12 September 2023 · Pablo del Estal
The First Registration of a Property: What It Involves and How It Is Carried Out
The First Registration of a Property: What It Involves and How It Is Carried Out
12 September, 2023
–
Civil
–
Pablo del Estal
The first registration makes refence to the act of registering a property for the first time in the corresponding land register, when the property has not been previously registered individually, nor in any other way. That is to say, the registration of a property constitutes its first registration in the land registry.
The absence of the property registration, although uncommon in large cities such as Madrid or Barcelona, occurs relatively frequently in properties located in small towns. These properties may have been inhabited for a long time and by different generations of families without ever being registered in the land register.
As has been previously commented in other blog entries, the registration of a property in the Property Registry is not compulsory in Spain, although it is highly recommended because it offers additional legal protection and makes public the ownership of the property. In other words, it gives it what is known as public registry attestation.
The starting point is Law 13/2015 of 24 June 2015 on the Reform of the Land Registration Act, which extended and promoted the cases provided for in Article 198 of the Land Registration Act (hereinafter referred to as ‘LRA’) to achieve concordance between the Land Registry and the extraregister physical and legal reality. Specifically, paragraph 5 of this provision determines the possibility of establishing this concordance through the first registration procedure.
In essence, the first registration can be executed in different ways:
1. Through a title of ownership (art. 203 LRA): is the most common and recommended method. We will take a closer look at this method for property registration next.
2. By providing a double public deed (art. 205 LRA): This method involves submitting both the public conveyance title of the individual seeking registration and the public title that verifies the prior acquisition of the property: that is to say, the public deed by which the property is acquired for the first time and the public deed by which the property being registered is obtained. It is worth noting that in order to use this method, it is necessary that at least one year has passed between the granting of both titles.
3. Through administrative certification (art. 206 LRA): This is a privileged method intended exclusively for Public Administrations and Public Law Entities with their own legal personality linked to or dependent on them, which aim to register a property, and for which a favorable report from their legal services affirming the ownership of the property is sufficient.
Regarding this method of registration, it is worth mentioning that, following the Reform of the Land Registration Act in 2015, the Catholic Church has been deprived of the possibility of continuing to use certification as a means of registration.
4. Through special procedures (art. 204 LRA): This method includes, for example, procedures for urban transformation or urban equidistribution, land consolidation, compulsory expropriation, and/or boundary determination.
Regardless of the method used, and since the reform of the Land Registration Act carried out in 2015, once the property is registered, its boundaries will be recorded in a georeferenced graphic database that will allow for the precise delineation of the property and, at the same time, coordinate the description with the Cadaster.
As mentioned earlier, the most common and advisable method for registering a property is through the title of ownership. This is a process that is carried out before the Notary of the notarial district where the property is located, or in the event that there is not one, before one of the neighboring districts.
Its purpose is to demonstrate and validate the acquisition of the property in question and, therefore, obtain a valid and effective title to register the property with its description in the Property Register.
To initiate this registration procedure, specific documentation and/or information is required, such as the title of ownership, the descriptive and graphic cadastral certification of the parcel or parcels corresponding to the literary description and graphic delineation of the property being requested for registration, or the identification of any rights established on the properties and their owners and/or encumbrances, as well as the identification of the occupant of the property intended for registration or, if applicable, the tenant.
Upon such a request, the Notary will prepare a Deed containing all the required documentation and will request the corresponding Property Registrar to certify that the property is not registered, and that the description of the title of ownership matches the cadastral certification, checking the identification of this property with others that may have been previously registered.
Subsequently, the Registrar will make the requested annotation (valid for ninety days, with the possibility of an additional ninety-day extension) and will send the previously mentioned certification to the Notary to be included in the file. In addition, in accordance with the initial request, the Notary will notify all potential stakeholders.
Likewise, the Notary will publish a notice in the Official State Gazette (BOE) announcing the processing of the Deed, and any interested party may submit objections and provide evidence against it within one month. If there is opposition, the Notary will consider the procedure concluded and archive the proceedings, and will immediately inform the Registrar. However, any unsubstantiated opposition may lead to a declaratory lawsuit.
If there is no opposition, the Notary will prepare a Deed granting the requested petition and send it to the Registrar to carry out the requested registration.
In essence, the title of ownership procedure is the most recommended method for registering a property because it is immediate, unlike the other alternatives where the registration is considered provisional, and one must wait for two years from the first registration for it to be considered final (art. 207 LRA).
The truth is that the registration of a property provides legal certainty and is essential, for example, when applying for a mortgage. However, in any case, it is highly advisable because only in this way does the property receive legal protection against third parties.
###
---