Information about the land registry and cadastre office in the Balearic Islands

When preparing for the purchase or sale of a property, it is often found that the entries in the land register and the cadastre do not match and, moreover, both registers do not necessarily reflect the actual condition of the property.

In the “Registro de la Propiedad”, the Spanish land register, all contracts and rights are registered which are connected with real estates.

Entries in the land register enjoy the protection of good faith in their accuracy and have legal effect against third parties. Responsible is always the land registry office in whose district the property is located.

Notarial, enforceable, judicial and other state documents can be registered. Agreements in private writing cannot be registered. It is not mandatory that the change of ownership must be registered at the land registry. Nevertheless, registration is strongly recommended. The protection of good faith can be of practical importance, for example, in the case of a double sale: if a seller sells his apartment on the Balearic Islands with a private written agreement and transfers ownership to the buyer, the buyer becomes the new owner. If the seller subsequently sells the apartment a second time, the second buyer is protected as the owner if, unaware of the first sale, he or she achieves registration of his or her right in the Land Registry and the first buyer was not registered for his or her part.

Good faith does not extend to the description and size of the property. If the purchase price has been determined independently of the size of the plot, the buyer has no rights against the seller in the event of a discrepancy. Of course, the situation is different if the size of the plot of land has been expressly made the subject matter of the contract by the parties.

The cadastre is a register administration which is under the control of the Ministry of Economy and Finance ( Ministerio de Economia y Hacienda) and in which the descriptions and plans of the real estate are entered. The tasks of the cadastral office are mainly in the topographical area.

Both registers are independent of each other and a comparison of the data has only taken place sporadically in the past, with the result that in many cases the data in both registers do not match. Since 1996, notaries and land registrars have been legally obliged for the first time to include the cadastral reference (“referencia catastral”) in deeds and land registers. This is done by the parties to the contract presenting the notary with the last land tax document from which the cadastral designation is derived. In 2002, Spain received a modern cadastral law and the information from the land registry and cadastral office is now being increasingly aligned.

For historical reasons, the sizes of the plots of land stated in the notarised purchase contracts are often not correct. The only way to determine the actual size of the property is to have it surveyed by a private topographical surveyor.

In the following cases, which are listed as examples, it is advisable to seek advice from a specialist:

If there are border problems with the neighbours and no agreement is reached on how the border should actually be drawn, then legal proceedings, a so-called “expediente de deslinde” must be initiated.

If a plot of land is not registered, there is a judicial procedure, called “expediente de dominio”, to determine the rightful owner.

Another possibility is to carry out a notarial ascertainment procedure to determine the position of the owner. If one wishes to correct the size of the land plot entered in the land register, this correction can be made with a notarial deed and on the basis of the description of the land registry office.