Simulated documents and contracts
At the end of last year, the sentence of Bárcenas case of the political party popular STS 1033/2024 of November 14th, developed the new legal criterion by which false contracts and invoices do not constitute a crime of false documentation by simulation, contrary to the previous criteria established by the Supreme Court in STS 298/2024 of April 8, such conducts are no longer punishable by way of the duty to differentiate between the legal concepts of document and simulated contract.
A simulated contract is a document that contains a fictitious business reality by express freely of the signatory parties, therefore, the document is fully legitimate because it reflects what the parties have wanted to agree. On the contrary, a simulated document reflects a business reality that is not adjusted to reality and that comes from the unilateral will of the party that makes it or manipulates it.
Simulated reality of legal business
For example, a simulated contract of donation contains false elements because content does not fully conform to the reality, but it cannot be said that it is a simulated document in the sense of art. 390.1.2 PC, because as the Supreme Court say: “This document is authentic because externalizes what its participants really wanted to express. The falsehood is ideological, since a simulated business reality has been recorded”. So, the document as the basis that embodies the statements made, has not been faked, therefore, what is simulated is the contract, but not the document.
Opposite is the case if one of the parties unilaterally provides a simulated or false document in a legal transaction, because it does so with the individual intent to deceive, either by alteration or simulation of the document in any of its essential elements or requirements, or in such a way as to mislead others about the authenticity.
We recommend that always seek the advice of a specialist lawyer to assist you in prevention and avoid legal problems with this type of situation. Legal transactions always require preventive measures to corroborate the authenticity of all the documentation involved.
If you need legal assistance in pre-contractual management to verify the authenticity of the documentation of a legal business, please contact our law firm in Marbella.
Telephone: +34 951 052 811
Whatsapp: +34 643 89 04 96
Organic Law 1/2025 and the amendment of the Horizontal Property Law
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