Libro Quinto · Título V Capítulo III. Forma de los contratos

Any person may contract and assume obligations:

1°.By public deed;

2°.By private document or by record drawn up before the mayor of the place;

3°.By correspondence; and,

4°.Verbally.

A contract whose value exceeds three hundred quetzales must be in writing.

If the contract is commercial, it may be made orally if it does not exceed one thousand quetzales.

Contracts that must be registered or annotated in the registries, whatever their value, shall be set forth in a public deed.

However, the contracts shall be valid and the parties may reciprocally compel each other to the execution of a public deed, if their essential requirements are established by judicial confession of the obligor or by other means of written evidence.

Contracts expressly qualified as solemn shall be set forth in a public deed, without which essential requirement they shall have no validity.

The extension, ratification or modification of a contract must be recorded in the same form that the law prescribes for the execution of the contract itself.