Obligations to Acquire or Preserve Property Without Sufficient Legal Basis

The article deals with theoretical and practical issues concerning obligations to acquire and preserve property without sufficient legal grounds. It analyzes the conditions for the emergence of obligations to acquire and retain property without sufficient legal grounds, the elements of a conditional obligation (object, subjects, and content), the relationship with other means of protection in the event of the invalidity of a transaction, violation of the owner's right to possession, causing damage, etc. The defining feature of a conditional obligation is the absence of legal grounds for acquiring or retaining assets gained at someone else's cost. For the sake of legal certainty, it is proposed to replace the wording “without sufficient legal grounds” with “without legal grounds.” It is also advisable to supplement Chapter 83 of the Civil Code of Ukraine with the provision: “in the event of the victim's fault in acquiring or retaining property without legal grounds, the acquirer shall not be subject to the relevant obligations.” The acquirer's good faith is irrelevant to the obligation to return the property, but is taken into account when deciding on compensation for income and expenses. It is specified that the provisions of Chapter 83 of the Civil Code of Ukraine apply: to claims for the return of property acquired under an invalid transaction, if only one of the parties to the invalid transaction has performed it; to the owner's claim for the return of property from another person's unlawful possession, if the object is an item that is identified by generic characteristics or if an item that is identified by individual characteristics has not been preserved in kind; for the return of performance by one of the parties to the obligation, for example, if there are no contractual obligations or they have ceased to exist.