QUESTION

A month ago I signed a private sales contract with somebody who sold me a rural property in a village on the coast. Although this person has a public deed of sale as the document of acquisition of the property from the previous owners of the land, the property in question has never been entered in the Property Register.

I would like to know if I can make my document of ownership valid so that the property in question is entered in my name in the Property Register.

ANSWER

One of the forms envisaged under Spanish legislation for the registration of property that is not entered in the Property Register in the name of any person is by means of the public deed of its acquisition, complemented by the relevant notarial statement when the document of acquisition of the transferor is not attested to in a duly attested manner.

In your case, and bearing in mind the data and facts that you have described in your query, and that the acquisition document of the transferor may be attested to in a duly attested manner, the action that should be taken in order to register your property would be as follows:

  • Request from the Property Registrar a certificate attesting that the property in question is not entered in the Register, in order to verify this point.
  • Request in the relevant Land Registry offices, a certificate containing a description of the property with graphs and boundaries of the land in order to verify that the description for land registry purposes matches the description contained in the public deed of sale under which the person selling you the property acquired the property in question.
  • Execute, in a public deed, the sale of the property between you and the person selling the property.
  • Present to the relevant Property Registry, the two public documents of acquisition available (that of the transferor and yours), together with the certificate issued by the Land Registry offices attesting that the property and boundaries in both documents are identical, together with the certificate attesting that the property is not entered in the Property Register and requesting the registration of the property in your name.

In the event of this procedure being unsuccessful, because any one of the presumptions described above proves to be untrue, a public notary would have to execute a notarial statement that you would have to present to the Property Registry, together with the public deed of acquisition of the property and request the registration thereof.

Additionally, there is another procedure for the registration of property, such as ownership proceedings, which is through the courts and is, therefore, a much more lengthy procedure.