A natural person (abbreviated FO) is a legal term and refers to any person as an individual. We become a natural person at the moment of birth and remain so until the moment of death or declaration of death. For natural persons, we distinguish between two types of legal capacity – for rights and obligations and for legal acts.
Capacity for rights and obligations
Capacity to have rights and obligations is also referred to as legal personality, which allows us to participate in a legal relationship and to have rights and obligations in it. A person has legal personality from the moment of birth until death or declaration of death.
Legal capacity
While we have the capacity to enter into rights and obligations from the moment we are born, we only acquire full legal capacity when we reach the age of 18. Legal capacity enables us to create, modify or dissolve legal relationships, to acquire various rights and to commit ourselves to certain obligations. Simply put, we can, for example, enter into contracts or apply for a mortgage. A natural person can be deprived of legal capacity by a court for serious reasons such as mental disorder.
