Good morning!
I hope you are having a great week. Here I present you Part 2 on the subject of Property Taxes in Puerto Rico. This is part 2 of a 4 part series.
There is some great data here for you to know, so you can share with as many people you want! If you need any help give me a call or email me.
Truly yours,
Santiago Lampón
PROPERTY TAXES IN PUERTO RICO – REGISTRATION (TRANSCRIPT)
Hello my name is Santiago Lampón and I am lawyer and a notary in Puerto Rico and welcome to Puerto Rico Legal Video Blog. This is part 2 of what I anticipate will be a 4-part series. There is a first part, which is an introductory part. If you didn’t watch it, that’s ok. You can continue watching from this point on but the other parts require that you watch all three of them.
Property taxes in Puerto Rico, the CRIM is the agency that registers or keeps the records and actually invoices these property taxes. I am going to interject something that the importance of the work done by CRIM cannot be understated. Property taxes in Puerto Rico are collected and distributed to municipalities to what you can probably think of as counties. Actually they are just town ships and that is what they work with. So, the money that they collect from property taxes meaning the town ships, that’s the money that they work with. So, when someone fails to pay property taxes or avoids paying property taxes it is actually deducting or reducing the amount of money, the budget for a given township for where the property is located at.
Registration, again the CRIM has a separate record to the property tax or the property registry in Puerto Rico. So, if your property is at the property registry, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is at the property tax authority. The fact that it is at the property tax authority, the CRIM, it means that it is most likely at the property registry. It is like the inverse situation.
Now the first thing I want to clear for those of you out there, that their properties are not at the property registry, is that the fact that the property is not registered, doesn’t mean you don’t register for property tax. A lot of people say I don’t have title; my property is not at the property registry. Flunk! Property taxes are paid by those who claim or understand that the property that they reside on or they possess is their property. If you believe that you are the owner of that piece of land or that house you register and you pay taxes. That’s what owners do. Matter of fact it is what is expected. It is a legal way to do it.
When you register a property at the property tax authority, at the CRIM, you have to submit your deed and again if you do not have a registered title you can submit any document that evidences that you own that piece of land. Segregation permits for the land, all land in Puerto Rico used to be one big chunk and then it has been subdivided throughout the years, the permit that provides for that subdivision and if you built the house in the land where there was no structure there before then you have to register the structure because you pay taxes for the land and you pay taxes for the structure. If you have the structure and you expanded it, you added rooms and you added a garage or something those additions also pays taxes. So, the registration process is independent from the titles at the property registry. There are certain documents that are required. I am not listing all of them, I am just giving you an idea, but it is important that your register. I am going to give you one main reason for it. When you register, you are going to be paying back taxes and interest unless you can explain why you didn’t register it. So, you better register it now, particularly if you are purchasing a property, make sure that it is registered or that the proper potential indebtedness is placed into an escrow account so that when the property is assessed it is registered and then assessed and the taxes invoiced that you have that little egg nest from which you can collect. Because as I cover in my next video the liability might be yours.
My name is Santiago Lampón, I am a lawyer and a notary in Puerto Rico and I invite you to present me with any questions by writing me an email or giving me a phone call or just posting them on this page. Have a great day.