legislative labour has been spe
on codifying and keeping up to date the body of laws appertaining to w
parties and associations. A thorough-going distinction is here made betwe
the private companies, with as few as two partners, and the joint-stock coi
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