Ex parte García Oliver
Ex parte García Oliver
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Julio G-arcia Oliver, being married to Aurora Rosado, filed a petition in the District Court of Bayamón praying that a dominion title be declared in bis favor on a farm of 7% cuerdas situated in the ward Camarones, of the municipality of Guaynabo, of wbicb be alleged that be was the owner. In
“Wherefore, petitioner prays this Hon. Court that he be allowed to file a supplementary amended petition and in view of the evidence heard, the opposition of the Prosecuting Attorney and the present petition, the dominion title of the aforesaid farm be declared in favor of petitioner as his private property in regard' to % in common and in regard to the other %, in the name of the conjugal partnership which exists between petitioner and his wife Aurora Rodríguez. And that the court order said property to be recorded in the aforesaid proportion and in common in favor of the aforesaid parties in the'*480 corresponding Registry oí Property and that tbe clerk issue the necessary certificate to that effect.”
The court set a date to hear the parties and finally denied the prayers of the petitioner again basing its decision in the case of Vargas v. Registrar, supra. Against this decision the petitioner filed the present appeal. In his brief he assigns only one error:
"The error committed in denying the supplementary amended petition to reopen the case, and in view of said petition and of the evidence that the dominion title to the property be declared in regard to one-fourth in common in favor of petitioner and in regard to three-fourths in common in favor of the conjugal partnership.”
In the case of Vargas v. Registrar, supra, on which the decision appealed from is based, José Vargas filed a petition in the District Court of Mayagüez in dominion title proceedings in regard to a farm of thirty-two cuerdas, a half of which he had acquired by inheritance from his father and the other half by purchase from one Juan Gualberto Vargas. The purchaser at the time the second half of said property was acquired, was married to Eleuteria Peraza. ' The court rendered a decision accepting the dominion title, which was presented at the Registry of Property of San Germán. The Registrar refused to record and stated that two properties, one of which is the private property of the petitioner and the other belongs to the conjugal partnership, cannot be grouped. Against this decision Vargas filed an administrative appeal, and this Court, after copying section 61 of the Regulations for the execution of the Mortgage Law and in affirming the decision of the Registrar, said as follows:
“This court has upheld in its entirety the rule stated in the said Art. 61. In Muñoz v. Registrar, 25 P.R.R. 786, and Vila v. Registrar, 27 P.R.R. 848, cited by the registrar in his decision and which are strictly applicable to the present case, the court maintained the doctrine of the legal impossibility of consolidating separate property with community property.
*481 “It is alleged here by the appellant that there is no consolidation because tbe property of tbirty-two acres was inherited from Eleuterio Vargas by his sons José and Juan G-ualberto and that the inheritance was by undivided halves. This is of no importance. The undivision in that case affects the materiality of the positions of the property which have to be of one or the other of the sharing brothers ; but the ownership is found before the law divided into two portions or moieties and with each one of them goes the corresponding title. The purchase made from Juan Gualberto Vargas by his brother José Vargas while the purchaser was married gives the character of presumptive community property to the part purchased and then the presumptive owner of that part is not appellant José Vargas, but the conjugal partnership composed by law of him and his wife Eleuteria Peraza. So that as regards half of the property, the title is by inheritance in favor of the appellant, and as regards the other half, the title is by purchase, with the presumption that it is community property of the conjugal partnership José Vargas and Eleuteria Pe-raza. ’ ’
Section 61 of the Regulations for the execution of the Mortgage Law, on which the opinion in the Vargas case is based,, in its relevant part states as follows:
“Section 61. — The following shall be recorded under a single number if the persons interested should so request, being considered a single state, in accordance with article 8 of the law and for the purposes therein stated:
“First. — Rural property known as farms, coffee plantations, sugar' plantations, pastures, stock farms, etc., which form dependent or joined property, with one or more buildings and one or more tracts of land, wooded or otherwise, even though they are not contiguous to each other or to the building, provided they belong to the same parcel and to one person only, or to a number of persons pro indi-viso, even though it be subject to charges or property rights, held by one or a number of persons, and composed of different sections or parts given in emphyteusis. For the purposes of record, the direet ownership shall be considered sole, even though there be a number of persons who collect rents or annuities from an estate in the capacity of direct owners, provided the estate is not divided among them for such purpose.
With the exception of the Vargas case, supra, the different •cases of grouping decided by this Court in which the interests of the conjugal partnership have been involved with those of one of the spouses have been cases of real grouping in which farms of one of the spouses have been grouped with those of the conjugal partnership. See, for example, the cases of Durán v. Registrar, 20 P.R.R. 138; Muñoz v. Registrar, supra; Berrios v. Registrar, 27 P.R.R. 821, and Vilá v. Registrar, supra.
The present case, as well as that of Vargas v. Registrar, does not deal with the grouping of different farms but with the recording of a decision in which the dominion title of a property is declared in favor of two different entities, to wit, •one of the spouses privately and the conjugal partnership. That they are two different entities has been stated by this Court in the cases of Durán v. Registrar, supra, and Muñoz v. Registrar, supra.
An example will make our position clear: Let us assume that A, married to B, inherits a half in common of a farm •duly recorded in the Registry of Property, and that later, during his matrimony with B, he purchases the other half of the same farm. Is there any legal impediment whatsoever to recording the entire property in favor of A, stating in the recording that he acquired half in common of the same
The rule set forth in the Vargas case, on which the decision appealed from was based, is erroneous and we are forced to reverse it. In that case, as well as in this one, different properties were not grouped by a decision declaring a dominion title in favor of the husband of a property acquired partly by inheritance and partly by purchase during the matrimony.
Section 61 of the Regulations for the execution of the Mortgage Law is not applicable to the present case, since as we have seen this case does not deal with the grouping of properties.
For the foregoing reasons the decision appealed from should be reversed and the case remanded to the lower court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.