In the process of their historical development, people have always sought to cooperate with each other. At different times, this internal desire for unification manifested itself in completely different forms. When people created the law, they began to regulate relations among themselves through such a socio-moral phenomenon. The process of interaction between people found its reflection primarily in Roman law. It was the ancient Roman lawyers who proposed the concept of a deal. Over time, this legal institution has developed and expanded. At the moment, the legislator has fixed the full description, form of manifestation, species classification, as well as other features of the institution of transactions. In fact, the civil law of the Russian Federation, which was developed on the basis of Roman private law, regulates relations arising from transactions. But this is a purely subjective opinion of some scientists. In this article, we will talk about simple transactions, namely, about their specific form - one-sided, differing in a number of interesting features and signs.
Transactions in Roman Private Law
The concept of a transaction in Roman law practically did not exist, and even more so, Roman lawyers did not identify unilateral transactions.
The main source of change, the emergence and termination of rights, obligations and obligations were considered agreements between the parties and contracts (contractus). As such, transactions were made in the presence of the praetor. The man declared that the thing he holds belongs only to him.
The praetor further asked the other party whether she agreed with this statement. If there were no objections, the law passed from one person to another. Thus, a significant change in rights structure and responsibilities between two persons. Later, Roman lawyers identified transactions as a general concept of the occurrence of obligations. The structure of the term included an understanding of contracts and agreements, the main sources of obligations in Roman law. Since the days of Ancient Rome, the concept of a deal has changed significantly, so the modern institution differs from the ancient Roman in many ways.
General Provision of Transactions
In modern civil law of the Russian Federation, an exhaustive interpretation of the concept of a transaction is given. According to article 153 The Civil Code of the Russian Federation, a transaction can be called the actions of legal entities, citizens aimed at changing, terminating and establishing civil rights and obligations. Thus, a transaction is not just an aggregate concept consisting of several terms, but a legal institution, which is characterized by action and a number of other features. The following features inherent in transactions can be distinguished:
- legal act;
- volitional act, manifested in the action of man;
- a transaction is always a legitimate action;
- the transaction changes, generates and terminates civil rights and obligations.
It should be noted that the transaction will always be characterized by an intellectual factor. This is manifested in the fact that the parties can agree on the existence of a transaction, or they can on its absence. Unilateral transactions in civil law are also a source of obligations. It should be noted that this type was highlighted in the process of studying transactions and their classification. Thanks to this, scientists were able to identify not only one-sided transactions, but also their features and signs.
Type of transactions - one-way
This type appeared due to the classification of transactions in general.In the process of separation of concepts, scientists were based on the number of participants in a particular transaction. It was revealed that a certain number of parties can participate in it. In addition, the classification is based on the number of rights and obligations that appear to the parties. Unilateral transactions are always characterized by the presence of rights on one side and obligations on the other, but more on that later. 
The concept of a unilateral transaction is given in Article 155 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. According to the code, unilateral transactions include those cases when rights are generated only from a party expressing its will. The rights and obligations of third parties do not arise, except in cases provided for in regulatory legal acts.
Types of One-Way Transactions
In practice, it is very difficult to single out varieties of unilateral transactions, because almost any of them gives rise to mutual rights and obligations, even taking into account the fact that the legislator has spelled out the characteristic features of this type of obligation. Nevertheless, scientists managed to separate the usual and one-sided transactions. There are three main types of the latter:
- right-generating;
- terminating;
- law-changing.
Each type has a degree of influence on the rights and obligations of the parties to the transaction. In the theory of civil law, there is also another approach to the classification of unilateral transactions. For example, those requiring perception are those that do not require perception. Here the main fact is the moment of their entry into force. The first type can be called valid when the second side became aware of the transaction. It is necessary to clearly understand the fact that the number of participants does not play a role in unilateral transactions. There may be many. The main thing is that there is no duality, reciprocity of legal relations. In unilateral transactions, one party will always have rights, and the other only obligations, and rights only in some cases.
Validity Conditions for One-Way Transactions
According to article 156 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, general provisions on all types of obligations apply to unilateral transactions. Simply put, the legal mechanism for regulating transactions is the same as for other similar types of obligations. Thus, unilateral transactions include the facts of the generation of obligations, but subject to the limited legal capabilities of the parties. As for the validity of this type of transaction, the conditions are as follows:
- The legality of the content of a particular transaction.
- Strict adherence to the regulated form of the transaction.
- The correspondence between will and expression of will.
- Parties must be able to make a deal.
When at least one of the conditions is not met, the transaction is invalidated.
One-way deals: examples
To understand the mechanism of a one-way transaction, as well as its essence, you need to find examples of this source of obligations in civil law. Examples can be conditionally divided based on the types of one-way transactions:
- Testament and power of attorney will always be right-handed transactions.
- Fulfillment of an obligation can be attributed to law-making transactions.
- Disclaimer - This is an exclusively terminating transaction.
You can also study transactions using contracts as an example, but there are some nuances here. The one-sided classification of transactions cannot be identified with the one-sided classification of contracts, because the latter version deals specifically with the number of parties, and not with the number of generated rights and obligations.
Right-generating transactions
A will as a unilateral transaction gives rise to the rights and obligations of one of the parties (Article 1118 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). In this case, there is no mutual agreement or interest. The person making the will transfers the right to dispose of the property to another person. In this case, the second side, which will be included in the will, will not in any way affect the preparation of this document. The transaction will be considered valid when it comes legal fact - death of the party who made the will. The other party may exercise their rights or ignore them. This is the essence of the will as a one-sided transaction.
As for the power of attorney, the opinions of scientists disagree on this subject. The problem is that the parties are endowed with both rights and obligations. It was previously indicated that a unilateral transaction is a legal relationship in which one party has only rights and the other only obligations (in some cases, rights).
Fulfillment of obligations as a type of legal transactions
Chapter 22 of the Civil Code spells out in detail how the fulfillment of obligations should occur. This term refers to the action performed by the debtor. It is always directed in favor of the creditor and constitutes the content of the obligation as a whole. As a result of the fulfillment of the obligation, the actual legal regime changes. New rights and obligations are emerging. The one-sidedness of this transaction is that the debtor fulfills his obligation, and the creditor has the right to accept or not reject execution. In this case, the creditor does not have any obligations to the debtor. The transaction is carried out solely for one purpose - to fulfill the obligation. If the creditor does not accept the execution, then a completely different legal relationship appears that does not apply to the transaction.
Termination Transactions
The latter type of terminating transactions is quite interesting, because there are very few examples of such legal relations in the Civil Code. In civil law, there is such an institution as a waiver of law. Article 9 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation states that the refusal of an individual or legal entity from its right does not entail the termination of its existence. It follows that in a legal relationship, for example, a creditor may waive the right to collect a debt, but this will not mean that it disappears. In turn, a terminating one-way transaction creates obligations for the other party. Its essence is to accept the waiver of the right, because the debtor cannot force the creditor to use the right to recover the debt. Right-term transactions cause the largest number of questions among scientists. Since many deny the existence of this species. For example, a waiver does not apply to transactions at all. It is rather a source of legal relations than obligations.
The difference between multilateral and unilateral transactions
Some scholars support the theory that one-sided deals, in principle, do not exist. In their opinion, there can be no division into multilateral and unilateral transactions. But there are many features that make separation possible. Multilateral transactions give rise to complementary rights and obligations of the parties. This means that one party has rights and obligations, as well as the other party to the transaction. In unilateral transactions, mutual rights and obligations simply do not exist. In addition, the will of the parties coincides in multilateral ones (one person rents the apartment, the other wants to rent it). Obligations from unilateral transactions are never backed up by rights of one of the parties and vice versa.
Conclusion
Thus, the article answered the question of what are unilateral transactions. Examples of this source of obligations were considered taking into account all the features of the civil legislation of the Russian Federation.
