Martínez v. Registrar of Mayagüez
Martínez v. Registrar of Mayagüez
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
■The Registrar of Property of Mayagüez was asked to record a sale made by Víctor P. Martinez individually and in the name of his wife by deed No. 127 of July 12, 1915, of a rural property belonging to the conjugal partnership, and the registrar refused to record it for the following reason:
“Record of this document is denied because the power of attorney exhibited does not confer authority to alienate community property, and a cautionary notice for 120 days is entered at page 122 of volume 15 of Las Marias, property number 673, entry letter A, with the curable defect that it is not shown that Milagros.de los Ríos y Avila was the wife of Martínez y González when this property was acquired, it being understood that this refers only to the property described under letter B in this document, the only property asked to he recorded. ’ ’
Deed No. 127 was executed on July 12, 1915, and by it the husband, individually and as attorney in fact of his wife, sold several properties and credits to Emiliano Beauchamp. It bears no note of its having been recorded, but shows that it was -referred to in the record of a certain property and in the present refusal to record it. The power of' attorney, dated February 19, 1909, and given by the appellant’s wife to her husband, bears two notes of the Registrar of Prop-ertv of Mayagiiez showing that reference was made to it in making two records of a property situated in the ward of Las Marias, but it does not appear that the recoiMs referred to in the said notes' were of any of the properties sold by deed No. 127 of July 12, 1915.
From the foregoing it may be observed that, deed of sale No. 127 has not been recorded, and although the power of attorney was referred to or taken into account.in record-' ing a certain property in the ward of Las Marias, which does not appear to be one of those sold by the said deed,
Let us examine the other ground of appeal.
The power of attorney under which the husband sold the property in the name of his wife contains a paragraph as follows:
“ Second. — To purchase, sell’, exchange or mortgage any kind of property belonging to the principal, whether personal or real, or property rights and credits, extending the contracts in private or public instruments, as may be necessary for the validity and efficacy of each of the said contracts.”
We have held in several cases that a power of attorney wherein the wife authorizes the husband to sell any kind of property, without- specifying community property, does not give the attorney in fact power to sell the ganancial property iof the wife, and these decisions support the registrar’s decision in this case. Juncos Central Company v. Registrar of Caguas, 29 P. R. R. 82, and cases therein cited. And the fact that the marriage was contracted while the Spanish Civil Code was in force is no bar to applying to this case section 1328 of the revised Civil Code requiring the express consent of the wife for the sale of real property, for', as held in the case of Amadeo v. Registrar, 3 P. R. R. 134, involving a sale made by the husband after the adoption of the revised Civil Code, although under the first of the temporary provisions of the new Civil Code the changes introduced therein
For the foregoing reasons the registrar’s decision must be
Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.