Biascoechea v. Registrar of Property of Río Piedras

76 P.R. 234
CourtSupreme Court of Puerto Rico
DecidedMarch 19, 1954
DocketNo. 1304
StatusPublished

This text of 76 P.R. 234 (Biascoechea v. Registrar of Property of Río Piedras) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Puerto Rico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Biascoechea v. Registrar of Property of Río Piedras, 76 P.R. 234 (prsupreme 1954).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Marrero

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Alberto H. Biaseoechea and his wife constituted a mortgage for $20,000 in a public deed executed in San Juan on July 16, 1953, to secure a bearer’s note on demand, with interest at the rate of 7 per cent per annum, or an undivided condominium of 20,000 square meters, within a parcel owned by him of twenty two and seventy two hundredths cuerdas, located at Barrio Cangrejos Arriba of the municipality of Carolina. The following is stated in clause 13 of the deed:

“The mortgagor,1 states that the undivided condominium of 20,000 square meters included in the aforesaid property, has no fixed location thereon, so that in the event of foreclosure, the purchaser at the sale, shall only acquire an indeterminate interest equivalent to 20,000 square meters in the aforedescribed property; however the ‘Mortgagor’ binds himself in such case to obtain the corresponding permit from the Planning Board to segregate said condominium if the purchaser at the auction sale should not wish to remain as co-owner, said purchaser having a preferred right to choose the place of location of the 20,000 square meters as long as it is in an adj acent portion of land.”

When this deed was presented at the Registry of Property of Río Piedras registration was denied by virtue of the note which we now copy:

“Record of this document is hereby denied because pursuant to Act No. 213 of May 12, 1942 as amended by § 2 of Act No. 388 of May 11, 1950, the delimitation of a condominium of 20,000 square meters, on which a mortgage is constituted, as a part of the property of 22.72 cuerdas, constitutes a subdivision for which the corresponding permit from the Planning Board of Puerto Rico has not been obtained, and a cautionary notice is entered instead for the legal term provided by law in favor of the holder of the aforesaid mortgage note at folio ... of Carolina. . . .”

[236]*236Alberto H. Biascoechea appealed from the latter note to this Court, pursuant to the provisions of the Act of March 1, 1902, p. 312. His sole contention is that “the respondent Registrar erred in deciding that pursuant to the afore-cited Act No. 213 the execution of a mortgage on the condominium of 20,000 square meters and its delimitation as part of the property of 22.72 cuerdas constitutes a subdivision . . .”

Pursuant to § 2 of Act No. 213 of May 12, 1942 (Sess. Laws, p. 1106), as amended by Act No. 388 of May 11, 1950, Sess. Laws, p. 906:

‘Subdivision’, means the division or subdivision of a lot, tract, or parcel of land into two or more parts for sale, transfer, cession, lease, donation, usufruct, use, census, trust, as well as for any other transaction, or for a new building; and includes also, housing development as heretofore used in Puerto Rico legislation; and also a simple segregation.” (Italics ours.)

And pursuant to § 24 of the same Act, as amended in the manner stated:

“From and after the effective date of applicable subdivision regulations provided for under Section 10 hereof, no subdivision of land within Puerto Rico shall be made, and no plat of a subdivision of land shall be received for recording, no buildings shall be erected, nor permitted to be erected, no act or transaction as defined in Section 2 hereof shall be carried out and no permit issued, except, and to the extent, that the same shall comply, with said regulations and shall have been finally approved according thereto by the Board. ...”

Thus, had this been a case of a subdivision, the Registrar would have acted correctly. Rivera v. Registrar, 64 P.R.R. 440. However, as we shall now see, there was no such subdivision.

Every owner is entitled to enjoy and dispose of his things without limitations other than those established by law. Section 280 of the Civil Code, 1930 edition. He is therefore authorized to mortgage the property which he owns. Section 333 of the same Code grants that same right to every co-[237]*237owner. The mortgage in the latter case is limited, of course, to the share that the co-owner has in the property; and since the right of the co-owner is to an abstract share in the property, the mortgage is not levied on any determinate portion of the property but embraces the whole area. Enríquez v. Registrar, 65 P.R.R. 383. On this point, Galindo and Esco-sura in their Comentarios a la Legislación Hipotecaria de España state the following at page 169 of Vol. 3 of their work:

“Undivided property may be partially mortgaged by any of the co-owners ... in such case, the mortgage only encumbers the portion owned by the mortgagor; but while that portion is not determined, it embraces the tuhole property; and if the property would have to be alienated in order to make the payment, the undivided portion shall be sold without prejudice so that if any of the co-owners are interested in the partition to determine the portion burdened by the mortgage, it shall be so done, with the intervention of the mortgagee as an interested party. The same holds when the owner of the entire property, in the exercise of his right, mortgages only an indeterminate portion or part thereof; . . (Italics ours.)

And Morell in the third volume of the second corrected and supplemented edition of his Comentarios a la Legislación Hipotecaria Española, referring to property mortgaged by a part-owner says:

“When the thing held in common is subsequently partitioned, the mortgage bears only on the determinate part corresponding to the mortgagor in the partition. In order to avoid any prejudice that might be caused to him in the partition, if the debtor is adjudicated, whether intentionally or not, the worst portion, the creditor is entitled, pursuant to the Civil Law, to intervene in the partition and to object to any partition executed without his intervention and fraudulently.”

See § § 333 and 336 of bur Civil Code, 1930 ed. Therefore, when the “mortgagor” set forth in the deed that in the event of foreclosure, the purchaser at the sale would only acquire an indeterminate share, and that in such case he would have a preferred right to choose the place of location [238]*238of the 20,000 meters mortgaged, he was acting completely within the law. However, those statements in nowise were tantamount to fixing or establishing boundaries of the 20,000 meters mortgaged.

The respondent Registrar informs us in the brief which he filed in support of his note that in his opinion there is no difference between this case and that of Martínez v. Registrar, 73 P.R.R. 203; and the Planning Board of Puerto Rico who has appeared as amicus curiae with our approval says, “that to mortgage a specific condominium of 20,000 square meters within a property of a greater area, is a subdivision pursuant to the scope of § 2,” supra, and that “the purpose of recording the mortgage on a condominium of 20,000 square meters of land which is part of a property of a greater area, can be no other than to give status of its own to said condominium as an independent property.”

In Martínez v. Registrar, supra, petitioner and his wife constituted a voluntary mortgage to secure the payment of a promissory note payable to bearer, in the amount of $10,000 on a lot 314.76 square meters,

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