It is mid-September 2026, school started two weeks ago, and in Year 3 of AFM (the Italian technical track in administration, finance and marketing) the law syllabus has just changed face. In Years 1 and 2 you studied law and economics — legal rules, sources of law, the State, the Constitution: public law, discursive, built on general principles. In Year 3 you move on to real rights and start on obligations: private law, that is, a system of technical definitions that fit into one another. The first real test arrives in six or seven weeks, between the end of October and the beginning of November, oral plus a structured test — and it is the moment when you see who has changed method and who is still studying law “as a story”.
The problem is not how hard the content is. It is that the method that worked in the first two years stops working here. In public law it was enough to grasp the general sense of an article and retell it in your own words: the teacher assessed whether you had understood the principle. In private law the words are not interchangeable: nullity and voidability are not elegant synonyms, they are two different regimes with different effects, and using one for the other in an oral test is an error of substance, not of style. If you arrive at the test with a general idea of “obligation” and “contract”, without the exact elements, you get a 5 out of 10 even if you have read the chapter three times.
What the first law test in Year 3 AFM really asks
The October-November syllabus in Year 3 AFM covers three blocks, almost always in this order.
Real rights. Ownership — the full and exclusive right over a thing — and possession, which is instead a situation of fact: having the thing and behaving as its holder, protected regardless of who the true owner is. Then, in outline, real rights of enjoyment over another person’s property (usufruct, easements) and rights of security (pledge, mortgage: getting paid by selling an asset if the debtor does not pay).
The obligation relationship. An obligation is the legal bond by which one person (the debtor) must perform something — give, do or not do something — for another person (the creditor), who has the right to demand it. The sources of obligations, according to article 1173 of the Italian Civil Code, are contract, unlawful act and any other act or fact capable of producing them in accordance with the legal system. Then performance (the exact execution of what is owed, which extinguishes the obligation) and its opposite, non-performance; delay (mora), meaning a qualified delay in performance; and liability for debts, which article 2740 of the Civil Code lays down like this: the debtor answers for the performance of his obligations with all his present and future assets.
The start of the contract. A contract, according to article 1321, is the agreement of two or more parties to create, regulate or end a legal relationship of a financial nature between them. Article 1325 lists its requirements: agreement of the parties, cause, object, form (when the law requires it on pain of nullity). And the formation of the agreement through offer and acceptance, which is the mechanism by which two separate wills become a single bond.
The structured test checks that these definitions are exact on the key points. The oral test adds the question that separates those who have understood from those who have memorised: not only “what is it”, but “what happens if” — if the debtor does not pay, if a party is a minor, if a requirement of the contract is missing.
The five confusions that cost marks in the oral test
Ownership vs possession. These are two different planes and they can be held separately. A tenant possesses the flat — lives in it, uses it — but is not its owner; the owner, who has let it, remains the holder of the right but no longer has possession. Someone who answers “possession is when you are the owner” has swapped the two concepts: possession is a situation of fact, protected regardless of who is right about the legal title; ownership is a right, protected independently of whether you physically have the thing in your hand.
Obligation of means vs obligation of result. In an obligation of result the debtor must deliver exactly the promised outcome: a carrier must deliver the goods to their destination, full stop. In an obligation of means the debtor must act with the required diligence, without guaranteeing the outcome: a doctor must treat according to the rules of the profession, not guarantee recovery. Mixing them up leads to saying that any failure is non-performance, which is false for obligations of means.
Non-performance vs delay of the debtor (and delay of the creditor). Non-performance is the failure to carry out the obligation, in whole or in part. Delay of the debtor is a qualified lateness: the debtor is in a position to perform, does not do so, and — except in the cases where delay arises automatically, for example when the debtor declares in writing that he will not perform — a formal notice of default is normally needed, that is, a formal request from the creditor, before the delay produces its typical effects (default interest, compensation for the damage caused by the delay). Less well known but just as real: delay of the creditor, when the creditor, without a legitimate reason, does not receive or does not cooperate with the performance that the debtor properly offers — here it is the creditor who bears the consequences of his own delay.
Nullity vs voidability. These are the two regimes of invalidity of a contract, and the differences are precise, not stylistic. A void contract lacks an essential element — a requirement of article 1325, an impossible or unlawful object, an unlawful cause: it produces no effects, anyone with an interest can raise it (even a third party), the judge can raise it of his own motion and the action is not subject to a limitation period, without prejudice to the effects of usucaption and the limitation period of restitution claims. A voidable contract is flawed in a less serious way — a defect of consent (mistake, duress, fraud) or the incapacity of a party — and produces its effects until it is annulled: only the party the law protects can raise it, and the action expires after five years. Swapping the two words in an oral test is penalised even if the concept was explained well: the teacher asks for the technical term, not a synonym that resembles it.
Real right vs personal right (right of credit). A real right is absolute (it holds against everyone) and attaches to the thing: it follows the asset into whatever hands it passes, so that a property sold with a mortgage on it stays mortgaged for the new owner too. A right of credit holds only between the parties: the creditor can demand performance from his debtor, not from just anyone.
The method for studying private law
In the public law of the first two years, a definition and an example were enough. In private law every item of the syllabus has to be built in four steps, always in the same order:
- Exact definition. With the technical terms of the code, not a paraphrase: “obligation” is not “a commitment”, it is the bond by which a debtor owes a performance to a creditor who has the right to demand it.
- Constituent elements. Which pieces must be there for the definition to apply: for the contract, the four requirements of article 1325; for the obligation, the parties (debtor and creditor), the object (the performance) and the source.
- Effects. What it produces when all the elements are present: the contract binds the parties, the obligation entitles to the performance, delay triggers interest and compensation.
- Pathologies. What happens when something is missing or goes wrong: nullity and voidability for the contract, non-performance and delay for the obligation.
This sequence is what the teacher asks for in the oral test, in the order in which they ask it: first “what is it” (steps 1 and 2), then “what happens if” (steps 3 and 4). If you skip steps 3 and 4 you answer only half the question, even if the first half was perfect.
In practice: one page per chapter, the four items always in the same order, written with the words of the code and not summarised in your own way. Ownership, possession, obligation, contract — four pages cover the whole first test.
Three worked cases
A company delivers 40 days late
A supplier was due to deliver goods by 10 October. The delivery arrives on 19 November: 40 days late. The buyer had sent a formal warning letter on 20 October, asking for immediate delivery.
Definition. The supplier is the debtor of the delivery; the buyer is the creditor. The failure to deliver by 10 October is non-performance from the moment it falls due, and becomes delay of the debtor when — with the warning of 20 October — the creditor formally puts him in default, the supplier being in a position to perform.
Elements. A specific performance (the goods, by that date), a debtor able to perform, failure to perform, formal default through the warning.
Effects. From the formal default, default interest runs on the value of the delayed performance, and the debtor also answers for any further damage caused by the delay (for example, a loss of profit for the buyer who in turn could not resell in time). The risk of the goods, had they been lost by chance after the default, would pass to the debtor in default.
Pathologies. If the delay makes the performance useless for the creditor — not the 40 days of this case, but a delay that defeats the purpose of the agreement — the creditor can ask for termination of the contract for non-performance, in addition to compensation.
Conclusion. Here the delay can be made good: the buyer is entitled to default interest and to compensation for the damage he can prove, but the delivery that has arrived keeps the contract alive — there is no reason to ask for termination.
For law in the technical track’s last three years there is no dedicated practice test with automatic marking, and it is honest to say so. There is, though, the practice test for the second paper in business economics, which comes in later, in Year 5: the correct answer to every question is free, and the guided step-by-step solution unlocks with the first lesson.
A sales contract signed by a minor
A seventeen-year-old, without his parents’ consent, signs a contract to buy an electric bike from an online shop, paying in three instalments.
Definition. The minor has legal capacity (can hold rights) but not full capacity to act: one of the personal requirements the law demands for the agreement to be valid is missing.
Elements. An agreement that looks complete (offer, acceptance, object, cause, form), but one of the parties lacks capacity to act.
Effects. The contract is not non-existent: it produces its effects until it is challenged. In theory the shop can demand the instalments for as long as nobody contests it.
Pathologies. The contract is voidable, not void: only the minor (once he comes of age) or whoever exercises parental responsibility can raise it, and the action expires five years after the minor comes of age or after the defect ceases. A third party unconnected with the matter — for example another customer of the shop — has no standing to ask for it to be annulled.
Conclusion. The parents (or the young man, once he is an adult) can ask for annulment and get back what was paid by returning the bike; if nobody acts within the time limit, the contract stands.
A contract with an impossible or unlawful object
Two parties sign the sale of a plot of land which, it turns out, can no longer be transferred: it was expropriated years earlier for a public work. The outcome would be the same, for a different reason, if the object were goods whose trade the law forbids.
Definition. One of the essential elements of article 1325 is missing: the object is impossible in the first case, unlawful in the second. The defect concerns the structure of the contract, not the will of one of the parties.
Elements. An agreement formally concluded, but an object that cannot legally exist or that the law forbids.
Effects. None: a void contract produces no effects from the outset. There is nothing to “undo” in the sense of returning a performance received under a valid contract, because the contract never bound the parties.
Pathologies. Here nullity is not a contingency to be raised through a time-limited action like voidability: it cannot be cured, anyone with an interest can have it noted (even a third party, even the judge of his own motion), and it is not subject to a limitation period.
Conclusion. The parties stay as if the agreement had never been written; any sums already paid have to be returned under the general rules on undue payment, not under the rules of the contract (which, precisely, does not exist).
How we work in lessons
The order of work with someone tackling private law for the first time is always the same: exact definitions with the constituent elements, then effects and pathologies, finally the cases — those in this post and others built on your school’s syllabus. Part of every lesson is always a mock oral test: the real test is not writing out the definition, it is reciting it and applying it to a case you have never seen while someone presses you with the next question, exactly as the teacher will.
Law and political economy for the technical track’s last three years are on the page for humanities and economics-and-law subjects, together with business economics — if you are in the same year and track you may also find double-entry bookkeeping explained simply useful, and to revisit the basics of the first two years there is law and economics in Year 1.
Lessons are online and one-to-one: the rates are always on the pricing page (single lesson, 10-hour package), plus a free 30-minute introductory call. Payment is offline — bank transfer, Satispay, PayPal, card, Apple Pay or Revolut. If you want to reach the November test with the right definitions in your head, write to us: we look at your school’s syllabus and tell you where to restart. And if in the meantime you want to see where this path leads, the business economics practice test is there waiting for Year 5.
