General Regulation of Title Deeds Registry: creates significant improvements in the real estate registration system
Authors: Jacqueline Fernández and Sebastián Jiménez
In October 2022, the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court of Justice issued the General Regulation of Title Deeds Registry ( established by Resolution No. 788-2022) , which revoked the General Regulation of Title Deeds Registry, with its amendments, of 2009.
With clearer and updated rules, Regulation 788-22 seeks to guarantee legal certainty for owners of real estate registered in the Dominican Republic.
Likewise, the Regulation introduces significant innovations and improvements to the Dominican real estate registry system. In this article we will address some of its novelties and modifications.
Faster and more efficient operation of the registry system
Regulation 788-22 introduced new functions under the General Directorate of Title Deeds Registry, among which are:
-Coordination among the organs and institutions for the operation and management, of the National Directorate of Title Deeds Registry and its dependencies.
-Seeing to the equitable distribution of the workload among the Title Deeds Registrars throughout the country (see Article 6 of the Regulation).
This means that the institutions of the Dominican registry system (especially the country’s Title Deeds Registries) will be able to work faster, more organized and more efficiently.
New developments in registration principles
Regarding the registry principles, the principle of rogation includes the Attorney General’s Office and the Bodies of the Real Estate Jurisdiction, as interested parties with the capacity to request before the Title Deeds Registry the following regarding real estate: registration, annotation or cancellation of property rights, charges, encumbrances and provisional measures.
In the principle of priority, Article 30 of the Regulations establishes that an action that is in the process of being qualified will be given priority over another action registered subsequently, contradictory or incompatible with the action being heard. The latter would be suspended until the registered action is first qualified.
In this scope, the Attorney General’s Office and the Real Estate Jurisdiction Bodies are new actors that may make requests affecting the ownership of a property before the Title Deeds Registry, if judicial proceedings involving the property or the owner of such property are being carried out.
In addition, with the inclusion of the principle of priority, it will no longer have any effect to register actions that seek to prejudice or stop any other action that is being heard, which regulates the order at the time of registration.
Acceptance of digital signatures and formats
The Resolution establishes the acceptance of digital signatures and formats, which comply with the requirements established by law for their validity. This measure applies to acts under private signature, Title Deed Certificates, the act of declaration of Condominium Regime and all actions related to real estate.
New deadlines and provisions to optimize the work of the Title Deeds Registry
Regarding deadlines, the new Regulation 788-22 establishes the following:
-All deadlines contained in the Regulations are counted in business days, except in those cases where the Regulations establish otherwise.
-The National Director has a term of three (3) working days to pronounce on the cases of recusal of the Title Deeds Registrars.
-The deadline for the Title Deeds Registrars to issue a final decision on the applications submitted was reduced to 30 days (previously 45 days).
-The Title Deeds Registrar has 30 working days to perform and complete its qualification function.
-The deadline for correcting irregularities was increased to 30 working days, with the opportunity of a single extension, to be submitted duly justified in 30 calendar days or less.
-In case of non-execution of cases by the Title Deeds Registry (within the terms established by Law 108-05 of the Real Estate Registry), the applicant may complain in writing and request that the Title Deeds Registrar definitively resolve the case, within a term not exceeding 5 business days.
-For requests of reconstruction of registries, the Regulation reduces the term to 15 working days for the National Directorate of Title Deeds Registry to authorize or deny such request.
The Regulations include new provisions that establish the grounds for the recusal of the Title Deeds Registrars in the exercise of their qualification function, as well as the process for processing the request for recusal.
Article 67 of Regulation 788-22 allows the partial execution of the cases, contrary to what happened in the past. Therefore, when several registry actions are submitted on a property before the corresponding Title Deeds Registry, the aforesaid Registry may execute the appropriate actions, issuing an official rejection for the actions that cannot be corrected.
If an action depends on another action, the partial execution would not operate but the rejection of the registry actions in question.
Regarding the issuance of the Title Deeds Certificates, Regulation 788-22 establishes that the Title Deeds Registry shall keep the Title Deeds Certificates in its custody for six (6) months only. After said period, if the certificates have not been withdrawn, they will be sent to the Central Archive.
Registry block: a new figure
Another new figure incorporated in Regulation 788-22 is the “registry block”, defined in Article 115 as “the annotation that is recorded in the Complementary Registry of the real estate as an effect of a definitive or provisional registration, which has its origin in a legal rule, and which prevents the total or partial registration of any subsequent right or affectation. The legal norm that creates the registry block defines the extension of its effects“.
Regarding the Condominium Regime, Regulation 788-22 adds new provisions, highlighting the prohibition to register litigation on rights registered upon a property, which is registered under a condominium regime, due to the effect of the registry block generated by the constitution of the regime.
Regarding registry publicity, Regulation 788-22 restricts public access to the documents that support the registered real rights; only persons who demonstrate a legitimate interest may have access to such documents.
Appeals against actions of registered rights
Regulation 788-22 establishes the appeals that may be filed against the actions of registered rights, among which are the following:
-Inscription of a preventive annotation in the Complementary Register, upon the filing of an administrative appeal.
-Suspension of the qualification of the contradictory action that enters after an appeal filing, as long as it is made within the term to appeal.
-Addition of complementary documentation in the requests for reconsideration, as long as it does not modify the request.
-Notifying the party involved within 2 full days (excluding the day of the beginning of the deadline, and the day of its ending) of its interposition.
-Appeals due to material error have a term of 15 working days for the body that generated the error to decide on it.
With all these improvements and innovations, we conclude that Regulation 788-22 strengthens and updates the regulatory framework of the registry system of real rights in the Dominican Republic.
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