Puerto Rico Developments: New Mortgage and Registry of Property Law in the works

On May 18, 2015, Senate Bill 1400 was filed by the controlling majority in the Puerto Rico Senate. Senate Bill 1400 seeks to abolish the long-standing Puerto Rico Mortgage and Registry of Property Law of 1979, Law Number 198 of August 8, 1979, as amended, and substitute the same with a brand new statute covering all substantive and procedural items on the subject matter. The aforesaid bill also proposes to either revoke or restate several other special statutes that closely interplay with the operations of the Puerto Rico Registry of Property as we have known it for the past several decades.

As expressed in the bill’s statement of motives, the intent of Senate Bill 1400 is, in essence, to improve the operations of the Puerto Rico Registry of Property by bringing them to modern technological standards, and to streamline and simplify the filing, recordation and publication processes of the different legal transactions filed for inscription at the Puerto Rico Registry of Property.

Senate Bill 1400 is 159 pages long and encompasses 329 articles. The Ferraiuoli team is in the process of evaluating the proposed bill and will continue to track the same as it progresses through the Puerto Rico Senate, House of Representatives and henceforth.

This notice has been prepared for information purposes only and is not intended, and should not be relied upon, as legal advice. If you have any questions or comments about Senate Bill 1400, wish to obtain more information related thereto, or about its possible effect(s) on local transactions, please contact us.