Good morning!
I am glad you are following this episodes. This is a VERY important one. So take a look and if you have any questions or need any help do not hesitate to email me, give me a call or post the question on this page.
Continue to do great!
Very truly yours,
Santiago Lampón
Filing a Deed at the PR Property Registry – Transcript
Hello my name is Santiago Lampón, I am a lawyer and a notary in Puerto Rico and welcome to Puerto Rico Legal Blog. In this episode I am going to show you only one document but it is a very basic and important document that I want you to ask from your notary every time you perform a real estate transaction.
The number 1 and number 2 item that people ask me about is how do I find my title, how do I find my deed after I do a closing. I am doing a series of episodes that are associated with the format or the form of a deed in Puerto Rico. If you go through the blog and you search the word deed, you are going to find the episodes, which I deal with that subject. Because a deed is the document that collects all the information, it’s the document that actually represents a real estate transaction in Puerto Rico. If you want to do a purchase and sale you need a deed. If you are going to do a donation you need a deed. If you are going to do a mortgage or cancel the mortgage you need a deed. The deed is the most important form of any other forms in Puerto Rico. For example wills have to be done through a deed. The most useful and generally used form of a will in Puerto Rico.
Now once the deed is done with regards to real estate properties, that deed has to be filed under property registry. Assuming the property is registered at the property registry. We have covered before that some properties are not at the properly registry that’s why I do videos on untitled properties. That’s another subject. Let’s stick to deeds. Once the deed is filed at the property registry the property registry issues a formal and very specific document that in Spanish, if you look at time you have minutes, sixty seconds. The word minute, which is also a document used in corporate law but at the end the letter “e” is substituted by the letter “a” and you have a “minuta”. In this screen I have a “minuta” which shows and what it represents and means is, something that happened at a given time. So let’s look at a document. Because after you are done with the closing ask for your “minuta” from your notary.
Now the “minuta” has a title of the property registry where it belongs to, you know where it is being registered and it also shows you the name of the registrar, the address and the phone number. So at the beginning you already have some very important information. Where you deed was registered, who is the registrar, the address and the phone number. Now, the book is organized by diaries. The document is in Spanish so I am going to translate as best as I can. “Entrada” means entry. Which is just a numerical sequence and “asiento” is chair but it actually translating to English, is “where it sits”. Since they have so many transactions coming in everyday they have to subdivide the numbers. So you have the diary, which in this case was 260,the entry number and the seating number. Those are the three numbers you need to find on the deed while it is pending recording. This one was presented on 4/3/2014 which means the 4th of March 2014 (its in Spanish, if it were it English it would be 4th of March 2014) at military time, I don’t know why, 1:45 in the afternoon which is 13:45 for the year 2014. The person who present it, the name is called Coralis Rivera Alvarado she works for me. We handle our fillings ourselves. We want to make sure they are done on time. Then the person interested is the person who actually wants this deed to be filed at the property registry and whatever the deed represents registered. It is a public deed. This one was a mortgage cancellation and as I covered in another episode you have to file them at the property registry. It was deed number “blank” (again not disclosing private information) of the 28th of February of 2014. So it shows you when the deed was executed and it shows you when the deed was filed. So this was executed on the 28th of February of 2014 and it was filed on the 4th of March, 4 days later of 2014.
Now it says the notary in Santiago Lampón Gonzalez, yours truly. It has the address and it has the rights that were paid in conjunction or any other documents that were filed in conjunction with the deed. This is a “minuta de presentacion.” A minute of filing at the property registry and it is the document that I recommend that you obtain from your notary after closing is done. Down here has the seal of the property registry. It shows that your deed was actually filed. Like I said before in this case if the cancellation of mortgage is not filed at the property registry it doesn’t serve its purpose.
Again my name is Santiago Lampón. I am a lawyer and notary in Puerto Rico. I hope you have found this episode useful. Remember you can email me your quotations or post them right here on this page and I will look forward to be in communication with you. I hope you have a great day.