Hello and welcome to Puerto Rico Legal Blog. My name is Santiago Lampón. I am a lawyer and a notary in Puerto Rico and this is the first of a three-part video post regarding the sub division of land and properties including the structure in Puerto Rico.
You can listen to each one of these three parts individually. You don’t need each one of them to have the whole track, to understand the whole concept to listen to all three of them, but if you do it will be even better. At the end of each one of these posts you can place or make your questions with regards to what you have heard or if you have any other ideas about any another subjects that come up as you listen to this posts.
This first part I am going to be talking about a common issue that I face in my regular practice, real estate practice and it is the subdivision of land mostly by family members. You have the father, the mother and they have children and as children grow up they get married and parents go head and say why don’t you take that little piece of land over there and you build a house for you and your wife and children, my grandchildren and you have these subdivisions without complying with the formalities of applicable law. Interestingly enough, they are able connect electricity, they are able to connect water to this new property, to this new household, they even build fences around it but when the time comes when they want to do mortgage or they want to sell the property it is not properly registered at the property registry because it lacks the necessary land, subdivision permits.
The interesting thing is that you can walk in there and you can see everything seems all right. In Puerto Rico, you are supposed to have a permit to connect water and electric. How they manage I don’t know but many years ago, it was very formal. Now a day it has become more formal but it is very important that the following: Number 1, if you subdivide land without the proper permits that is illegal. Number 2, without the proper permits you cannot execute the proper deed to have it properly registered at the property registry. Number 3, if you don’t have it properly registered, if you don’t have the permits, you cannot get water, you cannot get electricity and then it becomes a problem when it is time to sell the property.
If the elders passed away without doing all this process beforehand. The problem becomes even a little bigger. So, if you are selling property or you are purchasing property or you have a big lot that you want to subdivide so that you can sell the smaller lots and make money, make sure you follow through with the proper permits or if you assuring real estate that the seller has the proper permits.
I hope you enjoyed this video. Remember I will be posting a couple more videos on this subject. My name is Santiago Lampón, a lawyer and notary in Puerto Rico. You can ask your questions and I want to wish you a great day. Thank you.