Behn v. Registrar of San Juan
Behn v. Registrar of San Juan
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
It is stated by both contracting parties in the said deed that the only price received by Sosthenes Behn from Iiernand Behn as a consideration for the sale consists of the stipulated agreements, and that therefore there is no purchase price to be paid. The principal agreements are as follows: First. Sosthenes Behn reserves to himself and to his heirs, representatives and grantees the right to redeem all or any part of the properties conveyed within a period of ten years from the date of the deed, the said Sosthenes Behn, his heirs, representatives or grantees, paying, in case of the exercise of the right of redemption, the expenses of this contract, the expenses of reconveyance, all lawful payments made by reason of the sale and the necessary expenses incurred by the property sold. Second. In case Sosthenes Behn, his heirs, representatives or grantees should exercise the right of redemption, iiernand Behn binds himself, his heirs, representatives or grantees, to pay to the redeeming party the amount of all income, rentals, profits and proceeds of any kind after deducting the expenses and charges incurred, and further to execute any and all documents, public or private, which may be necessary or advisable to evidence or effectuate the re
The deed herein referred to having been presented in the
An appeal has been taken from the said decision to this court by the attorney for Hernand Behn, who prays for its reversal as regards the two curable defects assigned.
The deed of August 24, 1917, has been considered valid by the registrar, for if he had found that it contained any defect necessarily causing the contract to be a nullity he would have refused to record it in compliance with the duty imposed upon him by article 65 of the Mortgage Law. We cannot now question the validity of the instrument, as it is a matter without the scope of this appeal, the consideration of which must be limited to determining whether after the deed was recorded the assignment of the defects by the registrar was proper.
The deed clearly recites that there is no purchase price to be paid and that the only consideration of the contract moving from the vendee to the vendor consists in the agreements stipulated in the deed. Notwithstanding the foregoing statements and the wording cf section 1348 of the Civil Code, which provides that by a contract of purchase and sale one of the contracting parties binds himself to deliver a specified thing and the other to pay a certain price therefor in money or its equivalent, the registrar having held that the parties had entered into a contract of purchase and sale, he was estopped from requiring that there should be specified a consideration different from that which he understood the parties had fixed as such. Given the classification of the con
As to the second defect, we will refer to our decisions in the cases of Ortiz and Delgado v. Registrar of San Germán, 23 P. R. R. 652 and 654 respectively, holding that the said defect is curable.
Our decisions in Ramos v. Registrar, 16 P. R. R. 57, and Vega v. Registrar, 23 P. R. R. 742, are not in point, as they do not refer to public deeds but to judgments rendered in dominion title proceedings.
The decision appealed from must be reversed as to the curable defect consisting in that the purchase price is not clearly determined, and affirmed as to the other curable defect consisting in that the name of the wife of vendee Hernand Behn is not given.
Reversed in part.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.