Fajardo Cabassa v. Registrar of Property of San Germán

98 P.R. 183
Supreme Court of Puerto Rico·Decided December 30, 1969·No. No. O-68-123·Published

Opinion

Mr. Justice Pérez Pimentel

delivered the opinion of the Court.

On June 28, 1965, a certified copy of the deed of lease No. 203 executed on June 10, 1959 before notary Carlos García Méndez was presented in the San Germán Section of [184] the Registry of Property for record. The Registrar, suspended the record of said deed and returned it to the presenter, through the following note:

“This document is hereby returned and recording thereof is suspended because Ulpiano Colom is not credited the power to appear in the name of the. lessees who compose the Mateo Fajardo Cardona' Community, neither is Luis V. Valiente credited' to appear in the name of his wife Carmen Roger, and a note of suspension for 60 days is entered on the margin of the entry of presentation No. 599 at page 300 of Vol. 221 of the Daybook, as provided by Act No. 73 of June 23, 1958. San Germán, March 8, 1966. Fees $0.50 cancelled stamp in that amount. Act No. 67 of 1963. (Signed) Juan Juan Toro, Registrar. Accordingly, I received the document and was notified of the foregoing note of suspension, today March 17, 1966. (Signed) Antonio Seda, presenter.” (Appellant’s Brief at p. 3.)

Appellants, feeling aggrieved, filed an administrative appeal bearing No. G-66-3.of this Court. On June 24, 1966 we rendered judgment in said appeal, reversing the note appealed from and we ordered the requested record!

In accordance with the judgment rendered by this Court on appeal G-66-3, the same deed No. 203 was presented anew for its recording in the Registry on November 28, 1966.

On April 19, 1968 the Registrar refused to record it through the following note:

“The record of the foregoing document is Refused in view of the fact that the lessors Carmen Roger Valiente, Héctor Fajardo Roger, and Wilda Fajardo Cordova are also lessees for it has been thus stated therein upon being listed as part of the Community of Heirs Mateo Fajardo Cardona, and in view also of the fact that the Heirs of Bertha Frances are set forth as part of said Community, such Heirs lack juridical capacity and they do not appear and the deed' does not state who are said heirs; it is also noted that the document states that fifty hundredths of a cuerda was segregated from propérty letter ‘A’ which does not' appear as recorded and it is not established that the same had been approved by the Planning [185] Board of Puerto Rico, wherefore the proper cautionary notice is entered for the legal term in favor of the lessees, there where it is indicated in the margin of the description of each one of the properties, the notice of property letter .B being limited to the area as it appears in the record after its survey and the segregation of 3.40 cuerdas made thereof, the entries being verified with the curable defects of not crediting Luis V. Valiente with the power to appear in the- name of his wife Carmen Roger, nor that Ulpiano ■ Colom to appear in the name of the aforementioned Heirs of Mateo Fajardo Cardona Community. All the properties are also encumbered with a lease contract in favor of Carmen Roger Suau Valiente and her husband Luis V. Valiente of the joint ownership belonging to Héctor and Wilda Fajardo, and also thus: The letter A, lease in favor of José Nazario; lease in favor of South'- Porto Rico Sugar Company of Puerto Rico, and because of its propriety, with lease contracts in favor of Bernal Estate and South Porto Rico Sugar Company; the letter D, perpetual right of way in favor of South Porto Rico Sugar Company of Puerto Rico, and jointly with the property letter E, with mortgage in favor of The Federal Land Bank of' Baltimore for $20,000. Safi Germán, April 19,1968.”.
“I was notified of the forégoing note of refusal today, April 24,1968. (Signed) P. Rampolla”

Appellants, feeling aggrieved, filed this new administrative appeal.

In his second note refusing to admit to record the above-mentioned deed No. 203, the Registrar alleges different reasons from those stated in the first note suspending record and which was reversed by this Court.

It is a well-established doctrine by this Court that a registrar of property is not empowered to refuse record of a deed for a second time on grounds different from those - stated in the first note because it is the respom sibility of the registrars to gather in one single note all the legal grounds of their refusal and that the first note having been reversed and the record of the document having' been ordered, the powers of the registrar are restricted to per[186] form the necessary operations to carry it through. Roig v. Registrar of Property, 18 P.R.R. 11 (1912); Guánica Céntrale v. The Registrar, 23 P.R.R. 682 (1916); Echavarria et al. v. Registrar, 24 P.R.R. 80 (1916).

However, the registrar maintains in this case that in his first note he did not pass on the document, but he limited himself to suspend registration and return the document for the lack of other complementary and necessary documents required for a complete evaluation.

A similar contention was decided against the registrar in the case of Guánica Centrale v. The Registrar, supra. There the registrar endorsed a note on the agricultural contracts denying the recording because a stamp for the tax of one dollar had not been cancelled on the original instrument and because another stamp of fifty cents for the tax for recording the same was not deposited in the registry. This Court said at p. 683: “The respondent registrar is mistaken regarding the former action, for the instrument was not returned without being passed upon. On the contrary, it was reviewed at that time because the registrar stated in his note thereto that the instrument was denied admission to record for the reasons assigned therein and a decision of a registrar refusing to admit an instrument to record and setting forth his reasons therefor is clearly a reviewal of the instrument.”

The registrar also maintains that the above-mentioned cases were decided before Art. 19 of the Mortgage Law was amended by Act No. 73 of 1958, and that this amendment “which authorizes the suspension of documents, does not prevent the Registrar, upon being presented anew with the document, from passing upon it completely, and he shall proceed to set forth all the defects it may have.”

We do not agree. Article 19 of the Mortgage Law, before it was amended by the aforementioned act of 1958, provided:

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Fajardo Cabassa v. Registrar of Property of San Germán, 98 P.R. 183 (prsupreme 1969).

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