Case ID: pr_22/html/0612-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Hutchison MR. JUSTICE DEL TORO.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Figueroa, Appellant, v. The Registrar of Arecibo, Respondent.
    Appeal from a Decision of the Registrar of Property Refusing to Record an Instrument for the Grouping of Properties.
    No. 234.
    Decided July 7, 1915.
    Record oe Title — Grouping of Properties, — Survey.—There was presented for record in the registry an instrument in which six contiguous parcels of land were grouped containing, according to the muniments of title, 198.50 cuerdas, but, according to a recent survey made after summoning the owners of the adjoining properties, 212 cuerdas, the property being described in the usual way by bounds, and the registrar refused to admit the instrument to record as to the number of cuerdas in excess of what was shown by .the survey. Held: That the decision of the registrar could hot lie sustained.
    The facts are stated in the opinion.
    
      Mr. Manuel Paz Urdas for the appellant.
    Mr. Felip.e Cuchí, the registrar, appeared pro se.
    
   Mr. Justice Hutchison

delivered the opinion of the court.

In an instrument presented for record to the Registrar of-Arecibo, six contiguous parcels of land were grouped and consolidated into one composite tract “containing, according to the muniments of title, 198% cuerdas’-, equivalent to 78 hectares, 41 ares, 84 centiares, and the exact superficial area of which, according to a recent survey made by the surveyor, Arturo Puig Jirau, after sunmmoning the owners of the adjoining properties, is 212 cuerdas, equivalent to 83 hectares, 32 ares, 50 centiares of level and broken land in pasture, coffee groves, plantains and sugar cane.” The instrument further recites that “of the said 212 cuerdas of land 177 are situated in the barrio of Aibonito and 35 in that of Campo Alegre,” and the whole is described in the usual way by bounds. The endorsement of the registrar, in so far as involved herein, is as follows:

“The grouping referred to in this instrument has been made only as to the superficial area of one hundred and ninety-eight and a half acres, at folio 26, volume 34 of Hatillo, property number 1784, 1st registration; and the record is denied as to the remainder of thirteen and a half acres of its entire superficial area inasmuch as it does not appear to have been recorded" in the name of Sebastián Figueroa nor in that of another person.”

The ruling cannot be sustained. Cobb v. Registrar, 12 P. R. R., 211; 1 Galindo (Edition of 1903) p. 581; Odriozola, pp. 774, 775.

Reversed.

Chief Justice Hernandez and Justices Wolf and Aldrey concurred.

Mr. Justice del Toro dissented.

DISSENTING OPINION OP

MR. JUSTICE DEL TORO.

I am of the opinion that the decision appealed from should be affirmed. It is well settled that the registrar has discretionary powers in cases of this kind and in my judgment he duly exercised the same in refusing to record the increased area on the strength of a simple statement made by the inter. ested party in the deed of consolidation to the effect that a survey had been made by a surveyor after the owners of the adjoining property had been summoned and in requiring the presentation of the survey itself.