Is the final agreement a mere repeat of the preliminary agreement?
In a recent judgment, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the principle of law according to which if the parties, after they have entered into a preliminary agreement, concluded the final contract, the latter is the only source of rights and of obligations related to their relationship and not mere repetition of the first contract, as the preliminary one is superseded by the final one, whose discipline may not conform to that of the first contract, except that the contracting parties have expressly stated that the latter survives. The presumption of conformity of the new agreement to the will of the parties may, in the silence of the final contract, only given by evidence – that must be the result of a written document, if the subject of the contract are real estate – of an agreement entered into by the same parties simultaneously with the conclusion of the final agreement, which has to indicate that other obligations, contained in the preliminary agreement, survive.