Succession of Medina v. Registrar of Guayama
Succession of Medina v. Registrar of Guayama
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
In order that this court may take jurisdiction of an appeal from a decision of a registrar of property, it must have before it the document which was presented to the registrar for the purposes of the record or entry, with his endorsement thereon of the reasons for his decision, and also the date of its notification to the interested party; for sections 2 and 3 of the Act of March 1, 1902, regulating appeals from decisions of registrars of property provide that said documents shall be brought up to this court. Submitting a copy of the document is not a sufficient compliance with this statute, especially when, as in this case, the copy filed is not attested by a signature.
The appeal should be
Dismissed.
A motion for reconsideration having been sustained,*Me. Justice Aldbey delivered the following opinion of the court on March 13, 1919:-
The judgment having been presented in the Registry of Property of Guayama for the purpose of having the property recorded in the name of Moderado Medina, the registrar refused its admission to record on the ground that there was recorded in the registry in the name of the Cidra Land Company a property of equal area situated in the same ward as that described in the dominion title proceeding, hut with different boundaries, which property was further identified by the chain of conveyances mentioned in the judgment and corresponding exactly with those appearing in the registry.
In order to have before us the same facts that the registrar had before him, we asked for a certificate showing the entries relating to the property referred to in the above ground of his decision, and, having been received and examined, this certificate leads us to the conclusion that the property described in the dominion title proceeding as acquired by Moderado Medina on July 15, 1911, by purchase from the President of the Cidra Land Company, is the same property which is recorded in the name of the said corporation and which its president sold on the said date to Pedro Moderado Medina by the public instrument which the registrar refused to record in 1916 for the reason that it did not appear that the board of directors of the corporation had given authority to its president to make the sale.
As a matter of fact the appellant does not insist that
The question raised, then, under this ground of the decision is whether, although the property is recorded in the name of the Cidra Land Company, the registrar should record it in the name of Moderado Medina because the district court adjudged that he had established his dominion title to the property in a proceeding brought for that purpose.
Article 77 of the Mortgage Law prescribes that records are not extinguished as to third persons except by their cancellation or by a record of the conveyance of the ownership or property rig*ht recorded to another person. Article 82 provides, among other things, that records or cautionary notices made by virtue of a public instrument can be can-celled only by a final order from which no appeal for its annulment or reversal is pending, or by another instrument or authentic document in which the person in whose favor the record or entry may have been made, or his assigns or legal representatives, signify their consent to the cancellation. Article 83 prescribes that if the record or entry which has been made by virtue of a public instrument should be cancelled, and the party prejudiced by the cancellation should • not agree thereto, the other person interested may bring a declaratory action against him.
Although the dominion title proceeding approved by the court does not order the cancellation of the record of owner-
But even if the court had ordered the cancellation of Llie record of ownership of the Cidra Land Company, as was ordered in the case of Toro v. Registrar of Mayagües, 25 P. R. R. 438, by application of article 393 of the Mortgage Law, the cancellation should not be made because, as we there said, citing Porto Rican Leaf Tobacco Co. v. The Registrar, 17 P. R. R. 215, article 393 of the Mortgage Law refers only to possessory title proceedings and there is no provision of law making it extensive to dominion title proceedings, and because the record could not be made without cancelling the existing record of ownership, Ginorio v. The Registrar, 25 P. R. R. 59, and Colón v. Registrar of Caguas, 24 P. R. R. 719.
The decision of the G-eneral Directorate of Registries of Spain of January 4, 1900, cited by the appellant in support of its contention that the dominion title proceeding should be recorded, is not in point because it was rendered in consequence of a declaratory action in which the ownership title was determined.
Therefore, the dominion title proceeding herein not being
For the reason stated the decision must be
Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.