Natural Obligations

Natural Obligations: Essential Legal Concepts & Case Studies

There are certain obligations which arise by operation of the law. These are known as 'ex lege' obligations. A typical example of these are servitudes, wherein the law creates certain obligations.

On the other hand, there are also obligations which are not created by the mere operation of the law, but which arise out of the following categories:

1. Contracts: obligations which arise out of the union of consent of two or more parties;
2. Quasi-contracts: obligations which arise from the consent of one person and the presumed consent of the other;
3. Torts: obligations which arise as a result of one person causing some kind of damage to somebody else; and