You lost possession: which improvements are paid and which crop you keep

It is Chapter IV of Title II of Book Three of the Civil Code of 2020, Articles 726 to 733, titled Liquidación de Situaciones Posesorias. It is what happens after it is decided who has the right to possess: how the accounts are settled between the one leaving and the one coming in.

It applies to every possessor who must hand the thing over to whoever wins the possession, and to whoever receives it. The good- or bad-faith characterization decides almost everything: a good-faith possessor is one who is unaware that there is a defect in their title or mode of acquiring that invalidates it, and good faith is always presumed.

• For necessary expenses, none additional: Article 728 pays them to every possessor.Verified against the official source
• For useful expenses and for the right of retention, being a good-faith possessor.Verified against the official source
• To take away improvements of pure luxury or recreation, that the thing suffer no deterioration on their removal and that the winner not prefer to keep them by paying for them.Verified against the official source
• To be paid for pending fruits, not having refused the Article 727 grant to finish the cultivation and gathering: whoever does not accept it loses the right to be indemnified in any other way.Verified against the official source

• Evidence of the expenses incurred, separated into necessary, useful and pure luxury or recreation, because each category settles differently.
• Evidence of the increase in value the thing acquired through those expenses, because the winner may choose to pay that increase instead of the amount.

1. 1

   Step 1: Everything turns on good faith, and good faith is presumed

   Article 710 says a good-faith possessor is one who is unaware that there is a defect in their title or mode of acquiring that invalidates it, and a bad-faith possessor is one in the opposite case. Article 711 adds what weighs most in practice: the possessor’s good faith is always presumed, and whoever asserts a possessor’s bad faith bears the proof.

2. 2

   Step 2: The fruits you already received

   Article 726 says the good-faith possessor acquires ownership of the fruits received while possession is not legally interrupted, to the extent their title empowers them. Natural fruits are understood received from the moment they are separated. Industrial or civil fruits belong to the good-faith possessor in proportion to the time the possession lasted.

3. 3

   Step 3: The harvest left half-done

   Article 727 settles the fruits still pending when good faith ends. The possessor is entitled to reimbursement of the expenses incurred for their production and to the part of the harvest’s net product proportional to the time of their possession, and the charges are prorated the same way between the two possessors. The person entitled to possess may grant the good-faith possessor the faculty of finishing the cultivation and gathering as indemnity. Note what follows: a good-faith possessor who for any reason does not accept that grant loses the right to be indemnified in any other way.

4. 4

   Step 4: Necessary expenses: paid to everyone

   Article 728 opens with a sentence many do not expect: every possessor is entitled to be paid the necessary expenses. Every possessor, the bad-faith one included. Necessary expenses are those that maintain the thing or secure it in its original state or for the use to which it has been destined. What only the good-faith possessor has is the right to retain the thing until they are satisfied.

5. 5

   Step 5: Useful expenses: only to the good-faith possessor, and the winner picks how to pay

   The same Article 728 says useful expenses are paid to the good-faith possessor with the same right of retention, and defines useful as expenses that increase or secure the thing’s production. The choice of how to pay is not yours: the winner in the possession may choose between paying the amount of the expenses or paying the increase in value the thing acquired through them.

6. 6

   Step 6: Luxury and recreation: not payable, but you may take them

   Article 729 says expenses on improvements of pure luxury or mere recreation are not payable, but the possessor may take away the objects in which they were invested, if the thing suffers no deterioration and if the winner in the possession does not prefer to keep them. If the winner prefers to keep them, they pay the good-faith possessor the current value of what was spent, and the bad-faith possessor that value or the one it had when they entered into possession, at the winner’s choice.

7. 7

   Step 7: What it costs the bad-faith possessor

   Two articles define it. Article 730: the bad-faith possessor must pay the value of the fruits received and of those the lawful possessor could have received. And Article 732: the good-faith possessor does not answer for the deterioration or loss of the thing possessed, while the bad-faith possessor answers in every case, and even for losses caused by force majeure when they have maliciously delayed delivery of the thing to its lawful possessor, unless those would also have occurred had it been in the lawful possessor’s hands.

8. 8

   Step 8: Two improvements that are never paid

   Article 731 says improvements coming from nature or time always accrue to the benefit of whoever wins the possession: if the land appreciated on its own, that gain is not charged. And Article 733 says whoever obtains the possession is not obliged to pay for improvements that had ceased to exist when they acquired the thing: what is no longer there is not paid for.

These are substantive rules settled between the parties or before the Court of First Instance, inside the same case that decides who has the right to possess. The Civil Code designates no agency to apply them.

• Believing the bad-faith possessor gets nothing: necessary expenses are paid to every possessor.
• Thinking anyone has the right of retention: only the good-faith possessor has it.
• Assuming you choose how useful expenses are paid: the winner in the possession chooses.
• Claiming as useful what was only luxury or recreation: those expenses are not payable.
• Refusing the grant to finish the harvest: refusing it forfeits the right to be indemnified in any other way.
• Charging for the appreciation time brought: improvements from nature or time accrue to the winner.
• Claiming improvements that no longer existed when the other party acquired the thing.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Poder Judicial de Puerto Rico

  Poder Judicial

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov