Your deed says one area and the land is another: correcting the recorded area

Cabida is the surface area the Property Registry has recorded for your estate. Almost always it comes from an old description, made before modern measuring instruments existed, and carried from deed to deed across decades. When someone actually measures the land and the number does not match, the Registry and reality diverge, and that divergence blocks things: selling, subdividing, mortgaging, inheriting cleanly. Area rectification is the route for the Registry to say what the land measures. OGPe does not measure your lot: it certifies the survey done by a licensed surveyor-designer. That is why the four required documents are the designer’s documents, not yours. Your role is to authorize them in writing, prove you are the owner and gather your neighbours’ information.

The manual requires reliable evidence that the proponent is the owner, option-holder or lessee duly authorized by the property owner. That is, you need not be the registered titleholder to file, but you must prove one of those three positions. It also requires the names, contact information and certification of the licensed professionals participating in the proposed action, showing they are duly licensed and college-registered in Puerto Rico, if any participate.

• A digital plan with the polygon of the project’s territorial extension, geo-referenced to the State Plane Coordinate System, illustrating the geographic location of the parcel.Verified against the official source
• Reliable evidence that the proponent is the owner, option-holder or lessee duly authorized by the property owner.Verified against the official source
• Names, contact information and certification of the participating licensed professionals, showing they are duly licensed and college-registered in Puerto Rico.Verified against the official source
• Names and contact information of all owners of properties bordering the property that is the subject of the application, preferably including their email address.Verified against the official source

• Designer’s Certification.
• Owner’s Letter of Authorization to the Designer.
• Survey Plan Certified by the Designer.
• Duly sworn Survey Certification.

1. 1

   Step 1: Confirm the problem is one of area and not something else

   The ARC serves one concrete purpose: to certify the survey of the lot or estate for the purpose of rectifying the area recorded in the Property Registry and the corresponding evidence of title. If what you have is a dispute over boundaries with a neighbour, a title problem, or you want to divide the estate into several lots, that is a different filing. To subdivide or lot out there is the Registration Plans Authorization. To acquire by possession there is usucapion, which is a lawsuit, not a permit.

2. 2

   Step 2: Hire the designer: the four documents are theirs

   The four required documents are the Designer’s Certification, the Owner’s Letter of Authorization to the Designer, the Survey Plan Certified by the Designer, and the duly sworn Survey Certification. Three are produced by the designer and one is signed by you to authorize them. This is not a filing you complete alone for thirty dollars: the thirty dollars is the filing fee. The fieldwork, the geo-referenced plan and the sworn certification are done by a licensed professional, and their fees are not published in the manual.

3. 3

   Step 3: Gather the details of all your bordering owners

   This is the requirement that stretches the process. The application requires the names and contact information of all owners of properties bordering the property that is the subject of the application, preferably including their email address. All of them, not the ones you happen to know. If a bordering lot is in an estate, abandoned, or its owner lives off-island, that is the part that will take you time, and it is best begun before opening the application in the system, not after.

4. 4

   Step 4: File in the Single Business Portal and pay the $30

   In the Single Business Portal you press the Permits box or the All box and select ARC, Area Rectification Authorization. If the project does not yet exist in the system, you first create the project and then complete the application. The filing price is thirty dollars.

5. 5

   Step 5: Complete it within thirty days

   The service application will remain open for a maximum term of thirty days for the applicant to complete it. Once that term passes without completion or without all required documents uploaded, the applicant must begin the application process again. This is why it pays to have the survey done and the bordering owners identified before opening the application: the clock runs on the file, not on your preparation.

The ARC is filed in OGPe’s Single Business Portal, selecting Area Rectification Authorization under Permits or All. The applicant manual is published in the Information Sources section of permisos.pr.gov. The subsequent recording of the corrected area is done at the Property Registry, which is a separate office.

• Opening the application before the survey is done and losing the thirty-day term.
• Supplying only the bordering owners you know: the manual requires all bordering owners.
• Believing the $30 covers the survey: it covers the filing, not the designer’s work.
• Using area rectification to settle a disputed boundary with a neighbour, which is a court matter.
• Using the ARC to subdivide or lot out, when that goes through the Registration Plans Authorization.
• Filing without reliable evidence of being the owner, option-holder or authorized lessee.
• Submitting a plan not geo-referenced to the State Plane Coordinate System.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Oficina de Gerencia de Permisos (OGPe)

  OGPe

  docs.pr.gov

• OGPe Information Sources: Single Business Portal filing manuals

  ogpe

  www.permisos.pr.gov