Rosado Fussá v. Registrar of Property
Rosado Fussá v. Registrar of Property
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
By deed No. 10 executed on March 4, 1942 the spouses Luis E. García and Josefa Carreras purchased from the Eastern Sugar Associates a property containing 195.99 acres {cuerdas), of which 126.995 acres are situated within the Municipality of Trujillo Alto, which at that time belonged to the Registry of Property of San Juan and 68.995 acres in Caguas, within the jurisdiction of the Registry of Property of the same name. Prom this property they segregated .and sold to Felipe S. Yidal, by deed No. 11 of the same date, a parcel of land containing 97.995 acres which is described under letter A in the deed subject matter of this appeal, of which 68.995 acres approximately are lying in Caguas and .about 29 acres in Trujillo Alto. Both deeds were recorded in the Registries of Property of Caguas and San Juan without setting forth the boundaries.of the portion corresponding to each registry.
By deed No. 244 executed on July 17, 1944 before Notary Angel A. Vázquez, the purchaser Felipe S. Vidal consolidated the property purchased by him from the Garcia spouses and another situated in Caguas, described under letter B, thereby forming a single property of 123.145 acres which is described under letter “E” as follows:
“E. RuRAIj : Parcel of land situated in wards San Antonio of •Caguas and Carraizo of Trujillo Alto containing one hundred twenty-three acres, one hundred forty-five hundredths, equivalent to forty-height hectares, forty ares, eight confiares, of which approximately NINETY-EOTJR ACRES ONE HUNDRED EORTY-FIVE HUNDREDTHS lie within the Municipality of Caguas and approximately twenty-nine acres within the Municipality of Trujillo Alto; it is bounded on the North by Sotero Navarro, Vicente Lasanta, Heirs of Domingo Flores and Angel Munet; on the South by Rio Grande de Loiza; on the East by Angel Munet, and Manuel Diaz; and on the West by Rio Grande ■de Loiza., Felipe Velázquez, today Heirs of Domingo Flores. It contains two one-story frame houses zinc-roofed, one for the superintendent and the other for a laborer and a zinc stable with concrete •floor, the whole property being wire-fenced.”
Apellant maintains that the Registrar of Property of Rio Piedras erred in recording the property consolidated and sold under letter “E” with the curable defect that it failed to describe the portion of the property lying within the territory of that registry.
Pursuant to § 1 of the Mortgage Law “If an estate be situated within the territorial districts of two or more registries, it shall be recorded in all of them.”
This same principle is consecrated in § 23 of the Regulations, but the latter is still more specific for it not only says that “if an estate should be situated within the territory belonging to two or more registries, the record shall be made in each one of them” but it also adds “including therein only that part of the estate which may be situated therein.”
Appellant as well as the respondent registrar abundantly argue Solís v. Registrar, 19 P.R.R. 984. In this case a mortgage was constituted on a property of 58 acres which is situated within two separate municipal districts. The registrar recorded it with the curable defect that it failed to describe the portion of the property lying in Cagnas and the portion of the same property lying in San Lorenzo and that it failed to distribute the amount secured by the whole property under the mortgage between the two portions composing said property. In deciding that case this Court stated that since one single property was involved the mortgage created
In Malpica v. The Registrar of Property, 21 P.R.R. 91, the Spanish Government had recorded in the Registry of Property of San Juan a property containing 400 acres of land situated in the district of Loiza which was purchased at public auction by Javier Zequeira who assigned his rights to Eugenio Malpica. Subsequently the Spanish Government •executed a deed of sale in favor of Malpica, setting out in the deed that from a survey of the property it appeared that it contained 419 acres and 4,522 varas instead of 400 acres; that the property was situated in two separate municipalities, Loiza and Rio Grande, and that it was impossible to determine the portion of land lying in each municipality. The registrar recorded it with the curable defect that it failed to describe the portion lying within each municipality. In
Commenting on a situation analogous to that involved herein, Galindo and Escosura, in volume 1 of their work Legislation Hipotecaria, say on page 251: ‘ ‘ . . . Section 12 of the Regulations, by providing that if an instrument or contract subject to record relates to properties which should be-recorded in more than one registry the registrar should forward it to the proper registry
■ An identical question to the one before us is treated by Martínez Moreda in his Comentarios y Jurispnodencia a la Legislación Hipotecaria, 1906 ed. On page 3 he says “ ... it may be inferred that the law requires the property to be recorded in the registry within which it lies. Finally, the second paragraph of § 17 dispels the doubt more effectively by providing that if any property should be situated within a territory belonging to two or more registries, record shall
Appellant further urges that the fact that deeds Nos.. 10 and 11 were recorded in the Registries of Property of Caguas and San Jnan without describing the boundaries of that part of the property lying within the territory of each one of said registries, created a right binding on respondent. There is no such thing. In classifying instruments subject to record, the registrars are not authorized to determine the legality of entries made in the registries by their predecessors. Hernández v. Registrar, 67 P.R.R. 423, and cases cited, on page 433. See also Land Authority v. Registrar, 62 P.R.R. 483-486; Matos v. Registrar, 61 P.R.R. 90-92 and López v. Registrar, 58 P.R.R. 1-5.
The lack of boundaries is not sufficient reason to deny recordation, since such a lack is a curable defect. As we said in Municipality of Salinas v. Registrar, 52 P.R.R. 76, 77: “This court has held in numerous cases that the statement, of the boundaries and area of a property is an essential requisite which must appear in the record made in the registry of property, and that the failure to comply with said requisites constitutes a curable defect.” And this assertion is buttressed by the authority of cases of this Court and Volume 2' of the Comentarios a la Legislación Hipotecaria of Morell y Terry, page 111.
Pursuant to the plain language of § 1 of the Mortgage Law and § 23 of the Regulations, as well as of the citations-we have made of Solís v. Registrar and Malpica v. Registrar, supra, and of the textwriters Galindo and Escosura and Martinez Moreda, we reach the conclusion that the deed subject matter of this appeal should have set out the boundaries of the portions situated in Caguas and Trujillo Alto in order to enable the registrars, respectively, to make the proper en
The registrar’s note is affirmed.
‘ ‘ Section 119. — (As amended by Act No. 62 of July 21, 1923, Session Laws, page 406.) — When a number of estates are mortgaged at the same time for a single credit, the amount or part of the lien to be borne by each shall bo .determined; mortgages constituted by agriculturists to. secure loans for agri- • cultural purposes, amortizable by partial annual, payment in a term of not less than ten years at a rate of interest not exceeding seven (7) per centum "being excepted from the foregoing provisions, when the contracting parties shall :so stipulate.”
The 6th paragraph of 5 ,57 of the. Begulations for Execution of Mortgage Law provides that when the instrument or contract relates to property situated jn the territory of a number of. different registries, the registrar, shall forward the document subject of record on his own initiative to the proper registrar.
Section 17 discussed by tbe above mentioned text-writers is equivalent to §• 23 of our Regulations.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.