Martínez Vélez v. García
Martínez Vélez v. García
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Jorge L. Martínez Vélez filed a complaint in the Superior Court, San Juan Part, against Ana Maria Garcia praying for the revendication of an urban property, house and lot, as well as the fruits that such property yielded or should have yielded. In the first cause of action he alleged, in brief, that he was the owner in fee simple of the property because he had purchased it from Rafael Ubiles Olmeda, defendant’s husband — who in turn had acquired it while he was single— by public deed recorded in the Registry of Property and that the defendant occupied it unlawfully, refusing to surrender it. In the second cause of action he alleged that he had been deprived of receiving the property rent figured at $50 monthly for the months of June to December 1952 and from January to February 1953, equivalent to $450. The defendant answered denying the essential averments of both causes of action, and set up as a defense that, prior to the date of her marriage to Ubiles Olmeda, she lived with him in concubinage giving birth to two children; that during the concubinage Ubiles Olmeda acquired the property described in
In her first assignment she states that the judgment “is contrary to law whereby the action of revendication does not lie.” Rafael Ubiles Olmeda bought the property in question while living in concubinage with the appellant. That condition subsisted from 1940 until 1950 when they contracted marriage. The money used by Ubiles to buy the property was money he received as compensation for damages suffered in an accident, and there is no controversy concerning the fact that the money belonged to him. The appellant did not contribute a single cent for the acquisition of the real property Ubiles Olmeda recorded the property in his name in the Registry of Property as a separate property. After acquiring it and while the concubinage existed, the house was improved partly with appellant’s money which she received from her work in a sewing shop and from other small activities in which she was engaged. Apparently, in 1952 Ubiles Olmeda and the appellant had a marital mix-up. In June of that same year Olmeda sold the property to the appellee without his wife appearing in the deed of sale. The real property was recorded in the registry in the name of the purchaser. Months later he brought this suit.
The trial court, after hearing and weighing the evidence introduced by the parties, held that the action of reven-dication issued in view of the fact that the appellee had proved that he was the owner of the property because he
As we have said, there is no controversy as to the fact that the real property was acquired by Ubiles Olmeda with money exclusively his own while living in concubinage with the appellant. Appellant’s basis for contending that the trial court erred in sustaining the action of revendication is that after Ubiles purchased the property she contributed —while living in concubinage with him
The court did not commit the error assigned. Unquestionably it reached the conclusions stated by the appellant but it concluded that the appellee had purchased the property validly from the party entitled to alienate it. In other words, that he acquired it without there being any circumstance which might deprive him of the status of a bona fide purchaser from the person who according to the Registry had a right to sell the property. With this view we cannot disagree.
It is alleged in the second assignment that the court erred “in finding that the appellant invested in the property the sum of $1,250”, contending that said sum is less than what she actually invested. There is no need to decide whether such sum should have been increased, since the court could not impose on appellee the obligation to pay any sum to the appellant on account of her contribution to improve the real property, or recognize a right to half of the rental. These errors, however, cannot be corrected on appeal since the plaintiff did not appeal from the judgment containing those pronouncements. Puig et al. v. Succession of Polanco, 16 P.R.R. 705; F. Gavilán & Cía. v. Garriga and Hijos, et at., 38 P.R.R. 372.
The judgment appealed from will be affirmed.
Appellant testified that in 1950 when she married Ubiles the house had already been repaired and that on the day of the trial it was in the same condition as in 1950.
While appellant alleges in her answer to the complaint, as has been noted, that she helped Ubiles physically and financially to improve the property and increase its market value, both having agreed not to sell it, she testified at the trial on one occasion that “I gave him all the money that I received from my activities to improve the house, having in mind ' that it was for both of us . . . ,” and on other occasions, that there was an agreement between Ubiles and her that the property belonged to both of them, without Ubiles being able to sell it without her consent.
“. . . a community interest in property therefore cannot be predicated solely on concubinage”, Torres v. Roldán, 67 P.R.R. 342. Likewise the mere fact that one of them gives money to the other to improve a property belonging to the latter does not create a community of property. This is constituted where a man and woman living in concubinage agree, expressly or impliedly, that they will pool their earnings and share equally
If there were any obligation of paying the appellant what she invested to improve the property, it would fall on Ubiles Olmeda and not on appellee.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.