Understanding Property Rights and Acquisition
Domain
Domain is the real right whereby one thing is subject to the will and the action of one person. It is the right to use, enjoy, and dispose of a thing.
Characters:
- Exclusive: Two people cannot have dominion over the same thing simultaneously.
- Perpetual: Dominion subsists independently of who exercises it.
- Large: The owner can perform any legal act on the thing (rent, transfer, enjoy, leave).
Domain Acquisition Modes:
- Appropriation: The seizure of ownerless things by a person capable of acquiring them. Goods susceptible include fish, bees, rocks, subsea resources, plants, and herbs.
- Specification: Occurs when someone creates a new object using another’s materials with the intent to appropriate, and the original form cannot be restored. The owner of the raw material is entitled to compensation.
- Accession: Takes place when movable or immovable property is added to another property through natural or artificial means. Natural accession occurs through avulsion (sudden) or recession (gradual). Artificial accession occurs by adjunction, when two movables belonging to different owners combine to form one.
- Tradition: The act by which a thing is delivered to another. Delivery must occur before a real right can be acquired. Tradition can be material or symbolic. It must be made with a sufficient title and by a person able to transfer and acquire. For movable property, registration is required to acquire domain.
- Perception of Fruit: The dominion of a thing includes its fruits, which can be natural (arising spontaneously), industrial (produced by human activity), or civil (rents produced by the thing).
- Succession: The transfer of ownership from a deceased person to heirs.
- Prescription: A means of acquiring a right (acquisitive prescription) or discharging an obligation through the lapse of time (extinctive prescription). As a mode of acquiring ownership:
- For real property, with just title and good faith (belief of being the owner), dominion is acquired in 10 years. Without just cause and good faith, the period is 20 years.
- For movables, possession in good faith for 3 years grants ownership by prescription. If the movable requires registration, the deadline is 2 years. In both cases, prescription requires good faith and continuity.
Restrictions and Limitations of Property:
Some restrictions arise from public law (e.g., expropriation), while others stem from private law interests and general welfare.
Condominium
Condominium is the real right of property belonging to several persons in an undivided part of a movable or immovable thing.
Constitution:
It can be constituted through contracts (like sale), succession (when there is more than one heir), and matrimonial property regimes.
Rights:
- Each co-owner enjoys rights to their property, consistent with its nature.
- Entitled to alienate their share or subject it to pledge or mortgage.
- Enjoy the common thing in accordance with other co-owners, or as resolved by majority.
- May demand the division of the condominium, unless indivision is forced by convention or law.
- Share in the fruits or revenues of the things in proportion to their share.
Duties:
- Share in expenses in proportion to their share.
- Not make material innovations without the acceptance of others.
Propiedad Horizontal
In horizontal property, each owner owns their apartment and is a co-owner of the land or common areas of the building.
Owner’s Bonds:
- Payment of common expenses.
- Payment of extraordinary expenses.
- Fulfillment of resolutions from the Assembly of Co-owners and Administration.
- Payment of taxes and expenses for their property.
- Not making changes that affect the building’s structure.
Regulations:
Regulations govern relationships between co-owners, determining the regime for assemblies, the appointment of a building manager, provisions for common expense payments, and the designation of common and exclusive use spaces.