Torregrosa v. Dodd
Torregrosa v. Dodd
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Victoria C. Dodd appeals from an adverse judgment in -a suit brought by Torregrosa’s minor children to establish the superiority of a certain mortgage lien.
In June 1924, Rafael Bigles executed a mortgage in favor of the minors, now plaintiffs herein, to secure the payment of $3,217.50 which he borrowed from them. In October 1925, Bigles conveyed the mortgaged property to 'Torregrosa for $4,500. Of this amount Torregrosa paid $1,383.00 in cash and retained the balance of the purchase price amounting to $3,217.50 in order to meet the mortgage held by his children. In order to complete the cash payment, Torregrosa borrowed from Vicente Texera $500 and •executed in favor of Texera a mortgage to secure the payment of this amount. Both the deed of conveyance by Bigles • and the new mortgage executed by Torregrosa in favor of Texera were embodied in a single instrument. By the terms and recitals of that instrument, Texera as a party thereto was fully informed as to the existence of the previous mort.gage. He knew that he was a junior mortgagee. In June 1928, Torregrosa borrowed from Victoria C. Dodd, a sister-in-law of Texera, $2,000 and executed a mortgage on three pieces of property to secure the payment thereof. One of
At 8:15 in the morning of May 9, 1932, the Dodd mortgage was again presented in the registry of property. The following day, May 10 the registrar refused to record the
The theory of appellant is that by virtue of the foregoing-facts the Dodd mortgage, a second mortgage, was converted into a first mortgage and that the mortgage in favor of the Torregrosa children, a first mortgage, was relegated to the position of a second mortgage.
Article 70 of the Mortgage Law provides that:
“When the cautionary notice of a right is converted into a final record thereof, it shall produce its effects from the date of the notice. ’ ’
The gist of the argument for appellant is: that the Dodd mortgage was presented for record at 8:15 in the morning of May 9; that upon entry of the cautionary notice for 120 days and conversion thereof into a permanent record of the mortgage on May the 11th, the mortgage should be deemed to have been recorded as of May 9; that the deed of conveyance to Torregrosa having been presented at 2:30 in the afteernoon of May 10 and the mortgage in favor of the Torregrosa children having been mentioned in the registry for the first time when that deed was recorded, the Dodd mortgage was recorded as a first mortgage thirty hours and
Article 70 of the Mortgage Law must be construed in connection with articles 9, 20 and 29 thereof, the pertinent portions of which read as follows:
“Art. 9. — Every record made in a registry shall set forth the following details:
“3. — The nature, extent, conditions and charges of the right upon which that the subject of the record is constituted.
“Art. 20. — In order to permit of the record or entry of deeds •conveying or encumbering the ownership or possession of real property or property rights, the interest of the person executing it or of the person in whose name the conveyance or encumbrance is made must first appear of record.
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‘.‘If such interest is recorded in favor of a person other than the one making the conveyance or placing the encumbrance, registrars shall deny the record requested.
“Art. 29. — Ownership or any other’property right expressly mentioned in records or cautionary notices, although not appearing in •erty or property rights, the interest of the person executing it or of the person in whose name the conveyance or encumbrance is made must first apper or record.
In Antonsanti v. Registrar, 9 P.R.R. 171, this Court said:
“The only purpose of cautionary notices made by registrars of property when they refuse the record or entry of any document, on account of incurable defects therein,' in accordance with the Act passed by the Legislative Assembly of this Island on- May 1, 1902, on ‘Appeals from deeisons of registrars of property,’ is to secure the rights of the persons interested in the record of entry of the document for the period of 120 days that it continues in effect, in order that if they are able to present a new deed within said period, or correct any obstacle which prevented the record of the previous one, they may record their rights, the effects of the record retroacting to ~the date of the cautionary notice.”
The right which a cautionary notice is designed to protect is a preexisting right. The cautionary notice does not create any new rights. Prior to the date of the cantionary notice,, Miss Dodd had the right to record her mortgage after, hut not before the recording of the mortgaged property in the name of Torregrosa. The Dodd mortgage when so recorded would be subordinate to any prior mortgage or encumbrance mentioned in the record entry in the name of Torregrosa. The cautionary notice did not alter this situation nor did it confer upon Miss Dodd any new or additional rights. It merely protected the right which she already had by giving* her an opportunity to have the Torregrosa deed recorded and' then to record her own mortgage by converting the cautionary notice into a permanent entry provided she should do this within 120 days. It did not confer upon her immunity from the effect of any mention of prior liens and encumbrances which might be made upon recording the mortgaged property in the name of Torregrosa.
. If Miss Dodd had presented the Torregrosa deed with her mortgage in the first instance as she did immediately after the registrar refused to record her mortgage, the registrar would have first recorded the deed of conveyance,, mentioning of course the prior mortgage in favor of the Torregrosa children, and would then have recorded the Dodd mortgage as subordinate to the lien of the Torregrosa mortgage. We need not and do not question Miss Dodd’s honesty and good faith in not pursuing this course. If, however, the argument for appellant should prevail in the instant case any unscrupulous junior mortgagee could avoid the disadvantages of the usual, natural and logical procedure by the transparent device of first presenting his mortgage and then, after obtaining a cautionary notice, again presenting his mortgage accompanied by his mortgagor’s unrecorded deed to the mortgaged property. The establishment of such a
By the terms of Article 20 the recordation of the deed of conveyance by Bigles to Torregrosa was a condition precedent to a recordation of the Dodd mortgage. It was for this reason that the registrar, acting in accordance with the express mandate of the law, refused to record the Dodd mortgage when first presented in the registry of property. The mention of the Torregrosa mortgage was made in accordance with the mandate embodied in article 9. If Miss Dodd was a third person within the meaning of that term as used in article 29, she must now be deemed to have been fully informed after 2:30 in the afteernoon of May 10. If she was not a third person she was not converted into a third person by the cautionary notice or by any other entry made in the registry of property. In either event, she was not, in the eye of the law, a third person.. If the conversion of the cautionary notice into á permanent record of the Dodd mortgage relates back to the date of the cautionary notice itself and through that notice to the date of presentation, it must relate back to those dates through the record entry as to the deed of conveyance and subject to the mention made of the Torregrosa mortgage in that entry. To hold otherwise would be to render nugatory the plain provisions of Articles 9, 20 and 29 of the Mortgage Law.
We also agree with the district judge that Miss Dodd was charged with notice of .the existence of the Torregrosa mortgage from the date of her own mortgage by reason of' the information contained' in the deed of conveyance from Bigles to Torregrosa. In any event, Miss Dodd can not now plead ignorance of all the facts which were known to her agent, Texera, before the second mortgage was executed. She was not a third party in good faith.
The judgment appealed from must be affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.