1194 guides
All procedures
Every MiPRFácil guide, grouped by category, with the date each was reviewed.
Vehicles & CESCO
61 guidesHow to renew your vehicle registration (marbete) in Puerto RicoWhat the marbete is, where to renew it, what is usually required, and how to reach the official government site.August 12, 2026How to check traffic fines in Puerto RicoWhere to check for outstanding traffic fines, what information you need, and why they sometimes don’t show up.August 12, 2026How to pay traffic fines in Puerto RicoWhere and how to pay traffic fines, what you need before paying, and what to do if the payment doesn’t show up.August 12, 2026How to get a REAL ID license in Puerto RicoWhat REAL ID is, who qualifies, the $17 it costs to validate, and why a birth certificate from another state will not do.August 12, 2026How to renew your driver’s license in Puerto RicoWhat CESCO requires to renew: form DTOP-DIS-256, the medical certification, the $14 in stamps, and why being 30 days late costs you $24 more.August 12, 2026How to book a CESCO appointmentHow to reserve your CESCO slot, how to know whether you really have to go in person, and how to recognize the government’s official appointment system.August 12, 2026How to get a learner’s permit in Puerto RicoRequirements, documents and the $14 in stamps, from form DTOP-DIS-255: what minors need, the exam, and the restrictions while you practise.August 12, 2026How to replace a lost or stolen driver’s license in Puerto RicoWhat to do if your license was lost or stolen: the sworn statement CESCO asks for, the stamps, and how to do it online or by appointment.August 12, 2026How to transfer a vehicle title in Puerto RicoHow a vehicle transfer works at CESCO, what to check before buying or selling, and where to get the official forms.August 12, 2026How to transfer a vehicle from an owner who has diedCESCO’s ten requirements, the declaration of heirs, and the $2,000 threshold when minors are involved.August 13, 2026How to remove the lien from a car you have finished payingCancelling a conditional sale at CESCO, and what to do if you do not have the title.August 13, 2026How to get your driving record at CESCOPhoto ID, $1.50 in stamps and form DTOP-DISC-661. That is all.August 13, 2026How to request the removable disability parking placardThe three 2×2 photos and forms DTOP-DISC-375 and DTOP-DISC-010, one of them medical.August 26, 2026How to replace a vehicle title in Puerto RicoWhat CESCO requires to replace a Certificado de Título: the sworn statement and its exact wording, the stamps, and what changes if the vehicle has a lien.August 12, 2026How to replace a lost, stolen or damaged licence plate in Puerto RicoWhat CESCO requires to replace a plate: the notarized sworn statement, the $13 in vouchers, and why it is not the same as replacing the marbete.August 12, 2026How to replace a lost, stolen or destroyed marbete in Puerto RicoWhat CESCO asks if your marbete was lost, stolen or broke: the sworn statement, the $5 in stamps, and when handing in the pieces saves you from it.August 12, 2026Car factory warranty: what must be honored in Puerto RicoAct 7-1979 requires the factory warranty in Puerto Rico to be no worse than the U.S. one and to be honored here, wherever you bought the vehicle.August 23, 2026A pothole damaged your car: how to claim from DTOP and what the ceiling isThe claim goes to DTOP’s Citizen Services Office with a notarised SC-862 form. By law, no more than $1,000.August 16, 2026ACAA coverages: basic, Plus and PremiumWhat the $35 premium you pay with your registration sticker is, what the $50 and $70 coverages add, and how to switch.August 13, 2026How to contest a traffic ticket in court in Puerto RicoThe Ley 22-2000 review petition: 30 days to file, 5 to notify the DTOP, $6.00 per ticket, and a hearing within 60 days.August 14, 2026The compulsory insurance on your marbete: what it is and how not to pay twiceWhat the SRO covers, your Ley 245-2014 right to choose your insurer, and the Compliance Certificate that exempts you if you already carry traditional coverage.August 15, 2026Filing a compulsory insurance claim after an accidentWhat the SRO pays and what it does not, the three deadlines, why the estimate must come from a registered shop, and why the police report does not decide fault.August 15, 2026Air pump: every retail gas station must have one workingAct 67-2004 requires every retail gas station to have a working air pump during the entire time it is open to the public.August 24, 2026Carrying people in a pickup bed or a truck: what the law saysAct 78 of 1955 bans carrying passengers, paid or free, in vehicles not structurally designed for it, with three narrow exceptions.August 24, 2026Approached to be sent to a certain doctor or photographer: the law that bans itAct 60-1970 makes it illegal to enter Public Works grounds intending to convince you to use a certain doctor, photographer or vehicle.August 24, 2026The shop must give you an invoice with each part and labor listed separatelyAct 161-1996 requires every auto repair shop to hand over a complete invoice with the exact cost of each part and the amount charged for labor.August 24, 2026The tire shop may not charge you an “environmental fee” for tiresAct 41-2009 bars tire sellers from charging consumers an environmental or handling fee, and requires them to accept up to four used tires from you.August 24, 2026Assistance pumping gas if you have a disability, at no extra chargeAct 162-2007 requires a participating gas station to help you pump gas on request, with no fee and at the self-service rate.August 24, 2026A new car ad must state the miles per gallonAct 31-2007 requires every new car ad to include city and highway mileage, at a size no smaller than one quarter of the model name or price.August 24, 2026Your vehicle: what you must report and how long it can be heldAct 8-1987 sets the owner’s duties — theft, plates, recovery in 10 days, engine change by sworn declaration — and caps investigative holds at 30 days.August 25, 2026Red light: the $500 fine and suspension after three offencesAct 33-2026 clarifies that the three offences suspending a licence for three years are counted within that licence’s validity period.August 26, 2026Medical exemption to tint your vehicle's windowsAct 160-2026 confirms that patients with autism, sensory processing disorder and other conditions qualify for the medical tint exemption.August 26, 2026Traffic fines: early-payment discount, surcharges and when they expire30% off within 15 days, 15% up to 30, surcharges after, and the Act 29-2026 rule on old fines when you renew your licence.August 27, 2026Yielding to an ambulance: what the law requires and the $500 fineAct 133-2026 raised the fine from $100 to $500. Pulling right and stopping is not courtesy: Article 6.14A requires it.August 27, 2026Fine amnesty: 40% off Auto Expreso and marbete debtsAct 1-2026 takes 40% off the total — principal, interest and surcharges — if you pay in time. Check first whether the window is still open.August 27, 2026The driver’s bill of rightsTwo paid hours to renew your licence, fines only from the last eighteen months, and automatic exoneration if the ticket is missing data.September 1, 2026The cyclist’s bill of rightsThree feet when passing, ten before retaking the lane, and eight years in prison if the breach gravely injures or kills the cyclist.September 1, 2026What to do after a crashStopping is mandatory and failing to revokes your licence. There are four hours to notify the Police if they did not investigate on scene.September 1, 2026Seat belts and child car seatsA hundred dollars per unbelted passenger, five hundred for the child seat, and no child under twelve rides in front if there is a back seat.September 1, 2026Pedestrian and driver dutiesThe pedestrian is not always right: they have seven duties and a hundred dollar fine. But the driver must protect them even when they are wrong.September 1, 2026Phones and smoking while drivingA hundred dollars for a phone without hands-free, and no exception for buses, school transport, trucks or motorcycles. Smoking with a minor is $250.September 1, 2026Abandoned and scrap vehiclesAfter twenty-four hours it is presumed abandoned. If yours was towed you have sixty days to collect it and thirty to challenge in court.September 1, 2026ATVs and scooters on public roadsThey may not travel paved roads: a misdemeanour with a thousand-dollar fine, up to five thousand, and the vehicle shall be confiscated.September 1, 2026Stopping for the school bus, and moreThree hundred dollars for not stopping for school transport, two hundred for not yielding to a blind person and fifty for driving without visibility.September 1, 2026Speed limitsTwenty-five urban, forty-five rural, fifteen in a school zone. A hundred dollars plus ten per mile over — and driving too slowly is fined too.September 1, 2026Overtaking and lane useYou overtake on the left; on the right only in three cases. Driving on the shoulder costs five hundred dollars, ten times the other offences.September 1, 2026Right of way, turns and signalsLeft yields to right, the one going down yields to the one climbing, and you signal a hundred feet before. Not stopping for an ambulance costs five hundred.September 1, 2026Parking, towing and the auctionThe twenty-four places you may not park, the five-hundred-dollar fine for blocking a ramp, and the fifty-five plus fifty-five the tow truck charges.September 1, 2026Tolls and AutoExpreso: paying and finesUsing the AutoExpreso lane without a tag is a hundred dollars; other breaches, fifteen plus the toll. And nobody may charge you extra fees.September 1, 2026Who may not use the toll motorwayTwelve things may not travel the toll motorway, among them bicycles, unauthorised motorcycles and tyres worn below 2/32. The base fine is a hundred dollars.September 1, 2026What the Act charges for each transactionArticle 23.02 publishes the full table: forty-four dollars for a car, thirty-five for a motorcycle, fifteen for a transfer, three for a duplicate marbete.September 1, 2026The 30% discount for having no finesTwelve months with no infractions earn a thirty per cent discount on the marbete base charge, with two DTOP certifications and one single vehicle.September 1, 2026Camera and AutoExpreso finesYou have a hundred and twenty hours to pay the toll before the fine, and they have ninety days to post it. If they miss it, the fine is wiped.September 1, 2026The Digital Marbete: how it worksIt is your toll tag turned into your registration sticker. Which vehicles qualify, how to register it in CESCO Digital and when you may peel the sticker off.September 2, 2026Paying owed tolls in CESCO DigitalThey are paid from the app, up to $5,000 per transaction and without an AutoExpreso account. Without paying them there is no marbete renewal.September 2, 2026How to appeal an ACAA decisionFour rungs, thirty days at each. The terms are jurisdictional: miss one and nobody can hear you.September 3, 2026The exams and treatment ACAA can require of youIt can order medical exams and rehabilitation, and if you refuse it pays nothing. It cannot order a toxicology test, but it can obtain a copy.September 3, 2026ACAA’s lien on your licence and plateIf you owe ACAA for an accident, it files a lien blocking registration renewal, your licence and any transfer of the vehicle.September 3, 2026Suing the at-fault driver after ACAA has treated youThe ninety days in which you may not sue or settle, the year to claim, and the ACAA certification without which payment is void.September 3, 2026Vehicle dealer and parts licence: the $100,000 bondEvery dealer needs a minimum $100,000 bond covering hidden defects and warranties, plus $50,000 per branch.September 4, 2026Opening a vehicle inspection station: requirements, equipment and bond14 by 30 by 14 feet, 4,000 square feet of parking, two mechanics and a $20,000 bond to sell marbetes.September 4, 2026
Documents & Certificates
36 guidesHow to request a criminal record certificate in Puerto RicoWhat the criminal record certificate is, why it is also called a “good conduct certificate”, and how to reach the official site.August 13, 2026How to get a duplicate identification cardThe sworn statement with its exact clauses, the DTOP-DIS-137, and the $5 or $6 depending on the card.August 13, 2026How to request a birth certificate in Puerto RicoWho can request one, what is usually required, where to apply, and how to reach the official Demographic Registry.August 13, 2026How to request a marriage certificate in Puerto RicoWho can request one, what each copy costs, which channels are available, and how long each one takes.August 13, 2026How to request a death certificate in Puerto RicoWho may request one, what it costs, and why the certificate stating cause of death is a separate, costlier request.August 13, 2026How to apostille a Puerto Rico document for use abroadApostille or certification depending on the country, which documents qualify, the $3.00 stamp, and how to request it by mail from off-island.August 13, 2026How to file a late birth registration in Puerto RicoWhat to do when a birth was never registered: the Negative Certification, the five stamps, and the accrediting documents.August 13, 2026How to request a genealogical study from the Demographic RegistryThe study of your ancestors: $100.00, about 20 business days, and how far back the search reaches.August 13, 2026How to request a literal civil copy in Puerto RicoThe faithful and exact copy of the registry book: what it is, when you need it, and how to request it by mail.August 13, 2026How to request a gender change on a vital event certificateThe Demographic Registry process, where the forms are, and what applies if you live outside Puerto Rico.August 13, 2026Health certificate for work: what it is, which tests it takes and how long it lastsWho needs the Act 232-2000 health certificate, which tests it requires, where to get it from an authorized physician, and why it is valid one year.August 16, 2026How to correct an error in your birth, marriage or death certificateAn archived vital record is not amended at the counter: it takes a court order or, since Act 282-1999, the notarial route. How each path works.August 16, 2026Power of attorney and durable power: who can sign for youA general power covers only administration. Selling or mortgaging needs express authority, and surviving your incapacity needs a durable power.August 16, 2026Registering your work in Puerto Rico: what it really protects and what costs $30The Department of State registry protects the author’s moral rights. It costs $30 under code 5113 and the work must be presented in person.August 16, 2026Help filling in immigration forms in Puerto RicoThe Immigrant Orientation and Services Office assists with the N-400, the I-912 fee waiver, the I-90 and the AR-11, and offers English and civics courses.August 16, 2026Act 300 with fingerprints: the Puerto Rico Background Check ProgramWho creates the application, the three public registries that can stop it, and which ID is accepted on the day of the appointment.August 13, 2026How to legally change your name or surnameThe five documents from five agencies, the $78 in stamps, the 10-day prosecutor window and what to do afterwards.August 14, 2026What you can do in the Electronic Court without a lawyerSix procedures for self-represented litigants, including contesting a ticket for $6.00 and requesting a courthouse wedding for $20.00.August 14, 2026If you cannot pay court fees: the indigency waiverThe in forma pauperis petition. The clerk takes the sworn statement free, and if granted you litigate as if you had paid.August 14, 2026Summons: how a lawsuit is served and who can do itYou have 120 days and you cannot serve it yourself. The rules by age, the sworn return, and waiver of service.August 14, 2026How to remove offenses from your criminal recordMisdemeanors are removed automatically after 30 days. Felonies go to court after five years, with witnesses and DNA.August 14, 2026How to find out if someone left a will, power of attorney or prenupThree Judiciary registries, one same process: a form, $5.00 in stamps under Code 5120, and it can be requested by email.August 14, 2026How to get married at the courthouse in Puerto RicoThe clock: 14 days for the medical certification, 10 to return to the Registry and 10 to marry. The $30 and $20 paid separately.August 14, 2026Exequátur: making an out-of-state or foreign judgment valid in Puerto RicoThe validity requirements, the two routes — $90.00 complaint or $78.00 ex parte petition — which court hears it, and what documents each case needs.August 14, 2026Voting with a disability in Puerto Rico: accessible precinct, home voting and voting by phoneWhat the CEE provides at the polling place, the four modalities for those who cannot get there, and the category covering anyone aged 80 or over.August 14, 2026Consulting the General Archive of Puerto RicoCourt files, notarial protocols, photos, music and film since the 18th century. Consulted by appointment with the specialized unit.August 15, 2026How to register to vote and get your electoral ID cardThe four requirements, the documents by where you were born, and the Permanent Registration Board where everything is done in person.August 14, 2026Absentee and early voting: which one applies and when to request itAbsentee is 45 days before; early voting, 50. The nine early-voting categories and who qualifies without realising.August 14, 2026Five matters you can handle before a notary instead of courtDeclaration of heirs, holographic will, declaration of absence, perpetuating facts, and record corrections or name changes: Act 282-1999 lets you choose.August 24, 2026Moral rights of authors: credit, integrity and what to do if they are violatedAct 55-2012 gives you the right to credit, to prevent mutilation of your work and to access it, with statutory damages of $750 to $20,000 if registered.August 24, 2026Licences and certificates in both official languagesAct 107-1997 orders DTOP, Health and Education to amend regulations so the driver’s licence, marriage licence and certain certificates are bilingual.August 25, 2026IDEAL system: one agency cannot ask you for what another already hasAct 117-2025 elevates the IDEAL system to law: if one agency already has your certificate, another agency cannot ask you for it again.August 26, 2026Political ads made with AI: they have to tell youAct 105-2026 requires every paid political communication generated or altered with AI to say so clearly, and by audio if it runs on radio or the internet.August 28, 2026Revocable trust: now the default, and you have 10 days to record changesAct 153-2026 recognizes the revocable trust, presumes it absent contrary terms, and requires recording amendments and revocations within ten days.August 28, 2026Birth certificate and Real ID on releaseFor someone with six months or less left to serve, Act 61-2019 gives a free first copy of the birth certificate and of the Real ID.August 31, 2026Mobile ID: your licence on your phoneThe electronic version of your licence or ID in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. It is free, voluntary and does not replace the physical card.September 2, 2026
Benefits & Assistance
13 guidesHow to apply for PAN (Nutrition Assistance Program)What PAN is, how to apply online with ADSEF, what documents are usually requested, and what to do if you are denied or suspended.August 12, 2026How to apply for TANF, ADSEF’s temporary cash assistanceWhat TANF is, who qualifies by category (older adults, blind or disabled persons, families with children) and how to apply with ADSEF.August 16, 2026Help paying your electric bill: ADSEF’s LIHEAP programmeHow LIHEAP works: who is automatically eligible and how to apply with ADSEF for help with LUMA electric bill arrears.August 16, 2026How to apply for WIC: food for pregnant women, babies and children up to 5Who qualifies for WIC, what documents the certification appointment requires, and what it provides: food, nutrition education and breastfeeding support.August 16, 2026ADSEF food distribution: how it works and who qualifiesHow ADSEF’s Food Distribution (TEFAP) works: who qualifies, where to apply, and where to check the Mercado Familiar calendars.August 16, 2026Up to $400 a month towards rent if you are 60 or overThe Act 173 subsidy pays up to $400 a month of rent, directly to the landlord, for older adults with low income.September 3, 2026Programs for older adults: which the law orders and who to askAct 58-2018 orders ten programs for older adults created and gives each agency a duty to orient you about them. This guide says whose door to knock on.August 24, 2026Fifty per cent discounts and free transit at 70: the new 2025 lawAct 160-2025 gives 50% off shows and public transit, free rides from age 70, and says no specific card is required to claim the right.August 25, 2026Free documents for people without housing: certificates and IDAct 98-2025 gives Vital Records certificates, CRIM certifications and the DTOP ID card free of cost, with a liaison at each agency.August 25, 2026The essential services voucher for significant disabilitiesAct 176-2008 creates a voucher for adults 21 to 59 with significant disabilities: personal assistance, therapies, medical equipment, respite and more.August 29, 2026Women Farmers Programme: workshops and financingAct 58-2017 requires Agriculture to give annual seminars to bona fide women farmers and to facilitate financing of agricultural projects promoted by women.August 29, 2026Emergency registry for older adults with disabilitiesJR 86-2024 orders a voluntary, confidential registry of older adults with disabilities, accessible to municipalities and the Emergency Management Bureau.August 29, 2026Indemnity for a police officer killed on dutyAct 14 of 1915 obliges the Government to pay $25,000 to the surviving spouse and children when an officer dies in or as a result of the line of duty.August 30, 2026
Work & Unemployment
106 guidesHow to apply for SINOT temporary disability in Puerto RicoNon-occupational disability insurance: requirements, form SI-1, how much it pays and for how long.August 13, 2026Chauffeurs’ Social Security: what the 50¢ deduction is and what it gives youNot just for taxi drivers. It covers anyone who drives as part of their job, and pays sickness, disability, retirement and death benefits.August 13, 2026Employment discrimination: how to file with the Anti-Discrimination UnitWhich grounds the Labour Department’s UAD covers, where to file, and why mediation and litigation are free of charge.August 13, 2026Registered Mechanic (MR) licence: weights and measures, not carsIt is DACO’s licence to repair weighing and measuring instruments. $75, expires in a year, and 30 days after expiry you start over.August 14, 2026What to do if you are injured at work in Puerto RicoThe CFSE-373 form, the five days to file with the Fondo, and what to do if your employer will not fill it out.August 13, 2026What to do if your employer will not report your work accidentThe Voluntary Report and the CFSE-450.1 sworn statement: how to file without your employer’s signature.August 13, 2026What the Fondo pays you while you are on work leaveTransitory disability compensation, how it is paid, and why the CFSE publishes two different figures.August 13, 2026Your employer must hold your job while you are on workers’ compensationThe Article 5A job reservation: the 360 days, the four conditions, and the 15 days after discharge.August 13, 2026How to appeal a Fondo decision to the Industrial CommissionThe 30 days, what can be appealed, and why the appeal is not filed with the CFSE.August 13, 2026How to report unemployment insurance fraudThe complaint to the Employment Security Bureau, and why you can file it without giving your name.August 13, 2026How to apply for unemployment insurance in Puerto RicoWhat unemployment insurance is, who can apply, what documents are usually requested, and how to reach DTRH’s official claimant portal.August 12, 2026Maternity leave in the private sector: 8 weeks at full payWhat Act 3 of 1942 provides: 4 weeks before and 4 after childbirth at full pay, options to shift them, adoption leave, and protection against dismissal.August 16, 2026Your breastfeeding rights: at work and in any public placeThe 2025 Lactation Code made plain: a paid hour per shift to breastfeed or express milk, for at least 12 months, and the right to nurse wherever you are.August 16, 2026The Christmas bonus: who is entitled, how much it is, and what happens if unpaidAct 148’s private-sector Christmas bonus: the hours you must work, the two formulas by hire date, the payment window and the penalties.August 16, 2026Vacation and sick leave: how many days you accrue and how they are usedAct 180-1998 made plain: the 130-hour monthly trigger, the vacation accrual ladder, the monthly sick day, and what you are owed when you leave.August 16, 2026Overtime, the workday and the meal period: what you must be paidAct 379: the 8-hour day and 40-hour week, overtime at time and a half (pre-2017 hires keep more), and the premium for working through the meal period.August 16, 2026Disability discrimination: reasonable accommodation at work and schoolAct 44-1985 bans disability discrimination, requires reasonable accommodation, and presumes discrimination if a job application asks about your condition.August 23, 2026Unjust dismissal: how severance pay is calculatedThree months of salary plus two weeks per full year of service, capped at nine months. One year to claim from the dismissal date.August 23, 2026Workplace harassment: what counts, what does not, and where to claimAct 90-2020 defines workplace harassment, lists nine qualifying behaviors and seven that do not, and sets double damages. One year to claim.August 23, 2026Sexual harassment at work: the employer answersFor its agents’ or supervisors’ acts the employer answers even if it did not know. The law sets double damages, or no less than $10,000.August 23, 2026Special leave: 15 days to handle a violence situationAct 83-2019 gives up to 15 working days a year, unpaid and additional to your other leaves, to handle your situation or a family member’s.August 23, 2026Retaliation for speaking up: Act 115 and its three yearsNo employer may dismiss, threaten or discriminate against you for offering testimony or information, even inside the company itself. Double damages.August 23, 2026Domestic work: written contract, overtime and vacationThe contract must be in writing. If the employer does not produce it, the burden of proving employment terms is theirs. Eight-hour days and time-and-a-half overtime.August 23, 2026Teachers: evaluation, autonomy and the one-year cap out of the classroomAct 160-2020 gives public school teachers 31 rights: 5-day evaluation notice, pedagogical autonomy, and a one-year cap on precautionary measures.August 28, 2026Union member: voting, seeing the books and 30 days to claimAct 333-2004 gives you the right to vote by secret ballot, be consulted before dues rise, and examine the books. The complaint is filed within 30 days.August 23, 2026Police Officers’ Bill of Rights: free certificates, CRIM exemption and pensionsAct 1-2022 gives police officers fee-free official certificates, a $10,000 property tax exemption and an hours cap on off-duty outside work.August 26, 2026Barber and barber-stylist licence: requirements, exam and renewalAct 146-1968 requires being 18, a course or two years as an apprentice, and a Board exam. The licence renews every three years with a medical certificate.August 23, 2026Your SSN on the employee ID: prohibited, and the waiver cannot be requiredAct 207-2006 bars employers from displaying your SSN on employee IDs, directories or general-circulation documents. Fine from $500 to $5,000.August 23, 2026Genetic information discrimination: a felony, and treble damagesAct 107-2013 bars requiring genetic tests for employment and denying coverage for genetic predisposition. It is a felony, and damages are trebled.August 23, 2026Renewing or recertifying your health professional license (ORCPS)Nurse, therapist, psychologist, pharmacist: renewed every three years, online, and with the ASUME negative certificate almost nobody remembers until the end.August 13, 2026Claiming wages, vacation or Christmas bonus from the Labor DepartmentThe Labor Standards Bureau investigates non-unionized employees’ complaints: wages, overtime, vacation, bonus, illegal deductions and unjustified dismissal.August 27, 2026Bringing a claim against your employer, free and without a lawyer: the OMAA free forum with concurrent jurisdiction with the court over wages, unjustified dismissal, vacation and bonus. You may appear on your own.August 15, 2026Work permit for a minor in Puerto RicoAny minor who wants to work needs a permit from the Labor Standards Bureau. The forms for each case, and why the minor must appear in person.August 15, 2026Mandatory decrees: why your vacation may not be the Ley 180 amountForty-two industry decrees set vacation and sick leave accrual. If you were hired before 1 August 1995 and are still with the same employer, you may be owed more.August 15, 2026Appealing an unemployment or SINOT determination15 days from when the determination was delivered or mailed, and you must keep claiming every two weeks while appealing. Three levels: arbitrator, Secretary, court.August 15, 2026A free lawyer to bring a claim against your employerThe DTRH’s Legal Affairs Bureau represents workers at no cost. 65% of its cases are under $5,000 — the ones no private lawyer will take.August 15, 2026Labour arbitration and mediation where there is a unionThe Conciliation and Arbitration Bureau resolves union–employer disputes. The service is free of charge and the arbitrator’s award is final and binding.August 15, 2026The Employment Service and the American Job CentersJob seeker registration, occupational counselling and placement, with priority for veterans, people with disabilities and unemployment claimants. Thirteen offices.August 15, 2026Reporting dangerous working conditions to PR OSHAYou can ask for an inspection and for your employer not to be told who complained. A written, signed complaint is the one that most often produces one.August 15, 2026Habilitación: becoming eligible to work in government againLey 8-2017 bars from public service anyone convicted or dismissed, and creates the process for that person to be evaluated and declared fit again.August 15, 2026Private detective or security guard license: form PPR-136.1One form for both licenses, new or renewal, with the seven requirements the Police print on it.August 13, 2026Working Woman’s Bill of Rights: what you are owed and where it is writtenMaternity, lactation, equal pay, a harassment-free workplace. Act 9-2020 gathers twenty scattered rights and requires your employer to post them.August 24, 2026Minimum wage: who is covered and how to collect what you are owedIf you were paid below the minimum you can collect the difference plus an equal amount, with costs and attorney fees. No agreement to the contrary defeats it.August 24, 2026You claim against your employer: the law makes them pay the attorney feesAct 402-1950 orders the employer to pay fees when the worker wins, and forbids the worker paying their own. Losing does not order you to pay them.August 24, 2026Fixed-term employment contract: the clause making you waive rights is voidAct 3-1988 voids any clause in a fixed-term or specific-work contract letting the employer dismiss you without cause or making you waive benefits.August 24, 2026No one under 18 may be used to promote alcohol or tobaccoAct 204-1998 bans employing, contracting or using anyone under 18 in advertising, promotion or marketing of alcohol and tobacco, with fines of $1,000 to $3,000.August 24, 2026Sex discrimination in employment: what Act 69 declares illegal, point by pointAct 69-1985 bans sex discrimination in employment, includes pregnancy and childbirth, and reaches job ads, interview questions and fringe benefits.August 24, 2026Your public employee group: elections, dues, books and disciplineAct 358-2004 requires every bona fide group’s constitution and bylaws to guarantee elections, access to the books and a fair disciplinary procedure.August 24, 2026Act 100: the grounds you cannot be discriminated on at work, and what you can recoverAct 100-1959 bans employment discrimination by age, race, sex, orientation, veteran status, being a violence victim and even hairstyle.August 24, 2026Drug testing in public employment: when it applies and what a positive meansAct 78-1997 governs the public sector: you cannot be dismissed for a first corroborated positive, save five exceptions, and it sets 24- and 32-hour deadlines.August 24, 2026Five extra points on the employment exam if you have a disabilityAct 81-1996 requires adding five points or 5%, whichever is greater, to a disabled applicant’s score on any entry or promotion exam.August 24, 2026Suspended sentence or probation: relief to work for the governmentAct 70-1963 relieves the legal disability to hold public posts for those with a suspended sentence, probation, an alternative penalty or parole.August 25, 2026Points on the public job exam for receiving economic assistanceAct 1-2004 adds five points or 5%, whichever is greater, to the public job exam, and protects the confidentiality of whoever discloses it.August 26, 2026Universal recognition of occupational and professional licensesAct 102-2025 requires Local Boards to recognize licenses from other states and decide within 30 days, or automatically issue a provisional one.August 26, 2026Professional license by endorsement for military spousesAct 271-2012 gives military spouses and certain federal employees a professional license by endorsement within 180 days, or a temporary one meanwhile.August 26, 2026Paid special leave for public employees at the State Elections CommissionAct 96-2026 gives public employees up to five paid days to work at the State Elections Commission in an election year, with no pay docked.August 26, 2026Recovering litigation costs when a worker wins their claimAct 185-2026 lets a worker who prevails in a summary labor claim recover litigation costs, under Rule 44.1.August 26, 2026Requirements for the Puerto Rico bar examAct 189-2026 eliminates the one-year residency requirement to apply for the bar exam. These are the three requirements that remain.August 26, 2026Social Security does not reduce your Police Retirement Trust paymentAct 147-2026 bars discounting or adjusting the Police Retirement Trust's annual payment because a retiree also receives Social Security.August 26, 2026Provisional licence for health professionals during an emergencyIn a declared public health emergency, the Health Secretary can order provisional licences with no specialty exam.August 27, 2026Provisional licence for veterinarians and veterinary techniciansYou can practise under supervision while waiting for the board exam. Act 25-2026 opened a new route for non-accredited school graduates.August 27, 2026Public employee health plan: who is covered and who negotiates yoursAct 95-1963 defines which public employee is covered by ASES plans. Education and Public Safety are excluded, but may opt in if they wish.August 27, 2026Provisional licence for radiologic and radiotherapy technologistsYou can practise under supervision while awaiting the board exam: 12 months, extendable by 12 more, with a duty to sit consecutively.August 27, 2026Medical licence in Puerto Rico: what Act 46-2026 changedPhysicians licensed in the US need only four documents, and there is a free provisional licence for volunteer service. What the Board requires.August 27, 2026Selling in a government building: space and power at no costAct 140-1976 requires agencies to set aside sales space for severely disabled persons, charging them for neither the space nor the electricity.August 29, 2026The 5% public employment target for people with disabilitiesAct 219-2006 sets public policy that every agency and public corporation have at least 5% qualified persons with disabilities in its workforce.August 29, 2026Paid work in the Blind Industry ProgramAct 139-2014 creates paid-work workshops for blind people and people with disabilities, and requires agencies and municipalities to buy their goods.August 29, 2026Sharecropping contract: working a farm that is not yoursAct 24-1978 gives the sharecropper the right to agricultural programmes in their own name, but only if the deal is in writing and filed in the Registry.August 29, 2026Manos Pa’l Campo: labour for the coffee harvestAct 38-2011 gives priority to local workers in the coffee harvest and allows bringing foreign workers only up to half of the need left uncovered.August 29, 2026Paid leave for Red Cross disaster volunteersAct 58-1994 gives public and municipal employees certified as Red Cross disaster volunteers up to 30 calendar days of paid leave in 12 months.August 29, 2026Sports psychology course for coaches and trainersAct 278-2018 provides that coaches, recreational leaders, officials and PE teachers take two contact hours a year of sports psychology.August 30, 2026Gender equality plan at your agencyAct 212-1999 requires every agency and municipality to hold a gender equality plan, with a named coordinator and fines for breaches.August 30, 2026If your employer has no State Insurance Fund policyAn uninsured employer loses its immunity: you can claim before the Industrial Commission and also sue it for damages in court.August 31, 2026A work accident caused by a third partyIf a third party caused your work injury you can claim damages, but not before 90 days from when the Fund’s resolution became final, and you have one year to do it.August 31, 2026Government work with a suspended sentenceAct 70-1963 lifts the disqualification automatically when the sentence is suspended. But the relief is not a job, and if probation is revoked you lose the post.August 31, 2026The Fund’s dietas under the statuteThe statute sets 66⅔% of the wage, never more than two hundred nor less than sixty dollars weekly, and up to three hundred and sixty-four weeks.September 1, 2026The Fund’s compensation scheduleEach limb has a number of weeks in the statute: 300 for an arm, 200 for hearing, 15 for a toe. The absolute cap is twelve thousand dollars.September 1, 2026The permanent total disability pensionBetween a hundred and thirty and four hundred and thirty dollars a month for life, plus eighty for your carer and two thousand to adapt the house.September 1, 2026If a worker dies: what the Fund paysUp to fifteen hundred for the funeral, plus a monthly pension of a hundred and thirty to four hundred and thirty dollars the widow and children collect indefinitely.September 1, 2026Which illnesses the Fund coversForty-two illnesses with their process, an open clause for the rest, three years to claim, and triple compensation if the employer broke the safety law.September 1, 2026Reinstatement after disabilityFifteen days from discharge to ask for the job, and an outer limit of twelve months from the accident, or six if the employer had fifteen employees or fewer.September 1, 2026The report the employer owes the FundFive days to report in writing, a register of every serious or slight injury, and up to five thousand dollars in court-imposed fines for failing.September 1, 2026Guardianship and heirs in Fund casesWhen a worker dies, the declaration of heirs is handled urgently and free of costs: neither the court nor the civil registry may charge for it.September 1, 2026Your Fund case file: who may see itThe Act makes the Fund’s reports private and punishes revealing them, but says expressly that none of it bars you or your lawyer from inspecting your case.September 1, 2026The Fund for truckers and ownersThe Act lets the self-employed trucker and the owner doing manual work buy their own Fund policy, and the latter extend it to a spouse and unwaged children.September 1, 2026Accidents the Fund does not coverThe Act excludes three cases, and two carry a condition: drunkenness must have caused the accident, and recklessness must have been the only cause.September 2, 2026The five days to report to the FundThe Act gives you five business days to present for treatment, defines what counts as presenting, and says medical care can never be denied to you.September 2, 2026If the Fund delays deciding your caseAfter a month without justified cause with the case complete, the Act lets you complain to the Industrial Commission so it orders the Administrator to decide.September 2, 2026Workers the Fund’s Act does not coverThe Act excludes three groups and, for them, the employer’s liability is as if the Act did not exist: you sue in court and may attach property without bond.September 2, 2026The Fund premium is the employer’s to payNo agreement for the worker to pay part of the premium is valid, and deducting it from wages is a misdemeanour with a fine of up to $5,000.September 2, 2026Desempleo Digital: the new platformSince 1 September 2026, Unemployment Insurance and the Employer Portal run on a new system, reached through trabajo.pr.gov.September 2, 2026Remote work for an out-of-state employerAct 27-2024 decides which employment law applies if you work from Puerto Rico for a company with no nexus here. It turns on domicile and exempt status.September 2, 2026Clocking in with your personal phoneIt is not banned, but it is not free either. Refusing is no breach and no grounds for discipline, and permanent tracking just to log attendance is disproportionate.September 2, 2026Equal pay: Act 16-2017It bans unequal pay by sex for comparable work, bans asking your salary history, and protects talking about your pay. One year to claim.September 2, 2026The equal-pay self-evaluationThe self-evaluation frees an employer from the extra penalty, never from back pay. DTRH’s guidelines say what to review: hiring, classification, bonuses and manuals.September 2, 2026The Labor Department’s workplace postersDTRH publishes eleven posters to download free, from SINOT to PR OSHA, which regulation requires be reproduced at 8½" x 14" minimum.September 2, 2026A lawyer in an unemployment caseThey may only charge what the Secretary approves, capped at $1,000 per case, and those fees come out of the Employment Security Administration Fund.September 2, 2026Act 402: when the employer pays the lawyerThe four conditions the Supreme Court requires, and why a public personnel claim does not always count as labour legislation.September 2, 2026The meal period at workOne hour within the workday, between the start of the third and the sixth hour, and the penalty if you are made to work it.September 2, 2026Good Friday and Easter Sunday at workWhich businesses must still close on those two days and why hours worked are paid as extraordinary compensation.September 2, 2026The probationary period: nine months, not threeAct 41-2022 cut it to three months, but was annulled in 2023. The nine or twelve months of Act 4-2017 govern.September 2, 2026The tip credit and your minimum wageIf you receive tips you are owed the full state minimum: the employer puts in at least $2.13 an hour and tips cover the rest.September 2, 2026Is there a cap on overtime?The law sets no cap on overtime: it sets a price. The only requirement is that they be paid at time and a half.September 2, 2026The 130 hours a month to accrue leaveThe threshold applies to every employee, even those hired before 2017, and an employer may give you 129 hours without accrual.September 2, 2026How many employees count for the bonusThe bonus percentage depends on company size, counting those who worked more than 26 weeks, regardless of hire date.September 2, 2026Mandatory financial training in public serviceAct 42-2023 requires OATRH to give every public servant a personal-finance course, periodically through their career.September 2, 2026
Family
158 guidesHow to request an ASUME certificationWhat ASUME certifies, the difference between the individual and employer certifications, and how to reach the official system.August 12, 2026How to file a paternity recognition in Puerto RicoThe Demographic Registry process, and why doing it within 90 days costs $20.00 instead of $35.00.August 13, 2026How to file a legitimation when parents marry after the birthThe Demographic Registry process, the $10.00 stamp, and when Form RD-232 is also required.August 13, 2026How to register an emancipation with the Demographic RegistryWhat documents the Registry asks for, the two $20.00 stamps, and why it is only done at the Central Office.August 13, 2026How to register an adoption with Puerto Rico’s Demographic RegistryThe four scenarios the law contemplates, what happens to the original record, and who can see the prior data.August 13, 2026How to enroll your child in Head Start or Early Head StartThe ages each ACUDEN programme covers, who has priority, what documents enrollment requires, when recruitment happens, and how selection works.August 16, 2026Prospera: support for people 60 or over, from their adult childrenASUME’s Prospera programme lets older adults seek support from their adult descendants, through administrative mediation or the court.August 16, 2026ADFAN services for older adults and adults with disabilitiesThe Family Department’s Adult Services Programme: homemaker help, substitute care, counseling and protection against abuse. Who qualifies and where to ask.August 16, 2026Declaration of heirs: what it is and the two routes to request itWhen someone dies without a will, the declaration establishes who inherits. Since Act 282-1999 it can be processed before a notary or the court: you choose.August 16, 2026How to make a will in Puerto RicoThe 2020 Civil Code’s kinds of will, who may execute one, and the rule that changed: with forced heirs you may freely dispose of half.August 16, 2026Prenuptial agreements and the marital property regimeUnder the 2020 Code you may agree to separation of property before marrying or during the marriage. It must be by public deed and registered.August 16, 2026How to gift property during your lifetime (and when it can be revoked)Gifting real property requires a public deed under penalty of radical nullity, the recipient must accept while both are alive, and only six causes allow revocation.August 16, 2026Virtual visitation: what the court may order and what does not countThe court may order video calls and allocate their cost. That cost is not considered when setting support, and virtual contact does not replace in-person.August 23, 2026Informal caregiver: registry, respite and when you can be paidAct 82-2023 gives rights to those caring for a relative unpaid: training, respite, emergency priority, and a route to being hired as an incidental caregiver.August 23, 2026Elder care home: how to request an inspection and what they must haveAny adult can ask the Department of the Family to inspect an elderly establishment. They have 15 days to corroborate, and there is someone to turn to if they do not.August 23, 2026Youth athletes: 18 rights you can cite to the coachAct 28-2019 gives rights to every athlete aged 4 to 18: training without physical overload, playing as a child not an adult, and participating by their own choice.August 26, 2026When a government retiree dies: the spouse and children’s pensionAct 105-1969 gives the surviving spouse and minor or incapacitated children 60% — or 50% — of the annuity the retiree received, in equal shares.August 23, 2026Child Care: how to ask for help with your children’s careThere is no form and no online application: you join a waiting list, and you can do it by phone or at any regional office.August 13, 2026Complaint over an older adult’s rights (OPPEA)The Office can order corrective action, investigate on its own initiative and inspect. And there is an Ombudsman for care homes.August 14, 2026How to get divorced in Puerto Rico: court or notaryThe two grounds, the notarial divorce, the free OAT forms, and the $90 or $78 in stamps the Judiciary publishes.August 14, 2026How to request custody of a minor in courtShared custody as the first alternative, the OAT forms, the $90 or $78 in stamps, and provisional and emergency custody.August 14, 2026How to request child support in courtCourt or ASUME: the first forum you file in keeps the case. Free if you have custody and request support only.August 14, 2026Guardianship: how a guardian is appointed and what they can and cannot doThe four types of guardianship, the bond and its exemptions, and why the role does not begin until registration.August 14, 2026Moving or traveling outside Puerto Rico with your childrenTaking them without permission can be treated as child abduction. The 30-day notice, the 20 days to answer, and what the court weighs.August 14, 2026How to adopt in Puerto Rico: requirements and court processThe three requirements, who can adopt, the Family Department’s REVA registry, and whether it is a petition or a complaint.August 14, 2026Parental authority in Puerto Rico: what it is, when it ends and how it is limitedHow it differs from custody and visitation, the duties it imposes, extended parental authority, and the standard of proof required to strip it.August 14, 2026Visitation in Puerto Rico: how to request or enforce time with your childThe OAT 1440 complaint, the $90.00 in stamps, the 30 days to answer, modification via OAT 1431, and contempt for non-compliance.August 26, 2026Another adult takes your child to the doctor: the authorization that makes it possibleAct 139-2019 lets you authorize non-urgent medical treatment in advance so your child is seen without you present. It lasts up to a year.August 24, 2026Reporting an older person living in inhumane conditionsAct 126-2013 requires Familia or ASSMCA on site within 24 hours of the referral, and says years in that state does not justify waiting days.August 24, 2026Minors in money-making digital content: the 30% and the 50%Act 193-2026 requires reserving 30% of income in an account in the minor’s name, or 50% if they appear principally, with rights at age 21.August 26, 2026Grandparents' and aunts'/uncles' right to request visits with a minorIf a parent or guardian objects, a grandparent or aunt/uncle can go to court to request a relationship with the minor, under Article 619A of the Civil Code.August 26, 2026Donated car seat program: how to request one or hand in yoursIf you cannot buy a car seat, a Fire Bureau and Traffic Safety Commission program collects, screens and hands them out.August 27, 2026Threatening or harming an older adult's pet is abuseSince Act 79-2026, using an older person's dog or cat to control them counts as intimidation and abuse under their Bill of Rights.August 27, 2026Children’s homes: priority for having services restoredAct 166-2026 classifies residential establishments with seven or more minors as critical facilities, alongside hospitals and nursing homes.August 27, 2026Loss before 20 weeks: your right to request the remainsAct 42-2026 lets the mother or father request the remains for burial or cremation. The hospital is obliged to coordinate the delivery.August 27, 2026Temporary guardian for an older adult: the judge can appoint oneAct 87-2026 lets the judge appoint a temporary guardian in the same protection order when an accident or medical condition puts the adult at risk.August 27, 2026Youth coach licence: a substance test is now requiredAct 59-2026 adds to the coach licence evidence of a negative controlled-substance test, paid for by the applicant.August 28, 2026How to know if your child’s camp is licensedSince Act 163-2016 camps are licensed by Recreation and Sports, not Family. The licence is displayed, the register is public and a family can request an inspection.August 30, 2026Sports fees when the court was given for freeAct 81-2021 bars sports organisations using a public facility for free from charging fees to poor or low-income participants.August 30, 2026Support through ASUME: the route without courtASUME can set, modify and collect support administratively. You have 20 days to appear, 30 if you live outside Puerto Rico.August 30, 2026What ASUME can do to collect from youWage withholding from day one, credit reporting after 10 days, licences and passport over $5,000, and the lottery prize they will not pay you.August 30, 2026Care vouchers for school-age childrenAct 266-2000 creates vouchers of up to $200 a month per family for extended-hours care of school-age children, and they can stack with other aid.August 30, 2026Day care for public employeesAct 84-1999 obliges every Puerto Rico government agency to have a day care centre for its employees’ preschool children. The one who sets the fee is your own agency.August 31, 2026Day care in your public housing complexAct 283-2003 requires a day care centre in public housing built new since 2004. Whoever proves low income pays nothing for the service.August 31, 2026Support from adult children to an older parentAdult descendants must contribute to an older adult’s support. The Act sets eight factors, allows non-economic contributions, and the duty survives a care home.August 31, 2026Requesting support for an older adultThe request counts if made by phone or by visiting the local office. Then comes voluntary mediation, and the agreement is only reviewable after three years.August 31, 2026Your child’s day-care centre licenceIt must be displayed, lasts two years and is non-transferable. Inspections come quarterly and a public register shows its status.September 3, 2026The Children’s Bill of Rights: the 27 rightsAct 338-1998 recognises twenty-seven rights for every child in Puerto Rico from birth to twenty-one.September 3, 2026How many children per adult a childcare centre may haveThe Regulation 8860 table: 1:5 for infants, 1:8 for toddlers, 1:12 for preschoolers and 1:15 for extended hours.September 3, 2026Declaring a missing person absentA year without news, a court, and someone left in charge of their accounts and debts until they turn up.September 7, 2026From provisional possession to the absentee’s presumed deathThree years to enter possession, ten to ask for presumed death, and four to claim if they return.September 7, 2026Declaring a death when the body is not foundIn a catastrophic event there is no need to declare absence first, and the court may declare the death with no body.September 7, 2026Who stays in the house after the divorcePreferential attribution divides ownership; the right to remain lets you live there. Two different things, and both can be asked for.September 7, 2026Divorced but not liquidated: the post-ganancial communityHalf and half until it is liquidated, with a credit for the community if one uses common money to buy something.September 7, 2026Who owes support to whom in your familySpouses, ascendants, descendants and siblings owe each other, in that order and with rules of their own.September 7, 2026The support obligation: how much, when, how it changes and when it endsOwed from the complaint, paid in the first ten days of the month, and not reduced without judicial authorization.September 7, 2026An inheritance can be debts alone: the Code says so in those wordsArticle 1552 says the inheritance comprises rights and obligations even where obligations exceed rights, or where there are only obligations.September 10, 2026Who may inherit and the six causes that forfeit an inheritanceArticle 1556 of the Civil Code of 2020 lists six causes of unworthiness to inherit. Only two of the six require the person to be convicted.September 10, 2026A pardon of an unworthy heir is irrevocable, and the action lapses after four yearsArticles 1559 to 1561 of the Civil Code of 2020: what the unworthy heir returns, how the decedent may rehabilitate them, and when the four years start running.September 10, 2026Who looks after the estate while nobody has accepted the inheritanceArticle 1563 of the Civil Code of 2020 sets four rungs in order: the decedent’s designee, the executor, those called to succeed and, absent agreement, the court.September 10, 2026Pregnant by the decedent: the right to be maintained at the estate’s chargeArticle 1566 of the Civil Code of 2020 sets two limits: it may not exceed the posthumous child’s share, and it is restored if the child is not the decedent’s.September 10, 2026Accepting or repudiating an inheritance cannot be partial, timed or conditionalArticle 1573 of the Civil Code of 2020 forbids it, and 1571 adds that acceptance and repudiation are unilateral and irrevocable acts.September 10, 2026If the court sets you a term and you do not answer, the inheritance is taken as acceptedArticle 1578 of the Civil Code of 2020 lets any interested person request that term 30 days after the delación, and silence does not repudiate: it accepts.September 10, 2026Repudiating an inheritance is valid only by public deed or a writing to the courtArticle 1583 of the Civil Code of 2020 gives only those two routes. Accepting does admit a private document; repudiating does not.September 10, 2026An heir answers only up to the value of what they receive, with two exceptionsArticle 1587 of the Civil Code of 2020 sets that cap. Article 1588 breaks it if you pay unmatured debts with estate goods or damage them by your fault.September 11, 2026The funeral, the inventory and the executor’s pay come out of the estateArticle 1589 of the Civil Code of 2020 lists six hereditary charges, and the sixth leaves the list open: the other expenses of an analogous nature.September 11, 2026Accepting an inheritance does not mix your goods with the decedent’sArticle 1590 of the Civil Code of 2020 says the confusion of patrimonies does not occur, and 1591 lets the heir oppose the attachment of their own goods.September 11, 2026Claiming an inheritance never lapses, but goods can still be lost to usucapiónArticle 1593 of the Civil Code of 2020 says both in one line: the action is imprescriptible, without prejudice to the usucapión of particular goods.September 11, 2026The apparent heir’s acts fall only if both he and the third party acted in bad faithArticle 1596 of the Civil Code of 2020 uses “and”, not “or”: bad faith on both sides is needed for an act of administration to fail.September 11, 2026Income from inherited goods belongs to the estate until there is a partitionArticle 1603 of the Civil Code of 2020 says so, and 1600 adds that the hereditary community has no juridical personality.September 11, 2026You sell your quota without permission; a specific good needs every heirArticle 1604 of the Civil Code of 2020 separates the two, and 1605 gives co-heirs thirty days of tanteo if the buyer is a stranger.September 11, 2026A testator may forbid dividing for four years; the heirs may renew itArticle 1607 of the Civil Code of 2020 gives the testator a four-year cap that does not reach the legítima. Article 1608 lets the heirs renew theirs.September 11, 2026If your parent died before the grandparent, you inherit in their place, by estirpesArticle 1611 of the Civil Code of 2020 allows it in testate and intestate succession, and 1614 limits what you receive to what your represented would get.September 11, 2026If another heir does not take their share, yours grows and you cannot refuse itArticle 1616 of the Civil Code of 2020 says the right of accretion is irrenunciable, and that it yields to the right of representation when that applies.September 11, 2026If you have forced heirs, you may freely dispose of only half your goodsArticle 1623 of the Civil Code of 2020 says so. And 1622 names the forced heirs: descendants, surviving spouse and, failing these, ascendants.September 11, 2026If the widowed spouse’s share falls short of the house, the gap comes from the free halfArticle 1625 of the Civil Code of 2020 grants a lifetime, free right of habitation and charges that gap to the decedent’s free-disposition share.September 11, 2026Conditions placed on your forced share are held as not placedArticle 1626 of the Civil Code of 2020 calls an encumbrance any charge, condition, term, mode, usufruct, obligation, prohibition or limitation.September 11, 2026Leaving a child out of the will does not void it: it re-divides the forced shareArticle 1629 of the Civil Code of 2020 says preterition does not annul the institution of heir and entails dividing the legítima among all the forced heirs.September 11, 2026Disinheriting requires naming the cause in the will, and the heir bears the proofArticle 1632 of the Civil Code of 2020 requires the disinheritance and its cause to appear expressly and clearly. Challenging it lapses after two years.September 11, 2026With no will, the children and the spouse inherit in equal partsArticle 1721 of the Civil Code of 2020 says so, and 1719 opens intestate succession also when the will is ineffective or insufficient.September 11, 2026If one parent cannot or will not inherit, the estate passes entirely to the otherArticle 1723 of the Civil Code of 2020 says so. Ascendants inherit only failing descendants AND a surviving spouse.September 11, 2026Siblings and nephews inherit before other relatives, and the limit is the sixth degreeArticle 1725 of the Civil Code of 2020 calls siblings and nephews the preferred collaterals. Article 1726 closes private succession at the sixth degree.September 11, 2026With no heirs, the estate goes to the University Fund after a judicial declarationArticle 1727 of the Civil Code of 2020 so orders, with two exceptions: agricultural land and property declared a public nuisance.September 11, 2026If several executors are named without saying how they act, joint action is presumedArticle 1735 of the Civil Code of 2020 sets that presumption, and 1729 bars the person declared unworthy and the disinherited from the office.September 11, 2026An albacea may not sell estate goods unless the testator authorised itArticle 1741 of the Civil Code of 2020 leaves two routes without that authorisation: the heirs’ unanimous consent or judicial authorisation.September 11, 2026A creditor with written title may request an administrator be named for the estateArticle 1744 of the Civil Code of 2020 allows it, alongside the albacea, the forced heirs and the heirs or legatees.September 11, 2026The albacea or administrator must request a contador partidor once debts are coveredArticle 1749 of the Civil Code of 2020 uses “must”, not “may”, and conditions that duty on the debts and administration expenses having been satisfied.September 11, 2026The office is voluntary, yet staying silent fifteen days after being asked accepts itArticle 1750 of the Civil Code of 2020 calls the office of executor voluntary and 1751 creates a legal acceptance by the passing of fifteen days.September 11, 2026If minors are among the interested parties, the executor’s bond shrinks but does not vanishArticle 1757 of the Civil Code of 2020 lets the majority exempt the executor, but the bond must be proportional to the interest of minors or incapacitated persons.September 11, 2026An executor’s pay may not exceed ten per cent of the rents or the net productArticle 1761 of the Civil Code of 2020 sets that cap and lets the will, the heirs’ agreement or, failing those, the court fix it.September 11, 2026A will cannot exempt an executor from accounting: the clause is held as not writtenArticle 1767 of the Civil Code of 2020 says so, and requires quarterly written accounts plus a final account three months after the charge ends.September 11, 2026Resigning the office without just cause costs the share or legacy, never the legítimaArticle 1770 of the Civil Code of 2020 sets that penalty and marks its exact limit. Article 1771 lists five just causes to remove an executor.September 11, 2026If the will contradicts itself, the dividing clause wins; in a separate act, it losesArticle 1778 of the Civil Code of 2020 reverses the rule depending on where the partition was written: inside the will or in a separate act.September 11, 2026Once the partition is made, a creditor may claim everything from a single heirArticle 1786 of the Civil Code of 2020 allows it up to the value that heir receives; 1785 lets creditors halt the partition.September 11, 2026What was left is valued today; what was given away, at the price back thenArticle 1787 of the Civil Code of 2020 uses two different valuation dates in one calculation, and 1788 removes gifts older than ten years.September 11, 2026What you already got comes out of your legitime first, not the free halfArticle 1789 of the Civil Code of 2020 imputes to the legitime what a forced heir received; 1790 sends a stranger’s gift to the free half.September 11, 2026The most recent gift is the first to fallArticle 1792 of the Civil Code of 2020 reduces lifetime gifts from the most recent date back to the most remote, and 1791 shuts the creditor out.September 11, 2026If a coheir is insolvent, even the victim pays part of their own indemnityArticle 1799 of the Civil Code of 2020 spreads the insolvent’s share among the rest, including the one who must be indemnified.September 11, 2026If you sold your share of the inheritance, you lose the right to attack the partitionArticle 1805 of the Civil Code of 2020 closes these actions to anyone who alienated all their participation or a considerable part of it.September 11, 2026A will that names no heirs is still validArticle 1660 of the Civil Code of 2020 says so in one sentence, and 1663 splits in equal parts when no shares were set.September 11, 2026The ban does not stop at the caregiver: it reaches their family and their churchArticle 1662 of the Civil Code of 2020 extends the ban to the fourth degree of consanguinity, the second of affinity, and the clergy member’s institution.September 11, 2026A false reason in the will does not knock down the inheritanceArticle 1664 of the Civil Code of 2020 annuls the designation only if the will itself reveals two things at once, and deletes an illicit motive.September 11, 2026Transmission, substitution and accretion: the Code ranks them in that orderArticle 1671 of the Civil Code of 2020 settles it in one sentence, and 1668 extends the substitute to the case the testator did not foresee.September 11, 2026Someone else may choose who, but never how much or whether it happensArticle 1672 of the Civil Code of 2020 allows entrusting the choice; 1673 forbids leaving the gift’s subsistence and amount to a third party.September 11, 2026An impossible or illegal condition is deleted and the inheritance staysArticle 1676 of the Civil Code of 2020 considers it not written: the condition falls, not the designation of heir or legatee.September 12, 2026Forbidding marriage in a will does not hold; limiting a right’s duration doesArticle 1677 of the Civil Code of 2020 deletes the condition of not marrying in its first paragraph and saves a list of four rights in the second.September 12, 2026If the will forbids you something, you collect now and post a bondArticle 1680 of the Civil Code of 2020 does not make you wait a lifetime: you receive the inheritance by bonding that you will not do the forbidden thing.September 12, 2026Until the date arrives someone else inherits, and touches nothing without inventory and bondArticle 1683 of the Civil Code of 2020 calls the legitimate heir meanwhile, and requires inventory and bond with the instituted person taking part.September 12, 2026A charge attached to an inheritance is not a condition: you receive now and owe afterArticle 1685 of the Civil Code of 2020 treats it as a modal obligation unless another intent appears, and 1686 makes the heir’s right immediate.September 12, 2026A legacy must be asked for: you cannot take the thing on your ownArticle 1691 of the Civil Code of 2020 makes the legatee ask the heir or albacea for delivery, and 1692 forbids substituting the thing.September 12, 2026Left something that was not theirs: valid if the testator knew, and proving it is on youArticle 1693 of the Civil Code of 2020 puts the burden of proof on the legatee, and 1695 leaves the mortgage on the legated thing to them.September 12, 2026If they forgave the debt and then sued you, the forgiveness fallsArticle 1697 of the Civil Code of 2020 voids a legacy of credit or condonation when the testator files suit after making the will.September 12, 2026A generic movable holds even if there is none; an undetermined property, only if there isArticle 1700 of the Civil Code of 2020 treats movables and immovables in opposite ways, and leaves the choice to the heir.September 12, 2026A pension left in a will is paid in advance, and a begun period is never returnedArticle 1705 of the Civil Code of 2020 lets the first payment be demanded from the testator’s death and requires no return of a begun period.September 12, 2026If they sold the thing they left you, buying it back does not revive the legacyArticle 1707 of the Civil Code of 2020 keeps the legacy forceless even if the thing returns to the testator, unless reacquired by pacto de retroventa.September 12, 2026Not saying a formality was met does not void a will; not meeting it doesArticle 1708 of the Civil Code of 2020 saves the will when it can be shown the requirement was met even if not stated.September 12, 2026A torn holographic will is presumed destroyed by whoever was keeping itArticle 1715 of the Civil Code of 2020 calls tearing up a holographic will real revocation, and presumes whoever held it destroyed it.September 12, 2026Divorcing erases what you left your spouse, without touching the willArticle 1714 of the Civil Code of 2020 revokes only the dispositions favouring the spouse if at the testator’s death a divorce is decreed or nullity declared.September 12, 2026Revoking the will that revoked does not resurrect the first oneArticle 1716 of the Civil Code of 2020 restores the earlier will’s effect only when the testator expressly says so.September 12, 2026Divorce ends kinship by affinity with your former spouse’s familyArticle 368 of the Civil Code of 2020 says dissolving the marriage ends kinship by affinity, save where the law provides otherwise.September 12, 2026In the collateral line you climb to the common trunk and then count back downArticle 374 of the Civil Code of 2020 counts one grade per generation up to the common ancestor and one per generation coming back down.September 12, 2026The Code imposes no wait between a dissolved marriage and the next oneArticle 383 of the Civil Code of 2020 leaves former spouses fit to formalise a new marriage once the tie is dissolved by any cause.September 12, 2026The exam result cannot block the wedding; hiding it vitiates consentArticle 388 of the Civil Code of 2020 bars using the medical certificate to deny the licence, and 386 makes concealment a defect of consent.September 12, 2026If the certificate is gone, any suitable evidence proves the celebrationArticle 396 of the Civil Code of 2020 admits any suitable evidence of the celebration when the certificate or inscription cannot be found.September 12, 2026Neither spouse may claim to represent the other without express permissionArticle 402 of the Civil Code of 2020 requires representation between spouses to be expressly conferred, by judicial authority or by law.September 12, 2026The action to declare a marriage null is imprescriptible: it never expiresArticle 405 of the Civil Code of 2020 makes the nullity action imprescriptible, and 404 opens it to anyone with a legitimate interest.September 12, 2026Continuing marital life after the cause ceases confirms the marriageArticle 411 of the Civil Code of 2020 treats the union as confirmed when the entitled spouse continues marital life after the cause ceases.September 12, 2026A null marriage contracted in good faith produces all its effects until the judgmentArticle 412 of the Civil Code of 2020 keeps the marriage’s effects for the good-faith spouse until the nullity judgment becomes firm.September 12, 2026The dissolution does not prejudice good-faith third parties until it is inscribedArticle 418 of the Civil Code of 2020 requires noting the dissolution in the margin of the marriage inscription and makes it opposable only from then.September 13, 2026Filing the petition cuts off the ganancial character of what each then acquiresArticle 426 of the Civil Code of 2020 ends the common character of goods from the filing of the petition and revokes mandates between spouses.September 13, 2026The individual-petition judgment does not describe the conduct behind the divorceArticle 434 of the Civil Code of 2020 dissolves the tie without describing the specific conduct behind an individual petition for irreparable rupture.September 13, 2026The absentee reappearing does not revive a marital tie already dissolvedArticle 438 of the Civil Code of 2020 says the absentee’s reappearance does not revive the dissolved tie, even if the absence was involuntary.September 13, 2026A spouse who serves as guardian may not seek divorce until the guardianship closesArticle 442 of the Civil Code of 2020 bars the guardian spouse from seeking divorce from their ward until the guardianship ends and final accounts are rendered.September 13, 2026The court may forbid taking the children out of Puerto Rico while the case lastsArticle 446 of the Civil Code of 2020 allows forbidding moving the children out of Puerto Rico and protecting their health plan during the dissolution process.September 13, 2026From the day of filing, neither may encumber or sell the common goods aloneArticle 455 of the Civil Code of 2020 bars disposing of common goods without the other spouse’s consent or prior judicial authorisation from the filing date.September 13, 2026Maintenance orders are not suspended while their validity is challengedArticle 458 of the Civil Code of 2020 admits no interruption or suspension of care and maintenance measures while the challenging recourse is pending.September 13, 2026Only fraudulent conduct sets aside a divorce judgmentArticle 470 of the Civil Code of 2020 rules out challenging the judgment for procedural defects that are not an intentional act to defraud.September 13, 2026Living with another person extinguishes the pension the ex-spouse paysArticle 468 of the Civil Code of 2020 extinguishes the ex-spouse’s pension on remarriage or on establishing a relationship of cohabitation with another person.September 13, 2026To divorce before a notary, one of the two must have resided a year in Puerto RicoArticle 473 of the Civil Code of 2020 dissolves the marriage by public deed if, on granting it, at least one spouse resided in Puerto Rico the preceding year.September 13, 2026You may grant the divorce dividing nothing, but then the children’s matters go to courtArticle 474 of the Civil Code of 2020 allows the divorce deed without liquidating gananciales or stipulating on the minors, and requires filing the action in court.September 13, 2026If there is an incapacitated person, the divorce cannot be granted by public deedArticle 475 of the Civil Code of 2020 closes the notarial route when there are incapacitated persons, and gives the notary ten days to notify.September 13, 2026Even under separation of property, both spouses’ goods answer for the family chargesArticle 492 of the Civil Code of 2020 subjects both spouses’ goods to the lifting of the marriage and family charges, independently of the régime.September 13, 2026Giving away a common good without the other spouse is void; selling it is only annullableArticle 495 of the Civil Code of 2020 voids gratuitous acts over common goods done without the other spouse’s consent, save the customary modest gifts.September 13, 2026What you inherit or are given during the marriage is yours and does not enter the communityArticle 509 of the Civil Code of 2020 makes gratuitously acquired goods separate property during the society, whether by donation, legacy or inheritance.September 13, 2026The fruits of a separate good are community property even though the good stays one spouse’sArticle 513 of the Civil Code of 2020 makes ganancial the fruits produced both by privative goods and by common and ganancial ones.September 13, 2026The right to a retirement pension is separate property, but the monthly payments are communityArticle 515 of the Civil Code of 2020 makes the right to a retirement pension separate and the periodic payments received during the society community property.September 13, 2026Paying for separate property with common money does not make it common: it creates a creditArticle 511 of the Civil Code of 2020 keeps the privative character even if paid with common funds, and gives the society a credit for the value paid.September 13, 2026The marriage’s goods are presumed community property until the contrary is provedArticle 519 of the Civil Code of 2020 presumes the marriage’s goods ganancial while it is not proved they belong privatively to either spouse.September 13, 2026A spouse contracting alone is presumed to act with the other’s consentArticle 521 of the Civil Code of 2020 presumes the spouse contracting certain debts acts with the other’s consent, while the contrary is not proved.September 13, 2026A fine for a personal act is not paid by the common estate, unless there is nothing elseArticle 522 of the Civil Code of 2020 excludes pre-society debts and fines for personal acts from the common estate, allowing only subsidiary recourse.September 13, 2026If the gambling is compulsive, the gambler answers with their own goodsArticle 523 of the Civil Code of 2020 takes the common estate off what is lost and unpaid when a disorder compelling compulsive gambling is shown.September 13, 2026If your partner unjustifiably refuses to sign, you may ask the court for assistanceArticle 526 of the Civil Code of 2020 allows demanding judicial assistance when a spouse cannot give consent or unjustifiably refuses.September 13, 2026Selling a community good requires the written consent of both spousesArticle 527 of the Civil Code of 2020 requires both spouses’ written consent to dispose of ganancial goods for value, voiding the act absent timely ratification.September 13, 2026Only two causes end the community property régime, and separating in fact is not oneArticle 532 of the Civil Code of 2020 ends the sociedad de gananciales by the marriage’s dissolution or nullity, or by agreeing a different economic régime.September 13, 2026Deterioration of a separate immovable used by the family is never payableArticle 535 of the Civil Code of 2020 credits deterioration of privative movables used for the society’s benefit, but excludes that of immovables.September 13, 2026When liquidating the community, support debts are paid before all othersArticle 536 of the Civil Code of 2020 orders the society’s debts paid once the inventory is finished, and gives preference to support debts.September 13, 2026What is divided by half is the remainder, not the gross of the common goodsArticle 539 of the Civil Code of 2020 divides by half the remainder left in the inventoried estate after all the preceding deductions.September 13, 2026You may ask to be adjudicated the business you ran, as far as your half reachesArticle 541 of the Civil Code of 2020 includes the business you attended particularly and exclusively with preference in your ganancial share.September 13, 2026
Health
85 guidesHow to apply for Plan Vital (Medicaid) in Puerto RicoWhat Plan Vital is, why eligibility is determined by the Medicaid Program rather than ASES, what documents are requested, and how to pick an insurer.August 12, 2026The living will: putting your wishes about medical treatment in writingAct 160-2001 lets you declare which treatment you accept or refuse facing a terminal condition, and name who decides for you. How it is done.August 16, 2026How to become an organ donor (and how to stop being one)The four ways to register your donation under Act 296-2002 — including the license’s donor consent — and who decides if you never said anything.August 16, 2026Medical cannabis: how to register and what the law actually allowsAct 42-2017’s patient registry: the medical recommendation, the Board ID, annual renewal, and the use rules that surprise many people.August 16, 2026Your rights as a patient: what the Bill of Rights saysAct 194-2000 made plain: emergency access regardless of ability to pay, information before deciding, your medical record, and the right to appeal a denial.August 16, 2026Surprise medical bill: what you can be charged out of networkIn an emergency you cannot be billed above the copay, deductible or coinsurance that would apply in network. And there is arbitration if no deal is reached.August 23, 2026Your plan denied your medication: the medical exception and its 48 hoursThe Health Insurance Code gives the plan 48 hours to decide a medical exception, and guarantees your medication while it decides. 24 hours if controlled.August 23, 2026Cancer coverage: the plan’s 72 hours and the automatic yesThe plan has 24 to 72 hours to approve or deny your cancer treatment, 24 if urgent. If it does not answer on time, it is deemed approved.August 23, 2026After childbirth: 48 hours of hospital, 96 if it was a C-sectionAct 248-1999 requires the plan to cover a minimum 48 hospital hours after an uncomplicated vaginal birth and 96 hours if there was a C-section.August 23, 20269-1-1 ambulance: your plan pays the provider directlyAct 129-2019 requires every basic plan to cover emergency ground ambulance and to pay the provider directly, minus deductibles and copays.August 23, 2026Comparing your medication’s price between pharmaciesDACO runs a portal where pharmacies report what an uninsured consumer pays for the most-used prescription drugs. You can filter by town.August 23, 2026PBM: your pharmacy’s middleman and what it may not doA PBM may not contractually bar your pharmacy from telling you if something cheaper exists, nor deny a refill of a drug it already approved.August 23, 2026Naloxone: no prescription needed, and calling 9-1-1 does not expose you to arrestThe law authorizes selling naloxone without a prescription and shields from arrest anyone who seeks medical help in good faith for an overdose, including themselves.August 23, 2026Your controlled prescriptions are in a registry: who sees itThe law creates a controlled prescription monitoring system, declares it confidential, and recognizes your right to review the information about yourself.August 23, 2026Mental health: 15 days to receive services and other rightsAct 408-2000 prohibits waiting lists longer than 15 working days, requires informed consent with seven elements, and gives 30 days to resolve a complaint.August 26, 2026Down syndrome: therapy coverage and the right to sueAct 97-2018 requires insurers to offer Down syndrome coverage from birth, and allows suing with attorney’s fees charged to the losing party.August 23, 2026HIV: confidentiality, employment, housing and your medicationAct 248-2018 bars disclosing your diagnosis without consent, requiring it to rent to you, or forced testing. Violating it is a misdemeanor.August 23, 2026Permanent tattoos: the age of 21, the licence on the wall and what they must tell youAct 318-1999 bans tattooing anyone under 21, requires a Health Department licence visible in the studio, and a written declaration you sign beforehand.August 23, 2026Immunization Registry: requesting your vaccine record and fixing an errorAct 169-2019 lets you inspect and request a copy of your vaccines and your minor children’s, and ask the provider who gave the vaccine to fix an error.August 23, 2026Epilepsy Registry: your consent governsAct 100-2019 requires doctors and insurers to report epilepsy cases, but only after obtaining the patient’s consent under HIPAA.August 23, 2026Breast cancer screening: what the plan covers and what your report must sayAct 10-2020 requires covering mammograms as preventive care and requires your report to state breast density with a verbatim notice.August 23, 2026Prenatal, birth and postpartum care without health insuranceAct 105-2020 creates prenatal, birth and postpartum coverage for medically indigent pregnant women in Puerto Rico, regardless of migratory status.August 23, 2026Catastrophic Remediable Illness Fund: help when the plan does not coverAct 150-1996 created a Health Department fund that pays, by grant or loan, life-saving diagnosis and treatment a health plan does not cover.August 23, 2026Puerto Rico Autism Registry: who registers and what it is forIt is not your paperwork: the law obliges the health professional to register. And the Registry can link you to services.August 13, 2026Complaint to the Patient Advocate: health plan, hospital or providerIt covers insurers, mental health organisations and health service providers. It can be filed with a phone call.August 14, 2026The plan will not authorise hospitalisation: the 72-hour procedureAct 47-2017 stays the insurer’s determination and requires the Patient Advocate to resolve within 72 hours.August 14, 2026How to find out where your sexual assault evidence kit isYou search with the kit number and nothing else. If you do not have it, the CAVV helpline is available 24/7.August 13, 2026Traffic accident: how to file your ACAA claimFour hours to notify the Police and fifteen calendar days to file. What to bring, who qualifies, and what ACAA does not cover.August 13, 2026ACAA compensation: lost income, death and dismembermentACAA does not only pay doctors. If the accident left you unable to work, it compensates 50% of the weekly salary you were earning before.August 13, 2026Mental health crisis: temporary detention and involuntary commitmentAnyone over 18 can request it. It is not an arrest and does not affect the record. Outside hours, go to the nearest police station.August 14, 2026Línea PAS: mental health crisis help, 24 hours1-800-981-0023, 988, sign-language video at 787-615-4112, and chat, 24 hours. They also coordinate psychiatric evaluation, an ambulance and treatment.August 15, 2026ASSMCA treatment: which programme fits you and where it isASSMCA is not one door. Five divisions and dozens of programmes by age, condition and region: minors, adults, addiction, recovery, homelessness and hospitals.August 15, 2026Telemedicine in Puerto Rico: what it is and how a professional is certifiedLey 168-2018 governs telemedicine in Puerto Rico. The professional needs Health Department certification, a PR licence and a licence where the patient is.August 15, 2026Living with diabetes: your rights at the clinic, the health plan and workAct 14-2023 recognizes your right to care, education, affordable medicines, reasonable accommodations, and non-discrimination when applying for health coverage.August 24, 2026Talking labels: the pharmacy has 30 days to provide them if you cannot seeIf you are blind or have partial visual impairment, you can request in writing that your pharmacy program labels that read the medicine instructions aloud.August 24, 2026Autism special coverage: no age limit, no cap on therapiesAct 163-2024 bans age limits and benefit or visit caps once medical necessity is established, and bans canceling the policy over the diagnosis.August 24, 2026Defibrillators: where the law requires one and requires knowing how to use itAct 85-2007 requires a defibrillator at public facilities with over 200 people, and sets minimums by capacity at terminals, stadiums and halls.August 24, 2026HPV vaccine: your health plan must cover it, and not only for girlsAct 9-2010, amended in 2012, requires plans to cover the HPV vaccine for males and females, with the full set of doses the FDA requires.August 24, 2026Routine HIV test: it must be offered to you and your plan covers itAct 45-2016 requires offering the HIV test in routine medical evaluations and requires plans to cover one test a year; two during pregnancy.August 24, 2026Vieques congenital conditions registry: what it collects and how it protects youAct 280-2003 shielded it: not a public document, it cannot be used to restrict health coverage, and a child’s data is destroyed at age 12.August 24, 2026Defective wheelchair or assistive device: the law gives you a new one in 20 daysAct 402-2000 requires a minimum one-year warranty, a free loaner if repair exceeds 3 days, and new equipment within 20 days if classified defective.August 24, 2026Anesthesia at the dentist: when your plan cannot deny itAct 352-1999 forbids excluding or denying general anesthesia and hospitalization for dental procedures for children and people with disabilities in six situations.August 24, 2026Psychology services: your health plan must include them in its coverageAct 239-2012 orders insurers to include in their coverage services by psychology professionals trained at master’s or doctoral level.August 24, 2026Type 1 diabetes: the monitor, 150 monthly strips and the pump your plan must coverAct 177-2016 requires plans to cover a glucose monitor every 3 years, glucagon, a minimum of 150 strips and 150 lancets monthly, and the insulin pump.August 24, 2026Selling or giving cigarettes to anyone under 21 is prohibited in Puerto RicoAct 21 of 1916 bans selling or giving cigars, cigarettes, tobacco and rolling material to anyone under 21, with a fine up to $100 or up to 90 days.September 4, 2026Vapes and minors: the sales ban and the sign the store must displayAct 41-2015 bans selling e-cigarettes to under-21s and requires every place that sells or gives them away to display visible warning signs.August 24, 2026Bariatric surgery: what your plan must cover and the 12-month waiting periodAct 212-2008 requires every public or private plan in Puerto Rico to cover one bariatric surgery per lifetime for morbid obesity, with a BMI of 35 or higher.August 24, 2026Buprenorphine for opioid addiction: your plan must have it on the listAct 140-2010 requires insurers, plans and ASES to include buprenorphine on the preferred drug list for treating opioid addiction.August 24, 2026Emergency room: they must evaluate you even if you cannot payAct 35-1994 requires every hospital, public or private, to evaluate you in an emergency regardless of ability to pay, and bars asking your immigration status.August 24, 2026Drinking water: when the system must notify you, and whomAct 5-1977 requires a drinking water system to immediately notify public health, the Secretary and the media when it fails, with fines up to $5,000 per day.August 24, 2026Postpartum depression: the screening you are owed and the coverage your plan must giveAct 101-2023 requires every plan, including the Government one, to expressly cover screening and treatment for prepartum and postpartum depression.August 24, 2026The blood count at the oncologist’s office, without going to a labAct 99-2012 authorizes hematologist-oncologists to operate blood analyzers in their office for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy.August 24, 2026Body piercing: the age, the sworn statement and the studio’s licenceAct 73-2003 bars body piercing on minors under 16 even with parental consent, and requires a parent’s sworn statement for those under 18.August 24, 2026Cybertherapy: the plan must pay for remote therapy the sameAct 48-2020 requires health insurers and ASES to pay for cybertherapy as if it were in person, and bars charging you if you did not accept it.August 25, 2026Hospital infections: the MRSA test and what they must tell youAct 298-2012 requires a rapid MRSA test in five admission situations, immediate notice if positive and written instructions before discharge.August 25, 2026Newborn screening: the blood test for your babyAct 84-1987 orders blood samples from every newborn in Puerto Rico, sets ten compulsory conditions and gives 48 hours to object by sworn declaration.August 25, 2026Compulsive gambling help: the register is confidential by lawAct 74-2006 creates the Compulsive Gamblers Help Program at ASSMCA and orders a separate confidential register, with non-therapeutic use prohibited.August 25, 2026Mayagüez pediatric center: what services the law ordersAct 55-2017 creates the center for children with special needs at Hospital Materno Infantil San Antonio in Mayagüez and lists the services it must have.August 25, 2026Dialysis: the companion area and the patient’s rightsAct 53-2025 requires dialysis centres, public and private, to have a companion area, post a sign and answer to the Patient’s Ombudsman.August 25, 2026Rare diseases: the liaison office and the official registryAct 9-2025 creates a Liaison Office at the Health Department with duties of orientation, access to orphan drugs and a confidential registry.August 25, 2026Folic acid: the material your OB-GYN must give you freeAct 11-2025 requires every OB-GYN office to hand out the Health Department material free, with a $100 to $500 fine for failing to.August 25, 2026Act 63-2025: what it prohibits and for whom, up to age 21Act 63-2025 defines a minor as anyone under 21, prohibits certain treatments, leaves two written exceptions and sets a 15-year penalty.August 25, 2026Central Cancer Registry: what is reported and what is confidentialAct 113-2010 requires reporting every cancer case, makes identifying data strictly confidential and bars compelling you into a medical inspection.August 25, 2026Human Milk Bank: how to donate and who can receiveAct 88-2025 creates the Human Milk Bank under Health, and requires health plans to cover milk supply as an essential health benefit.August 25, 2026Pulmonary hypertension: direct access, no referral or pre-authorisationAct 120-2015 puts pulmonary hypertension in the ASES special coverage with direct access to specialists and treatments, no referral or pre-authorisation.August 26, 2026Coordination of benefits if you have two health plansAct 161-2026 requires the provider and the insurer to coordinate your benefits between plans: you should not have to chase your own reimbursement.August 26, 2026Taking your medical record out of the health information exchangeEvery patient can opt out of PRHIE, and reverse it whenever they want. No one may deny you treatment for doing so.August 27, 2026Quitting smoking: your health plan covers up to $400 a yearAct 21-2008 requires health plans to cover services and medications for tobacco dependence up to a minimum of $400 annually per subscriber.August 28, 2026When the hospital answers for a doctor’s negligenceAct 191-2026 moved hospital liability from strict to vicarious: they can now defend themselves by proving they acted with diligence.August 28, 2026Hospital emergency codes: what each one meansAct 170-2011 sets ten identical codes for every health facility, public or private. In Puerto Rico blue means disaster; cardiac arrest is green.August 28, 2026Controlled substances inspectors: what they can doAct 60-2026 clarifies that the Health Inspectors of the Controlled Substances Division hold law-enforcement powers, subject to Justice Department certification.August 29, 2026Leaving Special Education: the transition starts 12 months beforeAct 105-2016 creates a Health Department division for adults 22 and over, and requires the transition assessment a year before leaving Special Education.August 29, 2026Assistive technology equipment: assessment, loan and reuseAct 264-2000 creates the Technological Assistance Program, which takes direct requests and runs a permanent equipment recycling, loan and reuse project.August 29, 2026Whoever adapts your equipment for free: how far they answerAct 175-2007 limits the liability of a professional who creates or modifies assistive equipment free of charge, and sets duties on both sides.August 29, 2026Prosthetics and orthopedic devices: free or at the lowest possible costAct 106-1958 requires providing orthopedic and prosthetic devices free or at the lowest possible cost to low-income persons with disabilities, of all ages.August 29, 2026Adding a grandchild in your custody to your health planAct 15-2007 requires insurers to accept into the family policy minors in the custody of grandparents or another relative, and adults under guardianship.August 29, 2026How a death is determined to be disaster-relatedAct 63-2023 sets the protocol for classifying disaster-related deaths, the centre where families give information, and who publishes the official figures.August 29, 2026Pregnant minor: prenatal care without parental consentAct 27-1992 lets an unemancipated pregnant minor receive prenatal and postpartum care without her parents’ prior consent.August 30, 2026Right to a companion during labour and birthAct 156-2006 gives you the right to choose who accompanies you in pre-labour, birth and postpartum, and the Women’s Advocate handles complaints.August 30, 2026Alcohol and pregnancy warning signAct 79-2008 requires every business selling or serving alcohol to display Fetal Alcohol Syndrome warning signs, with a $50 daily fine.August 30, 2026Registry of volunteers for Alzheimer’s patientsAct 22-2018 created a registry at the Elderly Advocate’s Office of volunteers to care for Alzheimer’s patients and support their families.August 30, 2026The designated carer at the hospitalThe CARE Act requires the hospital to let you name a carer within 24 hours, tell them before discharge, and train them with a hands-on demonstration.September 1, 2026Public pools, spas and jacuzzis: the health licence, the water and the logbookThe two samples before opening, pH between 7.2 and 7.8, the four-foot fence, the six-inch black disc and emptying every six months.September 5, 2026Beauty salons, barbershops and tattoo studios: the hundred square feet, the disinfection and the disposable razorThe premises’ minimum size, when you may operate from a home, how tools are disinfected and what the regulation expressly prohibits.September 5, 2026Funeral homes, crematoria and cemeteries: how they are built and operated under the regulationThe funeral premises’ rules, the crematorium’s industrial zone and the cemetery’s measurements: thirteen metres, the water table and the eight-by-three-foot grave.September 5, 2026
Business & Permits
120 guidesVeteran-owned small business registry and government purchasingAct 113-2012 creates a verified registry of veteran-owned small businesses for government purchasing. The four conditions and the annual verification.August 23, 2026Farmer’s Bill of Rights: the 30-day answer and the certificationAct 39-2006 gives farmers the right to an answer within 30 days from the Department of Agriculture, and defines what a bona fide farmer is.August 23, 2026Artisan ID card: the registry, and what a fair may charge you to sellAct 166-1995 creates the artisan ID card and the bona fide artisan registry, and caps at $45 what a privately funded event may charge you.August 23, 2026How to register an LLC or corporation in Puerto RicoWhat the Department of State corporate registry does, what you need to register your entity, and what comes next.August 13, 2026How to get the Registro de Comerciante (merchant registration) in Puerto RicoWhat the Registro de Comerciante is, what SURI is, how to apply, and what obligations come with the certificate.August 13, 2026How to meet the annual report obligation for your corporation or LLCApril 15, the difference between the annual report and the annual fee, and why non-compliance can cancel the entity.August 13, 2026How to register your business name or trademarkThe prior search, the difference between a trademark and a trade name, and the three years for the first-use declaration.August 13, 2026How to apply for the Permiso Único (single business permit) in Puerto RicoWhat the Permiso Único is, which endorsements it consolidates, how to apply through the Single Business Portal, and what usually delays it.August 13, 2026Who can sign your permit: the Authorized Professional and Authorized InspectorA private professional certified by OGPe can grant or deny your permits. What they can decide, what they cannot, and how to check their credential.August 15, 2026“That product is not approved in Puerto Rico”: the filing that approves itOGPe certifies that a construction system or product meets the current Building Code. Filing costs $1,500.August 15, 2026Occupying a green project: the authorization that comes before the use permitThe AOV is issued before the Green Use Permit to verify the project’s performance. There is no filing cost.August 15, 2026Registering as a condominium manager with DACOA notarised application, a criminal record certificate under three months old, and two separate payments: $150 and $100.August 14, 2026Licence to operate a flea market (discount market)It is for whoever operates the market, not the vendor. An original insurance policy and Hacienda’s Merchant Registry are required.August 14, 2026How to claim money owed to you: Rule 60The summary procedure for debts of $15,000 or less: $60 in stamps, form OAT 991 and a hearing within three months.August 14, 2026Fire Department permits for a business or a buildingThe minimum the Fire Bureau requires in a commercial premises, and the fee schedule with account 5300: common areas, day-care homes, drawings and tanks.August 15, 2026Fire Department permit for an event, tent, kiosk or fairground ridesThe application is delivered at least 5 days before the event. Complete fee schedule by activity type, with account number 5300.August 15, 2026Licence to operate an employment agencyLey 417-1947 requires a licence: a $3,000 bond, a $25.00 stamp, a criminal record certificate and a fee list. Operating without one is a crime.August 15, 2026Employer number, quarterly return and new hire reportingThe DTRH Employer Services Portal: employer registration for unemployment and SINOT, wage declaration, quarterly return, online payment and New Hires.August 15, 2026What PR OSHA requires of an employerEight hours to report a death or the hospitalization of three or more employees, and the duty to fix conditions before handing out protective equipment.August 15, 2026Ley 52 wage incentives for employersThe Employment Opportunities Fund finances wage incentives. You must be current on unemployment, SINOT and chauffeurs’ contributions.August 15, 2026Department of Agriculture incentives for farmersWage subsidy, fertilizer vouchers, livestock, coffee, fishing and equipment rental, with the per-farmer, per-year caps the 2025-2026 manual publishes.August 15, 2026DDEC Seed Capital: up to $15,000 or $35,000 for your businessReimbursement of up to $15,000 for businesses three years old or less and up to $35,000 for older ones. A table ties the award to your net annual income.August 15, 2026DDEC marketing incentive: up to $10,000 to promote your businessThe DDEC reimburses 50% of your marketing spend up to $10,000 over 18 months: website, social media, digital ads, search engine positioning and trade shows.August 15, 2026Reimbursement for businesses hit by the water emergencyThe DDEC reimburses small businesses for drinking water emergency costs: bottled water, cisterns, lost inventory and cleaning, from 1 June 2026 onward.August 15, 2026Crop insurance: insuring the harvest before the hurricane arrivesThe CSA covers coffee, plantains, citrus, fruit, bananas, cane, vegetables and pineapple. The sales window is short and late applications are refused.August 15, 2026Internal Revenue License: who needs one, what it costs and when it expiresYou need one licence per occupation and per location. The renewal month is set by the last digit of your social security or employer account number.August 15, 2026Opening a business: everything Treasury will require of youEmployer number, Merchant Registry, sales tax fiscal terminal, payroll withholding and the withholding on services. Every deadline in one place.August 15, 2026Municipal sales tax is filed and paid in SURI from July 2026From the July 2026 period, municipal sales tax goes on the SURI monthly return. Five municipalities are out: Bayamón, Carolina, Guaynabo, Mayagüez and San Juan.August 15, 2026You were paid with a bounced check: the 10-day notice the law requiresAct 26-1934 punishes worthless checks, but no one can be punished unless you first notify them personally and give them at least 10 or 15 days to pay.August 24, 2026Using “Olympic” or Olympic marks in your promotion requires written permissionAct 71-1987 gives the Puerto Rico Olympic Committee exclusive use of Olympic marks and requires prior written permission for commercial use.August 24, 2026Digital farmer registry: finding local produce by townAct 12-2026 orders the Agriculture Department to build a free public registry of bonafide farmers, searchable by product, municipality and name.August 25, 2026Financing for young people opening their first businessIf you are 29 or younger and it is your first business, the BDE programme asks for 0% to 10% of your own capital and prioritises your permits.August 27, 2026Wild pigs on your farm: the special hunting permit for farmersAct 102-2026 orders DRNA to authorise wild-pig hunting by affected farmers, with a two-year permit, a report and prohibitions.August 27, 2026Qualified physician: where you can serve the 180 annual hoursAct 128-2026 adds the State Insurance Fund, ACAA, ASSMCA and Correctional Health as places a qualified physician can serve the 180 hours, and be paid.August 27, 2026Río Piedras: property tax exemption and job deduction through 2030Act 107-2026 extends to 31 December 2030 the 100% property tax exemption and the forgiveness of interest and surcharges.August 27, 2026Business credit at your cooperative: lines and cards for your businessAct 15-2026 lets savings and credit cooperatives offer commercial lines and credit cards, secured by real or personal guarantee, to members and non-members.August 28, 2026Company donations to a campaign: what is allowed and what is notAct 53-2026 bars foreign juridical persons from financing campaigns in Puerto Rico and leaves the segregated funds committee as the lawful route for local ones.August 28, 2026Agricultural practices permit: clearing, ponds and roadsAct 140-2015 exempts ploughing, harrowing, furrowing and terracing from permits, and gives 30 days plus one extension: no answer means the permit is deemed granted.August 29, 2026Organic products: what the certification meansAct 228-2003 forbids calling an agricultural product organic without certification, and requires the label “Producto Certificado Orgánico de Puerto Rico.”August 29, 2026Family farmers markets: selling and buying localAct 63-2015 requires a farmer certification to sell at these markets and forbids selling there any product not originated in Puerto Rico.August 29, 2026Delpaís mark: what it guarantees and how to license itAct 195-2016 limits the Delpaís mark to products produced, processed and packed in Puerto Rico, and requires 65% local raw material in processed goods.August 29, 2026Commercial animal feed: what the label must sayAct 110-1962 requires registration, guaranteed analysis and a Spanish label for livestock feed. Note: despite the title, it does not cover dogs or cats.August 29, 2026Business Toolkit for WomenAct 81-2018 creates a DDEC programme that guides and assists women in opening a business, focused on technology and innovation.August 30, 2026Registering a vending machineAct 217-2014 requires every vending machine to be registered at OGPe with a digital sticker: $5 to $15, once, issued within 24 hours.August 30, 2026Registry of available public propertiesAct 19-2011 requires four public entities to publish their properties in a GIS registry with free access for the general public.August 30, 2026An EDB loan for a care centreAct 212-2000 gives the Economic Development Bank a $4 million revolving fund for care centres. Before applying you need a certification from the Family Department.August 31, 2026Permit to operate a game preserveThe DRNA permit expires on 30 June of its second year. The owner registers the preserve’s weapons in their own name and files monthly reports.August 31, 2026Boat and jet ski rental businessTwenty-one to rent a boat, twelve for a kayak. The business needs life-saving accreditation, a licensed instructor and a record kept for one year.August 31, 2026Municipal business tax: who pays and how muchThe ceiling is 1.50% of volume for financial businesses and 0.50% of one per cent for the rest, never below twenty-five dollars. Each town sets the rate.August 31, 2026Municipal business tax: filing and paymentThe declaration is due five business days after 15 April. The tax falls due on 1 July and 2 January, and paying in full on filing earns a 5% discount.August 31, 2026Municipal business tax exemptionsThe Act exempts thirty-six cases. The two most looked up: volume of business not over five thousand dollars, and craft workshops under fifty thousand.September 1, 2026Pay equity certificationDTRH’s programme is voluntary, but to enter the Single Bidders Registry the pay-equity policy certification is not.September 2, 2026Getting a childcare establishment licenceSixty days before opening, a mandatory orientation and a stack of certifications. Regulation 8860, step by step.September 3, 2026Caring for children at home: the family care homeUp to six children, and your own aged twelve or under count. What Regulation 8860 requires of a family care home.September 3, 2026Dry floodproofing: the alternative to elevating the buildingFor non-residential structures in a flood zone there is an alternative to elevating, with its own certificate and its own numbers.September 3, 2026How many parking spaces you must provide: the table by useOne space per fifteen square metres of shop, one per five of restaurant, and the minimum is not waived outside the urban centre.September 3, 2026Your business sign: when you do not need a permitUp to 35% of the façade or a hundred square feet, whichever is greater, with no permit. And the Single Permit already authorises fifty.September 3, 2026The Green Permit: thirty days and no impact feeBuilding under the Green Design Guidelines exempts you from impact fees and allows parameters to vary by up to 25%.September 3, 2026A business at home: the 25%, one chair and who may workThe regulation allows an office, a home occupation and a beauty salon in the dwelling, with size and staffing caps.September 3, 2026Impact fee: who pays it, who is exempt and how to dispute itThree presumptions of no impact, exemptions including renewable energy, and a reclassification procedure with 60- and 20-day terms.September 3, 2026Business licences: the requirements every one of them asks forEleven documents, validity tied to the Permiso Único, and a licence that cannot move premises.September 4, 2026Licence to sell cigarettes, vapes and tobacco productsOne wholesale licence, one retail, and one more per vending machine; and nothing within the customer’s reach.September 4, 2026Sanitary Licence: issued first, inspected afterwardsFiled through the SUI within the Permiso Único, issued before the inspection, and Health can close you down afterwards.September 4, 2026Fire Prevention Certification: who signs it and when the inspection comesIssued within the Permiso Único before the inspection, with a certifying paragraph the regulation prints word for word.September 4, 2026Retail alcohol licence: categories A, B and C and the hundred metresThree categories by where it is drunk, mandatory denial grounds, and the hundred-metre rule near schools and churches.September 4, 2026Wholesale alcohol and beer and wine manufacturersFive licences, the Federal Basic Permit in all of them, one per vehicle, and formula and label before producing.September 4, 2026General environmental permits: the 40 cubic metres, 900 metres and 10 horsepowerThree General Permits filed with OGPe, with concrete thresholds and same-day issuance when filed alone.September 4, 2026Gasoline station: where it may be sited and why no variance is possibleSeparations of 800, 400, 2,200 and 1,200 metres between stations, 50 metres from a park and 1,000 feet from a school; and OGPe has no power to waive them.September 4, 2026Gasoline station: what may be sold and what the lot must measureSeven uses permitted in the main building, sealed alcoholic beverages with no consumption on site, and the height, area and yard tables by district.September 4, 2026Solar panels: up to one megawatt on a roof needs no permit, and the solar farm has a tableA roof up to 1 MW needs no construction or use permit; on the ground up to 100 kW needs no construction permit either.September 4, 2026Wind turbines: the 110%, the 150% and the farm next doorSetbacks are measured as percentages of the tower’s height, and a neighbour may consent by sworn statement or public deed to shortening them.September 4, 2026Medical cannabis: the hundred metres from a school and how the premises must be builtThe construction and use permit is central OGPe’s exclusive jurisdiction, and the physical plant has its own requirements by establishment type.September 4, 2026Health, Fire and Police recommendations for a construction permitWhat the Final Recommendation Determination is, which plans each agency asks for and why one- and two-family homes are excluded.September 4, 2026Signs, awnings and curtains in a historic zone: where they go, how big and the seventeen prohibitedOne sign per façade, ground floor only, two inches thick. The prohibited signs, the vinyl on the display window, and the single-colour awning rules.September 5, 2026Food businesses: the water, plumbing, sewage and physical-facility requirementsPotable water from an approved source, handwash basins at 100 degrees with fifteen seconds of flow, grease traps and the required floor-wall junctions.September 5, 2026Permiso Único: how long it lasts, how it is renewed and how it is transferredThe terms the regulation sets: one to three years, forty-five days to renew, two years of grace and the automatic transfer.September 5, 2026Special Permisos Únicos: PYMES, temporary activities, political propaganda, automatic and startupsThe five Permiso Único variants the regulation carries, with PYMES’ thirty days, the six months for temporary ones and the uses the automatic cannot cover.September 5, 2026Conditional Permiso Único and Use Permit: opening with a licence pending, and the two years that kill itThe six months to complete missing licences, the debt that cannot be grounds for denial, and why premises closed for two years lose the use permit.September 5, 2026Food manufacturing plants: the physical plant, the water and the sanitary controlsWhat the regulation requires of a food manufacturing plant: separation of operations, pest control, water at an adequate temperature and signs.September 5, 2026Ice plants: approved water, exclusive premises and the industrial machineWhat the regulation requires of an ice plant for human consumption: where the water comes from, what the premises must be like and why the packing must be automatic.September 5, 2026R-C district: the business on the ground floor and the dwelling aboveWhat the residential-commercial district allows and expressly prohibits, with the two parameter columns for high density and traditional urban centre.September 5, 2026Commercial districts C-L, C-I and C-C: which business fits in eachThe ladder of the three commercial districts, the uses each reserves to the next, the lot and yard parameters, and the consulta for centres over 250,000 square feet.September 5, 2026Industrial districts I-E, I-L and I-P: the quarry, light industry and heavy industryWhat each industrial district allows, the minimum lots of 8,000, 800 and 4,000 square metres, and the defect in the heavy-industry parameter table.September 5, 2026Food labels: Department of Health approval, language and permit numberThe label must be approved before use, goes in Spanish or bilingual, and carries the Permiso Único or Health Licence number and the lot number.September 5, 2026Agricultural districts A-G and A-P: what is allowed on a farm and in an agricultural reserveThe fifty-cuerda segregation in a reserve, the fifty-metre buffer zone, the accessory uses and the ban on commercial advertising.September 5, 2026Building near an airport or on land qualified D-GThe five grounds on which no permit at all is issued near an airport, and the six criteria for building on land affected by a public-interest project.September 6, 2026Opening a food truck park: districts, toilets, distances and rubbishOne truck per hundred square metres, twenty metres from housing, one set of toilets per four trucks and a total ban on loudspeakers.September 6, 2026District C-T Tourist Commercial: commerce below, housing above and a gallery on the pavementWhat is allowed in tourist commercial zones, the two intensity levels, the mandatory gallery and why a nightclub carries a public hearing.September 6, 2026District DTS: everything by location consultation, except one house per propertyThe district with no fixed parameter table: occupation and gross floor area are determined in light of the proposed development.September 6, 2026Bathing resorts, marinas and camps on the coast: what the regulation demandsA bathing resort’s nine minimum facilities, the ban on segregating in coastal complexes and its only two exceptions.September 6, 2026How a sign is measured and installed: size, twelve inches and eight clear feetEach face counts separately, you may not project more than twelve inches over the pavement, and every sign needs its own electric meter.September 6, 2026Billboards must give free space: public service advertisements and Police alertsUp to five public service spaces depending on how many billboards are held, and a ten-thousand-dollar fine for refusing an Amber Alert.September 6, 2026Signs in a residential zone: twelve feet for the office, thirty-two for the "For sale"In a residential district signs are not permitted save where a use is approved, and each permitted use has its exact size in square feet.September 6, 2026Business signs: thirty-five per cent at the front and fifty on the sidesThe ground sign depends on the lot’s frontage, and with under twenty-five feet of frontage none is permitted.September 6, 2026Sign and sign-maker registry: ten dollars, a two-hundred penalty and the sign-maker licenceRegistering a sign costs ten dollars and not registering it costs two hundred. The sign-maker licence is fifty a year and demands two policies.September 6, 2026Signs in tourist, agricultural and conservation districts: one sign only and thirty-five feetIn twelve districts the Regulation allows one sign per building and one on the ground, at 35% of façade and 35 feet tall.September 6, 2026Tourist Interest Zones: no billboards, cross-street banners or commercial tarpaulinsIn a Tourist Interest Zone the sign runs parallel to the façade, stays under 25% of the area and needs the Tourism Company’s recommendation.September 6, 2026Advertisements on government land: 672 square feet, sixty feet tall and 500 of spacingSize, quantity, spacing and height of ground advertisements by the road’s lanes, in Rule 8.7.11 of the Joint Regulation.September 6, 2026Signs facing a National Highway System road: fifteen feet of setback and five hundred of spacingOnly in commercial, industrial districts and non-zoned area; nothing within 500 feet of an exit nor 300 after an entrance.September 6, 2026Licence to sell gasoline: wholesale, retail and Treasury enforcementSelling gasoline to a dealer needs a wholesale licence and a bond; selling to the consumer needs a retail licence on display.September 6, 2026The supply contract: periodic deliveries and their rulesTen years maximum from the first delivery. With no agreed term, it ends by effective notice never shorter than thirty days.September 9, 2026A supply delivery failed: rescind, or merely suspendYou rescind if the breach is significant and reasonably destroys confidence in later deliveries. If not, only suspension lies, with notice.September 9, 2026Brokerage: when the commission is earned even if you close the deal yourselfIf the broker has begun work and you close on your own, or they found a taker and you back out, the fee is owed anyway.September 9, 2026Agency contract: one month’s notice per year, up to sixWith no term, either side may end it giving one month’s notice per year in force, capped at six. Without notice, the lost profits are paid.September 9, 2026Commercial agent: you are paid monthly and answered within 15 daysArticle 1426 requires the principal to pay monthly and to communicate acceptance or rejection within a period that must never be less than fifteen days.September 9, 2026Agent’s commission: earned when the contract is perfectedArticle 1430 fixes when the commission is earned and when the principal’s fifteen-day silence counts as acceptance of the order.September 9, 2026Your agency ended: the clientele you left behind can be paid forArticle 1435 recognises a remuneration for the agent whose work keeps producing advantages for the principal, capped at one year of net remunerations.September 9, 2026Distributing a brand: what the maker owes you and what you owe itThe Civil Code places eight obligations on the grantor and eight on the concessionaire, and by default bars sub-concessionaires and assigning the contract.September 9, 2026They pull your distribution: they must buy your stock backArticle 1446 requires the grantor to buy the new products and spare parts left at the end of the notice period, at ordinary sale prices.September 10, 2026Civil partnership: unregistered, it is no separate legal personArticle 1448 of the Civil Code says the partnership has no legal personality separate from its partners unless it is registered.September 10, 2026Partnership debts: partners answer with their own estateArticle 1451 makes partners answer with their personal estate subsidiarily, jointly and without limit, and voids any agreement excluding one from the profits.September 10, 2026Partnership with no term: it can last the partners’ whole livesArticle 1452 gives four possible durations where nothing was agreed, and 1453 allows early dissolution for just cause.September 10, 2026Standing surety: never more than the debtor, but costs are includedArticle 1475 bars the surety from owing more than the debtor, and 1474 folds accessories, costs and fees into the suretyship.September 10, 2026Getting out of a suretyship: retract by notice, but only going forwardArticle 1478 lets an indeterminate-time suretyship be retracted at any moment; from the notice it stops covering new obligations.September 10, 2026Standing surety: if it is not in writing, the suretyship is voidArticle 1482 voids a suretyship not agreed in writing, and 1481 bars the surety from excusing itself on the debtor’s incapacity.September 10, 2026They come at you as surety: the debtor’s property goes firstArticle 1483 makes the creditor exhaust the debtor’s property before turning to the surety. Article 1484 lists five exceptions.September 10, 2026Sued as a surety: you also get to raise the debtor’s defencesArticle 1485 lets the surety raise the debtor’s defences even if waived, and 1486 strips force from a judgement it was never notified of.September 10, 2026You paid as surety: you recover from the debtor with interest from that dayArticle 1489 subrogates the surety into the creditor’s rights and lets it demand interest from the day of payment plus losses suffered.September 10, 2026You overpaid as co-surety: you recover from the others, but share the lossArticle 1493 subrogates the overpaying co-surety against the others, and 1494 spreads the insolvent one’s loss among all — including it.September 10, 2026They extended the debtor’s deadline without asking you: your suretyship endsArticle 1495 extinguishes the suretyship on an extension given without the surety’s consent, unconsented novation, and creditor negligence in excussion.September 10, 2026
Housing
194 guidesHow to apply for public housing in Puerto RicoThe 22 documents AVP requires to file, the online application, and why they will not file if something is missing.August 13, 2026How to apply for Section 8 in Puerto RicoBasic admission requirements, where the application is, and the AVP notice about new applications you should read first.August 13, 2026How to request materials assistance to repair your home in Puerto RicoThe Department of Housing program, the 15 requirements it demands, and the three quotes most people do not expect.August 13, 2026Homeless or at risk of losing your home: the ESG ProgrammeShelter, rapid rehousing and prevention. The Coordinated Entry System attends at the moment of the call, without an appointment.August 14, 2026Hogar seguro: protecting your primary residence from seizureAct 195-2011 protects your primary residence from seizure for debts. What it covers, its exceptions (a mortgage is not stopped), and how to claim it.August 27, 2026Renting a home: what the landlord owes and what you oweLandlord and tenant duties under the 2020 Civil Code: repairs, the 7-day notice to inspect, and when the contract can be terminated.August 16, 2026Property Registry: how to request a registry certificationThe two kinds of certification the Registry issues, the 60-day deadline the law sets, and what to do if the registrar does not issue it.August 16, 2026Co-owned property: how it is managed and how it is dividedA co-owner is not required to remain in the community: they may demand division at any time. And management is decided by quota value, not by headcount.August 16, 2026Your land has no road access: the right of wayAnyone without sufficient access to a public road can demand passage from their neighbours. And if a split left the plot landlocked, no indemnity is owed.August 17, 2026Something shaded your solar panels: the right to solar and wind energyThe 2020 Code gives you a right to the sun and wind reaching your land, bans shading a neighbour with trees, and voids any agreement limiting it.August 17, 2026You do not know where your land ends: fixing and marking boundariesA deslinde fixes blurred boundaries and amojonamiento marks them. The action never prescribes, but a neighbour can still gain ground by prescription.August 17, 2026Generator warranty: repair, deadlines and getting your money backAct 107-2019 requires honoring warranties on new generators and creates a special action that can end in contract resolution and a refund.August 23, 2026Contractor registry: how to check it before you signAct 146-1995 creates a public Contractor Registry at DACO, with bond and certification. What to demand before hiring and how long you have to claim.August 23, 2026Roof sealing: the contractor needs a licence, not just a brushAct 281-2000 requires a Board licence to waterproof, seal or repair roofs. What to ask before they climb up, and what the law excludes.August 23, 2026Challenging your condominium Board: 30 days and a new courtSince July 2026 challenges go to a specialized court division with exclusive jurisdiction. You have 30 days.August 23, 2026Maintenance fees: penalties, service cut-offs and inherited debtThe Board may cut services after two unpaid instalments, but first it must evaluate a payment plan with you. And buying an apartment inherits the debt.August 23, 2026Moved out for a public works project: who pays the moveAct 94-1966 authorizes DTOP and the Highway Authority to compensate moving expenses for anyone forced to leave a property acquired for public works.August 23, 2026Safe Plans: four house designs OGPe gives you for freeOGPe and FEMA publish four house models you can download at no cost. They do not replace the engineer, but they save you the plan.August 15, 2026Correcting the recorded area: your deed says one size, the land anotherOGPe certifies the survey of your lot to correct the area recorded in the Property Registry. Filing costs $30.August 15, 2026Subdividing or lotting out land: the Registration Plans AuthorizationTo divide an estate and record the new lots, OGPe must approve the registration plans. It costs $15 per lot.August 15, 2026The construction permit: what it asks for and why yours may not be “ministerial”One permit covers urbanization, construction and demolition. If it is ministerial it moves fast; OGPe publishes exactly what disqualifies it.August 15, 2026When what you want to build does not fit the district’s parametersThe Construction Consultation is the route for requesting variances to construction parameters. Filing starts at $150.August 15, 2026The fire prevention certification for an apartment buildingIt goes inside the use permit for a multifamily residence, and OGPe or a private Authorized Inspector can issue it.August 15, 2026Your deed carries CRUV conditions and they are blocking the saleTo sell, refinance, mortgage or remove the extinct CRUV’s restrictive conditions you need the Housing Department’s authorization.August 15, 2026Housing denied you: you have 20 days, and the clock starts earlier than you thinkRegulation 9618 sets the procedure for reconsidering and reviewing a resolution of the Housing Department and its attached agencies.August 15, 2026Which Housing Department office is yoursThe Housing Department’s ten regional offices, with address, telephone and the municipalities each one serves.August 15, 2026Condominium complaint with DACO: horizontal propertyThe seven causes the form lets you tick — illegal assessment, challenge to an assembly, improper cut-off of services and four more.August 14, 2026Eviction in Puerto Rico: the full court processForcing someone out without a judgment is illegal. The $60 or $90 in stamps, the 5 days to appeal, and the protections for insolvent families.August 14, 2026Usucapión in Puerto Rico: acquiring property by possession, and getting the titleThe four requirements, the terms that changed on 28 November 2020, and the declaratory action to register in the Property Registry.August 14, 2026Work on a historic property or zone: the ICP recommendationEven painting the façade needs an ICP recommendation. And the historic zone reaches further than you think: it includes all 78 municipal plazas.August 15, 2026Archaeology before you build: the ICP reviewThe ICP reviews construction projects for archaeological impact, and you can consult it before buying or developing. Two councils: terrestrial and subaquatic.August 15, 2026Flood zones: Puerto Rico’s two maps and which one governsPuerto Rico uses the FIRM maps and, since 2018, the ABFE maps. For building or substantially improving a property, the more restrictive of the two always applies.August 15, 2026Coastal zone: how far it reaches and when you need certificationIt runs 1,000 metres inland and 9 nautical miles out to sea. A project with a federal permit or federal funds inside it needs certification from the Junta.August 15, 2026Mortgage foreclosure: the mandatory mediation the court cannot skipIf they sue to foreclose on your principal residence, mediation is a jurisdictional requirement: without it no judgment can be entered and no judicial sale held.August 24, 2026Student lodging: the DACO licence that must be on displayNo student lodging may operate without a DACO licence, and your lease must certify the place complies with Act 48-1990 and its regulation.August 24, 2026Recycling area: new housing complexes must designate oneAct 61-2002 requires designating a recyclable material recovery area in every new housing complex, with $5,000 to $10,000 fines for failing to.August 24, 2026School zone: 100 metres, 200 radial, and which businesses cannot be thereAct 84-1988 defines the school zone as 100 linear metres and 200 radial, and limits noxious businesses to operating outside school hours.August 24, 2026Where a crematorium may be: industrial zoning and 50 metres from residentialAct 55-2006 limits crematoria to industrial or unzoned areas and bars authorising operation within fifty metres of a residential zone.August 24, 2026The plumber, their licence and the 30-day warranty certificationAct 59-2022 defines a 30-day warranty certification, requires an installation certification under penalty of perjury, and punishes hiring unlicensed plumbers.August 24, 2026Eviction of veterans, older adults and people with disabilitiesAct 31-2026 makes the court notify the matching Ombudsman, demand a report in 30 days, and grants 20 non-extendable days before the eviction.August 25, 2026Vacant and abandoned housing: the special procedure and its deadlinesAct 118-1980 requires prior certified-mail notice with 15 days to appear, a hearing within 20 days and a court ruling in 5 days.August 26, 2026Municipal lots in urban centers: registration and your preferred purchase rightIf you occupy a municipal lot in the urban center, Act 182-2026 lets it be registered without prior subdivision, and gives you preference if it is sold.August 26, 2026Permit to extract sand, gravel and stone, and how to object to itOGPe grants the permit and DRNA oversees it. If the extraction is near your home, you have a right to a public hearing in your town.August 27, 2026They want to evict you from a home you contributed to: the community-of-property defenceSince Act 95-2026 you can present evidence of what you contributed and demand the eviction go through the ordinary route, not the summary one.August 27, 2026Out-of-state divorce: when you no longer need exequátur at the RegistryAct 94-2026 removes exequátur when a US state judgment is used only to prove your civil status in the deed.August 27, 2026Converting a condominium into a condohotel: what Act 11-2026 requiresIt takes all the owners plus authorisation from OGPe or the municipality. What the new Article 9.-103 says and how the decision is taken.August 27, 2026Condominium rules: how to get them before you buyAct 13-2026 obliges the manager to hand over the rules within five business days to the listing broker or to a buyer who asks.August 27, 2026Stopping work or revoking a permit: the 10% bond and what to allegeAct 82-2026 requires alleging imminent harm and a bond of no less than 10% of the project’s value in every paralization request, judicial or administrative.August 28, 2026Selling or segregating: no appraisal, survey or title study requiredAct 168-2026 removed from the notarial informative return the appraisal, survey plan and title study that Act 52-2022 had added.August 28, 2026Pesticides: who may fumigate and what you can demandAct 49-1953 requires a licence for the business and certification for the person applying pesticides, plus Agriculture registration of every product sold here.August 29, 2026Loss mitigation before you lose the houseAct 169-2016 bars the creditor from starting collection once it receives your loss-mitigation request, and forbids refusing partial payments.August 30, 2026Title to the plot when your house sits on someone else’s landAct 132-1975 lets the Housing Department grant plot title to the occupant: one dollar for low-income families, or a percentage of the appraisal.August 30, 2026Title to a plot that is encumbered or affectedAct 286-1999 lets the Secretary of Housing unblock encumbered plots by regulation and grant title to the occupant, free of notarial and registry fees.August 30, 2026Social-interest housing subsidyAct 124-1993 subsidises the monthly mortgage payment and part of the down payment, with restrictive conditions and a six-year clawback.August 30, 2026Does your real estate broker have a licence?Act 10-1994 requires displaying the licence, holding your deposit in escrow and posting a bond, and publishes a registry with adjudicated complaints.August 30, 2026Conservation easement and its tax creditAct 183-2001 lets you encumber your land in perpetuity to conserve it, with a 50% tax credit and property tax exemption.August 30, 2026What can be done on land in the karst zoneAct 292-1999 bars ten activities in the karst zone without a DRNA permit, with fines up to $25,000, and exempts conserved farms from property tax.August 30, 2026Cutting trees and classifying an auxiliary forestThe Forest Act bars cutting certain trees without a permit, limits felling to weekdays 6 a.m.–6 p.m., and exempts auxiliary forests from property tax.August 30, 2026Construction permits in a historic zoneAct 374-1949 requires the ICP’s written recommendation before any permit in a historic zone — colour and signs included in the review.August 30, 2026The list of buildings of historic valueIf your private building is on the Act 3-1951 list, the permit rules of Act 374-1949 apply to it as if it stood in a historic zone.August 30, 2026Maintenance and claims in public housingAct 66-1989 obliges the Public Housing Administration to maintain, clean and repair, and to handle residents’ service claims swiftly.August 30, 2026Modifying natural habitat: mitigation planEssential critical habitat may not be modified. Non-essential critical habitat needs vital public interest, and the compensation is at least three to one.August 31, 2026When a property is declared a public nuisanceThirty days to request a hearing before an examining officer. If the town cleans up, the fine is quarterly, one to five thousand dollars, plus the lien.August 31, 2026Expropriating a declared nuisance propertyWhoever wants the property fronts the appraisal plus ten per cent. On the summary route there are twenty days to answer and three years to claim compensation.August 31, 2026Complaint over housing unfit to live inFive residents of the town can ask for a dwelling to be investigated. The hearing is set ten to thirty business days after the complaint is notified.August 31, 2026Municipal construction excise taxIt is paid before work starts, even if no permit is needed. The Finance Director answers in fifteen days and there are fifteen business days to pay.September 1, 2026The construction contractor’s payment bondAny work over $15,000 requires a bond in favour of the Secretary of Labor, and starting without it is a felony.September 2, 2026The elevation certificate: who signs it and why it is requiredWithout this document no construction permit is approved in a regulatory flood zone. Only a surveyor signs it.September 3, 2026Substantial damage and improvement: the 50% rule in a flood zoneIf repairing or improving costs half the structure’s value, your home must meet the full flood regulation.September 3, 2026What the Planning Board charges for each procedureThe fee schedule of Administrative Order JP-OA-2019-01: consultations, certifications, public hearings, copies and GIS data.September 3, 2026Assisted living housing: what it is and how it is certifiedIt is not a retirement home or a long-term facility. Regulation 7299 says who it serves, what certification costs, and what happens if you skip it.September 3, 2026Closing or building a carport: the measurements that governTen feet wide, twenty long, thirteen high in the side yard, and windows five feet from the boundary.September 3, 2026How high a fence may be in Puerto RicoOne metre at the front, two at the sides and rear, and two at the front with a grille under 25% solid.September 3, 2026The variance: when your lot does not meet its districtThere are two different variances and a hard requirement. The Joint Regulation says variances are not favoured.September 3, 2026The Resident Council: how it is formed and electedFive to thirteen members, secret ballot, quorum by project size, and ten per cent to remove it.September 3, 2026The septic system permit for a homeWhat OGPe asks to authorise a septic tank, the inspection before covering, and who answers for prior contamination.September 3, 2026Reviewing a permit: twenty days and forty-eight hoursThe term to challenge an OGPe determination is jurisdictional, and notifying the other parties is too.September 3, 2026Tiny houses: from 170 to 1,100 square feet, and where they fitThe Joint Regulation does allow them, with a table of measurements of their own and separate rules for communities of four to ten units.September 3, 2026Complaint about unpermitted work or a businessOnly someone with a proprietary interest or an abutter may file, and if the place cannot be found, it is filed away.September 3, 2026Permit fines: how the amount charged is calculatedA $500 base or double the permit cost, multiplied by severity, and each day it continues is a separate violation.September 3, 2026Lifts: who may install them and what must be filedIf the company is not registered with PROSHA, the equipment cannot be certified, however well the work was done.September 3, 2026Reasonable accommodation in housing: you need not even write it downThe request may be verbal, need not use those words, and a missing form cannot delay or deny it.September 3, 2026Your subsidised flat: what it must have and who inspects itIf the project does not fix the deficiencies in ninety days it loses the subsidy, and cannot charge it to you.September 3, 2026If your subsidy is cancelled: the seven causes and mediationBefore any complaint you must go to mediation, and the project’s administration pays for the mediator.September 3, 2026The annual subsidy review: do not wait to be calledYou must hand in the documents even if the project does not ask, and report any income change in writing.September 3, 2026Legal non-conformity: the two years and the fifty per centClose for more than two years and you lose the protection; if damage exceeds 50% you cannot rebuild for the same use.September 3, 2026Telecommunications tower near your home: distances, notices and bansTower height plus 10% to the nearest residence, plus 50 metres beside schools, and notice within 100 metres in 10 days.September 3, 2026Parcel or lot under Title V of the Land Act: who qualifies and how the draw worksBeing an agregado, six months in Puerto Rico and the regulation’s income limits; then a draw with priorities and a lifetime usufruct.September 3, 2026Planning Board permit audit: what it reviews and how it endsThe Board audits final determinations and permits already issued; it can end in a fine, a stoppage or revocation.September 4, 2026Reconsideration before the Planning Board: twenty days and what followsA jurisdictional term of 20 calendar days, six mandatory contents, and 30 days for the Court of Appeals.September 4, 2026Administrative hearing before the Planning Board: how it is set, held and decidedFifteen days’ notice, a public hearing, the rules of evidence do not apply, and suspending it costs you the terms.September 4, 2026Going to the Court of First Instance over works or a permitInjunction, mandamus or declaratory judgment to stop, revoke or demolish; but filing kills the administrative complaint.September 4, 2026Environmental compliance in permits: REA, EA, DIA and categorical exclusionNo environmental compliance determination means no final determination, and the REA precedes every EA or DIA.September 4, 2026Master Plan: how it is filed, adopted and how long it lastsTwelve initial contents, twelve filing requirements, a public hearing, a Governor’s Executive Order and five years’ validity.September 4, 2026Electrical works: when a recommendation is needed and the seven days to energiseSeven cases require a prior AEE recommendation, and once energising is requested the maximum term is seven days.September 4, 2026Social-interest residential project: relaxed parameters, fee exemption and the reserved 5%Lots from 100 square metres, eleven-metre streets, impact-fee exemption with the Secretary’s certification, and five per cent of units reserved.September 4, 2026Accessory buildings and uses: the 25%, the two storeys and the seven metresA home office, home occupation or salon may not exceed 25% of the dwelling’s area, and the building out back has height, occupancy and setback caps.September 4, 2026Opening an access to the road: the operational study and who accepts the worksOGPe grants the permit and the Permiso Único, but the DTOP accepts the built works, and the ACT may inspect within 25 metres of the road.September 4, 2026Getting a property declared historic: the fifty years and the emergency designationAnyone may request the nomination, and where short-term demolition threatens, an emergency designation valid for six months is available.September 4, 2026Overlaid zones: the map layer that changes what you may do on your lotTourist, historic, school, special planning, port and risk zones, plus special planning areas and natural and agricultural reserves.September 4, 2026Permit process: five days to validate, thirty to cure and 180, 120 or 30 to decideThe terms the Joint Regulation fixes to validate an application, cure it and decide it, and the rule that provisional permits do not exist.September 4, 2026Which works need no construction permit: painting, roof sealing, changing windowsThirteen activities are not construction works and ten minor works are exempt, but an Exempt Works Application must be filed and municipal excise taxes paid.September 4, 2026My land has no qualification: what rules apply in a non-qualified areaWhere there is no qualification map the PUTPR is the reference, and a one- or two-family house is permitted ministerially.September 4, 2026Segregating land: the subdivision rules of the Joint RegulationThe nine prohibitions, lot shape, the 600 square metres and the three-segregation count running from 1964.September 4, 2026Roads, storm easements and grading in an urbanisationEleven metres minimum street width, six metres for an access easement, and why you cannot build over the storm easement in your yard.September 4, 2026Parks, courts and the school contribution: an urbanisation’s neighbourhood facilitiesOne play area per hundred lots, 6.2 square metres per lot for schools, and the exemption when what you are subdividing is an inheritance.September 4, 2026Changing a lot’s qualification: maps, maximum sizes and effective datesTable 7.1’s maximum sizes by district, what is filed, and the fifteen days from publication to effect.September 4, 2026Habitat Categorisation Certification: the DRNA paper that goes with your permitWhat it is, who issues it, the three things it must certify, and why the mitigation it states ends up inside the environmental compliance determination.September 4, 2026Your project’s inspector and contractor: what they must certifyThe contractor’s sworn certification, the inspector’s monthly report, the ten days to replace them and the involuntary-acquirer rule.September 5, 2026Amending plans, the horizontal property regime and a use permit for an existing buildingWhat the designer may certify, As Built plans when the originals are gone, and the certified letter for buildings predating 1955.September 5, 2026Public land transactions before the Planning BoardWho may promote one, what is filed, the four-year term, the single extension and how revocation is sought.September 5, 2026Ministerial or discretionary permit: why some take days and others monthsThe ten parameters that define ministerial, each route’s deadlines, notice to neighbours and deemed approval by subrogation.September 5, 2026How long your permit lasts and how many extensions you may seekThe two years to obtain the permit and to start work, the six months for temporary use, and the construction permit’s two one-year extensions.September 5, 2026Incidental Operational Single Permit: moving earth, cutting trees and the CES PlanThe four permits it consolidates, the 40-cubic-metre and 900-square-metre thresholds, and five years’ validity with 90 days to renew.September 5, 2026How many trees must be planted: mitigation by cuerda, by cutting and by solarFive trees per cuerda impacted, three, four or five per tree cut depending on DAP, one per solar and one per four parking spaces.September 5, 2026Planting standards: six feet tall, species proportions and the distancesWhat the tree you plant must be like, what proportion of natives and palms the regulation demands, and how far from corners, hydrants and power lines.September 5, 2026If you cannot plant: paying one hundred dollars per tree, planting elsewhere or donating landThe six proposals OGPe evaluates, the percentages that must be planted before cutting, and the one-hundred-dollar-per-tree cost.September 5, 2026Location consultation: which projects need one and what is filedThe seven situations requiring a location consultation, the commercial categories by square feet, and the process’s fifteen- and ten-day terms.September 5, 2026Excavating, extracting or dredging: the five permits, where none are issued and who is exemptNo one moves earth-crust components without a permit. The five permits OGPe issues, the twelve effects evaluated, the barred places and the five exemptions.September 5, 2026Where the earth you remove goes, the Restoration Plan and the bonds that hold up the permitThe receiving land’s requirements, who answers for restoring, and the policies whose lapse revokes the permit.September 5, 2026Formal Extraction Permit: quarries, rivers, dredging below the water table and the right to be heardThe seven triggers, the two dollars per cubic metre on public-domain property, and the thirty days a neighbour has to ask to intervene.September 5, 2026Simple Permit and Maintenance Permit: sixty days, two a year and reservoir dredgingThe short permit for moving under a thousand cubic metres, the five things it never authorises, and the permit used to dredge a lake or clear an irrigation canal.September 5, 2026Blasting in quarries and works: the 72-hour notice, the seismographs and the inspection of your homeHow explosives use is authorised in an extraction, and what rights a neighbour who sees cracks has: inspections, a seismograph and a complaint.September 5, 2026Historic zone and town plaza: the twelve permits, the ICP recommendation and what really is exemptPainting the façade, major cleaning or an awning are separate permits. Which minor works are exempt and why the ICP still comes in.September 5, 2026Demolishing in a historic zone: irreversible ruin, the construction permit before knocking down, and non-conforming useWhen an eligible and a non-eligible property may be demolished, why dismantling a wooden house counts as demolition, and non-conforming use.September 5, 2026What you can change in a historic house: windows, colours, balconies and the storey that is allowedThe Chapter 10.2 intervention standards: wood or metal windows, façade colours, the ban on enclosing balconies and opening new openings, and the rules on ruin.September 5, 2026The town plaza: what may be built in it, the trees, the furniture and the parkingNothing enclosed in open space and only two per cent in open structures. The plaza rules, the pavements and the parking limits.September 5, 2026The nineteen ICP recommendations and certifications, and the thirty days it has to issue themWhich recommendation to request for which works, what documents go with every application, and what happens if the ICP does not answer in time.September 5, 2026Residential districts R-B, R-I and R-U: what can be built and to what measurementsThe minimum lot, width, occupation, density and yards of the three residential districts, and the uses that come only by exception.September 5, 2026R-G Rural General district: what can be done on rural landThe uses the regulation allows on rural land, the twenty-five-cuerda minimum, and the cemetery and mobile-home exceptions.September 5, 2026Institutional districts D-G and D-A: the land of institutions and of open spacesHow the general institutional district works, taking its parameters from other districts, and the open-area one, where occupation does not exceed two per cent.September 5, 2026Conservation districts A-B, C-R and P-R: the forest, the resource and what is untouchableWhat each conservation district allows, the fifty metres around caves, the hundred-metre riparian strip and the five mangrove types.September 5, 2026R-E and P-P districts: the scenic route and the public beachThe panoramic route’s height and visibility rules, the petrol station’s five hundred metres, and what the regulation requires of a public beach.September 5, 2026If your lot is smaller than the district requires: the tables that do applyHow much may be occupied, what rear yard is left and when you may build up to the boundary, plus the conversion to basic dwelling units.September 6, 2026Height, mezzanines, exceptions and solar heater: the parameters that apply in every districtA nine-metre base height, twice the road’s width, when a mezzanine does not count as a storey and why every new house carries a solar water heater.September 6, 2026What may be done in agricultural reserves, natural reserves and the towns around El YunqueThe location consultation in special areas: who recommends, which criteria apply, which uses fit in R-G, A-P, A-B and C-R, and the 400-square-metre minimum lot.September 6, 2026Tourist residential districts RT-I and RT-A: what is allowed and on what parametersIntermediate and high density in the Tourist Interest Zones, holiday mobile-home projects and the guest-house rules.September 6, 2026District C-H: the historic or archaeological value that is not in the RegisterWhich uses fit, why segregation is nearly impossible, and why every authorisation goes through the ICP’s or OECH’s recommendation.September 6, 2026District M "To Be Improved" and district R-EA for open spaces: two qualifications that limit buildingOne can be requalified when conditions change; the other keeps its open-space condition in perpetuity and admits no new construction.September 6, 2026Terraced houses: six units per building, ten if the façade changesA 150-square-metre minimum lot, six metres of frontage per unit, and the front yard that rises to six metres if there is no parking on the lot.September 6, 2026Patio houses: two hundred and fifty square metres of lot and up to two familiesThe parameters of Table 8.2 of the Joint Regulation: sixty-five per cent occupation, one hundred and thirty gross floor area and three metres in each yard.September 6, 2026Apartment houses: yards, separation between buildings and loading bayFifty per cent occupation, yards of three metres or one fifth of the height, and one loading space per forty units above fifteen.September 6, 2026How many flats fit on a lot: the density and gross floor area tablesSquare metres per basic dwelling unit by lot size and district, plus what happens to the density if the lot is later lotified.September 6, 2026Public access to the beaches: the metres the law requires and what nobody may closeEvery project bordering the coast must provide public access, dedicate it by deed and leave a twenty-metre public strip from the maritime-terrestrial zone.September 6, 2026Segregating or developing in the coastal zone: the public street, the eleven metres and the parkingLots fronting the coast are separated from the public strip by a street, accesses never drop below eleven metres, and public parking is mandatory.September 6, 2026Seafront condominiums: perpendicular to the coast and with public access alongsideEleven or more dwellings are processed as an urbanisation, buildings are oriented not to block the view, and giving an access earns a gross floor area bonus.September 6, 2026How far back from the sea you must build: two and a half times the heightThe 400-metre rule and the 2.5-times-height setback, the three urban exemptions, the concessions and the one-hour shadow study.September 6, 2026Roads, sewerage and qualification maps in the coastal zoneWhat a coastal public work must meet, and how far the qualification map reaches: nine nautical miles out to sea and one kilometre inland.September 6, 2026Filing a permit in the SUI: 10% on submission, five days to validate and the remaining 90%The application is not deemed filed and no term runs until it is validated, and it is archived if not cured within thirty days.September 6, 2026Who may apply for a permit: proving you are owner, optionee or lesseeDeed, lease, purchase option, registry certification or heirship declaration: one suffices, but one is required.September 6, 2026Notifying adjoining owners of a permit: who is on the list and how it is deliveredIf a street or creek adjoins, the properties across it count; if a condominium, its association. Certified mail or personal delivery.September 6, 2026Intervening in someone else’s permit: seven factors, substitution of parties and the agencies’ thirty daysAny interested person may request intervention; the criteria are applied liberally and denial comes by grounded resolution.September 6, 2026The sign to post when applying for a permit: 4 by 8 feet, thirty days and three to prove itIt goes at the main entrance, parallel to the road, black letters on white; not posting it means the application is archived.September 6, 2026When a permit gets a public hearing: the five cases and how it is heldLocation consultations, variances, calification changes, Environmental Impact Statements and Master Plans; in person, remote or both.September 6, 2026Public hearing notice: fifteen days, newspaper, radio and the date on the signNotification goes no less than fifteen days ahead, and the applicant publishes a newspaper notice and adds the date to the lot’s sign.September 6, 2026Taking part in a permit public hearing: the owner must attend or it is archivedAny person with a legitimate interest may speak; suspension is requested five days ahead and an absent owner loses the application.September 6, 2026Default and sanctions at a public hearing: five hundred dollars and twenty days for the reportThe Rules of Evidence do not apply, ten days are allowed for post-hearing writings and the Hearing Officer may fine up to $500 per imposition.September 6, 2026Georeferencing plans: state plane coordinates, layered DXF and two inches of errorProjects creating parcels or changing topography must be georeferenced to the official system and certified by a surveyor.September 6, 2026The Pre-Consultation: asking OGPe for the list of permits before startingAnyone may request a written orientation identifying the applicable laws and the permits that will be needed.September 7, 2026Requesting a copy of a permit file, and what each SUI process isAny interested person may obtain a copy or certified copy of the SUI’s digital and historic files.September 7, 2026Submitting the plans: three files, a frame with twenty items and a 24 by 36 sheetThe DWG with the CEC, the plan in PDF and the CEC in PDF, named with the SUI case number and georeferenced in NAD 83.September 7, 2026How a CAD plan’s layers are named: V, four characters and hyphensTwo mandatory fields — discipline and major group — two optional, all in capitals and one geometry per layer.September 7, 2026How each plan element is drawn: PLINE, blocks and no arcsParcels and structures as closed polygons, topography and street centerlines as lines, control points as inserted blocks.September 7, 2026The CEC: what the Control Stations Certification asks forAn attribute block at coordinate 0,0,0 of the seed file, with no blanks, no examples left and N/A where nothing applies.September 7, 2026What a plan must carry: the fundamental elementsFifteen elements across nineteen layers, exempt where the project has none, and freedom to add more.September 7, 2026Attribute blocks: one for every entity on the planTwo parcels, two blocks. Inside the polygon, on the line, over the point. No external databases.September 7, 2026Symbology and annotations: colour goes by layer, not by entityThe symbol library is downloaded separately, annotations have their own layers, and the only compulsory text is the adjoining owners.September 7, 2026The plan step by step: from seed file to frameSix steps in order, a layer change every time you start a new element, and nineteen layers with names of their own.September 7, 2026Trees, windows and water: what the Code demands of you as a neighbourTwo metres for a tall tree, one and a half for a direct view, and your roof water falls on your own lot.September 7, 2026Your development’s deed restrictions: when they bind and how they goFive cumulative requirements to bind everyone, and six causes to modify or extinguish them.September 7, 2026Letting someone live in your house without giving them the houseThe right of habitation is presumed lifelong, cannot be leased or sold, and the holder pays almost no expenses.September 7, 2026Building or planting on someone else’s soil: who keeps the workWhat is built on another’s soil belongs to the soil’s owner, but in good faith it must be paid for, and sometimes the builder keeps the land.September 7, 2026You lost possession: which improvements are paid and which crop you keepNecessary expenses are paid to every possessor; useful ones only to the good-faith possessor, who may also retain the thing until paid.September 7, 2026Three actions to defend your property and what each one requiresReivindicatory to recover the thing, declaratory to have your ownership declared, negatory to deny an encumbrance someone alleges.September 7, 2026What a usufruct is and how it is createdIf the title does not say how long it lasts, the usufruct is for life. In favour of a juridical person it cannot exceed thirty years.September 7, 2026What the holder of a usufruct may doThey receive all the fruits, may lease the asset, transfer their right and mortgage it, but what they sign ends when the usufruct ends.September 7, 2026Who pays what in a usufruct: repairs, taxes and debtsOrdinary repairs and taxes on the fruits fall on the usufructuary; extraordinary repairs and taxes on capital fall on the owner.September 7, 2026When a usufruct ends and what happens nextEleven causes of extinction, and a court that may end it for misuse, keep it under conditions, or pass it to the next usufructuary.September 7, 2026The wall dividing two houses: whose it is and who repairs itThe law presumes it is shared, but seven exterior signs make it one neighbour’s alone. Both pay pro rata.September 7, 2026What a servitude is and how it is createdOnly continuous and apparent ones can be won by time, and it takes fifteen years. The rest are created only by agreement.September 7, 2026Who maintains a servitude and who may move itExpenses fall on whoever benefits, the servient owner included if they gain from it. Moving the servitude is paid by whoever wants it moved.September 7, 2026When a servitude is lost and how it is cancelledFifteen years of non-use extinguish it. And if all its benefit disappears it does not revive, even if it later becomes useful again.September 7, 2026The surface right: building on another’s land and owning what you buildIt takes a public deed and Registry recording. If the title does not say how long it lasts, it is understood granted in perpetuity.September 7, 2026When the surface right ends: who keeps the buildingOn expiry, the building is the soil owner’s, but absent agreement they must pay its value at the moment of transfer, with all its improvements.September 7, 2026What the Civil Code says about the mortgageWithout recording in the Registry it is not validly constituted, unless the law recognizes it as tacit. The rest is governed by registry law.September 7, 2026The right of tanteo: buying before an outsider doesWith no agreed period it lapses thirty days after the notice. And if you were not notified, or the terms changed, it becomes a retracto.September 8, 2026Sold to an outsider: the co-owners’ and neighbours’ retractoThirty days from the recording or from learning of the sale. The co-owners’ retracto excludes the neighbours’.September 8, 2026How long a lease lasts, and what if it expires, is sold, or someone diesAbsent a different term, a lease of immovables is understood as one year. Once expired, it continues until one party notifies its will to end it.September 9, 2026Subletting what you rent: when you may, and when they may refuseIf the contract does not expressly forbid it, you may sublet. The landlord may refuse only on two grounds the statute writes down.September 9, 2026The contract for works: who is the contractor and who the principalThe contractor binds itself, without being subordinate, to carry out a material or intellectual work for a price. It picks the means and may use assistants.September 9, 2026The price of works: who fixes it and who supplies the materialsAbsent agreement, a lump sum is presumed and the contractor supplies the materials. With no price and no applicable usage, the court determines it.September 9, 2026Contracted works: ten years of warranty against ruin, and nine more dutiesThe contractor guarantees soundness against ruin for ten years from delivery. And those who put in labour and materials may claim from the owner.September 9, 2026The work collapsed, someone died, or it became impossible: what gets paidWhere the contract fails, the principal pays for usable materials and the proportional value of what was executed. With its own rules if the work is destroyed.September 9, 2026Getting out of a works contract: the 20%, the five days, and what you payIf necessary changes raise the price by 20%, the principal may rescind — but only within five days. And they may always cancel by paying for work done.September 9, 2026
Taxes & Treasury
24 guidesHow to file your income tax return in Puerto RicoThe deadline, electronic filing, the tools Hacienda publishes, and what to do if you missed it.August 13, 2026How to request an extension to file your tax return in Puerto RicoThe automatic six-month extension, form SC 2644, and why it does not buy you more time to pay.August 13, 2026What to do if Hacienda sends you a tax deficiency noticeWhat the notice means, the 30 days you have to request reconsideration and a hearing, and what happens if you do not respond.August 13, 2026What to do if you receive a tax seizure notice from HaciendaThe 30 days you have to pay or clarify, who to call, and what Hacienda can seize once the deadline passes.August 13, 2026How to amend a tax return you already filed in Puerto RicoWhen an amendment is needed, why SURI is free of charge, and why an address change requires no amendment.August 13, 2026How to check your Hacienda tax refund statusWhere to check your refund, the automated number, and what to do if someone cashed your check.August 13, 2026What to do if a Hacienda check arrives for someone who has diedThe endorsement with Form SC 4505, and why everything depends on whether the check reaches $1,000.August 13, 2026Security credit freeze: how to shut the door on fraudAct 236-2015 lets you freeze your credit report so nobody opens accounts in your name. The deadlines, the PIN and who pays nothing.August 23, 2026Credit repair companies: what the law forbids them to charge youAct 153-2013 bans advance payment, gives seven days to cancel and caps the contract at six months. And it clarifies what cannot be erased from your file.August 23, 2026Complaint against a bank, mortgage company or lenderThe OCIF handles complaints against Puerto Rico financial institutions, but not against “N.A.” banks, cooperatives or out-of-state banks. Here is the line.August 15, 2026Unclaimed money: inactive accounts and abandoned propertyAfter five years of inactivity the bank hands your money to the OCIF. Claiming it is free and needs no contract with anyone. You search at missingmoney.com.August 15, 2026The estate release: without it nothing is sold or inheritedThe estate tax return is due within nine months of death. It produces the Relevo, without which property cannot be recorded, sold or refinanced.August 15, 2026Gifting a house or money: the return almost nobody knows to fileAny gift over $10,000 in a calendar year requires filing the Gift Tax Return. The $10,000 exclusion applies per person receiving the gift.August 15, 2026They withhold from every invoice: what it is and how to get reliefPayments for services rendered carry withholding at source. A Relief Certificate is issued through SURI each December to those who qualify.August 15, 2026A copy of your W-2PR or a 480 informative: free in SURIAny taxpayer can print their W-2PR, W-2cPR or Form 480 free from SURI. On paper it costs $5 per document, and it is free for veterans with a DD-214.August 15, 2026The sales tax that lands on you: online purchases, books and back to schoolIf you bought online and were not charged sales tax, you owe it on arrival. Books and notebooks are exempt all year round.August 15, 2026The tax preparer may not charge you for the 65-and-over creditAct 61-2020 pays registered tax preparers for helping people 65 and over, on one condition: they may not charge the taxpayer anything.August 24, 2026Medical debt: it cannot go on your credit reportAct 98-2026 bars reporting medical-expense debts to credit agencies, and bars a collector from telling you it will hurt your score.August 27, 2026Small personal loan: the APR and rates they must publish for youAct 110-2026 requires every lender to publish its rates weekly and to tell you the APR with all charges, in plain language.August 28, 2026Resident investor decree: 4% and six years away from 2027Act 38-2026 replaces the full exemption with a 4% fixed rate, requires six years of non-residency and extends the programme through 2055.August 28, 2026Earned Income Credit: which income counts and how it must be reportedAct 44-2026 fixed the Internal Revenue Code to define which earned gross income counts for the Earned Income Credit and on which informative return.August 28, 2026Challenging your property tax assessmentThirty days to ask CRIM for review, but you must pay 100% of what you accept and 40% of what you dispute. CRIM answers within sixty days.September 1, 2026Attachment and auction for property tax debtThe attachment certification at the Registry already counts as notice. After the auction thirty days remain to redeem, paying the price plus twenty per cent.September 1, 2026When CRIM sells your property tax debtThe newspaper notice comes sixty days ahead and the letter to your last address thirty. The buyer inherits the lien and collects at ten per cent a year.September 1, 2026
Safety & Licensing
91 guidesAnimal cruelty: what is a crime and how to report itAct 154-2008 makes abandonment a 3-year felony and punishes negligence and confinement. What each offense covers and whom to turn to.August 16, 2026Sex Offender Registry: what it is, who can consult it and what it showsAct 266-2004 creates the registry of persons convicted of sexual crimes and abuse against minors. What is public, what is not, and the warning the law carries.August 27, 2026Protection order for a person with a disabilitySince Act 104-2026 there is a dedicated protection order against abuse, neglect or financial exploitation. No prior police complaint is required.August 23, 2026Financial exploitation of older adults: the law’s 26 indicatorsAct 76-2020 lists twenty-six signs of financial exploitation and clarifies that no police complaint is needed to seek a protection order.August 23, 2026Unnecessary noise: what the law bans and until what hourThe law defines unnecessary noise by its effect, not by decibels. A radio must not be heard from the street, and fireworks only 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.August 23, 2026Hospitals, dialysis and elder housing: generator, cistern and 20 daysAct 88-2018 requires hospitals, dialysis centers, gas stations and elder homes to keep power, water and supplies after a disaster. Fine: $5,000 daily.August 23, 2026Guard dogs: the sign, the registry and the follow-up visitsAct 157-1995 requires signs warning the public where guard dogs are used, with a 24-hour phone number, and follow-up visits to the rented dog.August 23, 2026How to request a protection order without going to courtRequested online through the Electronic Court. Handled same day until 10:00 pm; outside those hours, go to the nearest police station.August 26, 2026Stalking in Puerto Rico: what counts, and how to request a protection orderLey 284-1999, the two-or-more-occasions pattern, who can request the order — the employer included — and the measures the court can impose.August 14, 2026Child abuse in Puerto Rico: where to report it and how to get a protection orderThe Child Abuse Hotline at (787) 749-1333, what protects a reporter, and the Ley 57-2023 protection order a teacher, neighbour or relative can request.August 14, 2026Domestic violence in Puerto Rico: what Ley 54 covers and what you can ask the court forThe seven forms of violence Ley 54-1989 recognizes, the full list of protection-order remedies, and the escape plan.August 14, 2026Charged with a crime in Puerto Rico: the stages of the process and the rights that protect youWhat happens after an arrest, the felony and misdemeanour stages, appointed counsel, and the six-month cap on preventive detention.August 14, 2026Bail in Puerto Rico: how to post it, how to lower it, and when it comes backThe four ways to post bail, the hearing to ask for a reduction, forfeiture for failing to appear, and why on appeal it stops being a right.August 14, 2026Victim and witness rights in Puerto Rico: where to go and what a summons meansThe Ley 22-1988 Bill of Rights, the Justice Department office that provides the services, and what a summons means — contempt included if you skip it.August 14, 2026When a minor has a case in Puerto Rico: how the Juvenile Court worksNot a criminal process, jurisdiction runs from 13 to 18, school incidents go through the school first, and the three dispositional measures.August 14, 2026Protecting an older adult in Puerto Rico: protection order, support and criminal complaintThe three Ley 121-2019 remedies, who can seek them — anyone with an interest — and why breaching the order is a felony.August 14, 2026Cyber violence in Puerto Rico: revenge porn, sextortion, grooming, and which law appliesThe six forms by name, the laws that reach them, and the steps: document, assess safety, report.August 26, 2026Economic abuse in Puerto Rico: when the control is over your money and your jobThe concrete list of acts Ley 54-1989 recognizes, the protection order’s financial remedies, and which documents to gather.August 14, 2026Sexual violence in Puerto Rico: what to do now, and how the law defines each offenceThe immediate steps the Rape Victims Aid Center recommends, and the Penal Code definitions of sexual assault, lewd acts, sexual harassment and incest.August 14, 2026Human trafficking in Puerto Rico: how to spot it and where to callThe nine questions for identifying a possible victim, the penalties in Penal Code articles 159 and 160, and the two numbers for reporting.August 14, 2026Reporting tree cutting, illegal dumping and environmental damage to the DRNAAnyone can file a complaint with the DRNA. The form’s incident types, the Rangers Corps phone numbers, and what a ranger can and cannot do.August 15, 2026Legal advocacy: who goes to court with you and what they can doAn OPM-certified legal advocate goes with you to hearings, helps you fill the protection order and builds a safety plan with you. They are not a lawyer.August 15, 2026CAVV: help for sexual assault survivors, no appointment or referral24/7 helpline at 787-765-2285. It serves regardless of age, gender or how much time has passed, and family members too. No appointment or referral needed.August 15, 2026Weapons license in Puerto Rico: informational guideInformational guide: which agency administers weapons licenses in Puerto Rico and where to verify current requirements.August 14, 2026Duplicate weapons license, certificate or card: form PPR-354A single form covers duplicates of the weapons license, shooting club license, gunsmith license, L.E.O.S.A. card and instructor certificate.August 13, 2026How to file an administrative complaint against a police officerThe five official filing channels, the toll-free SARP number, and why you can file even without the officer’s name or badge number.August 13, 2026What the Police do with your protection order: COPOPWhat happens after the court issues the order, what COPOP is, and which lines to call if it has not been served.August 13, 2026How to request a certified copy of a police reportThe form is PPR-139.8, citizens are one of its categories, and the first thing you need is the complaint number.August 13, 2026Parks and children’s venues: anyone on the registry may not work, enter or remainAct 35-2012 bars anyone on the Sex Offender Registry from working in, entering or remaining at children’s entertainment parks and venues, public or private.August 24, 2026Recording a call in Puerto Rico: everyone’s consent is requiredAct 66-1953 bars recording a call, or letting someone else listen, without the express consent of all parties, even if you are one of them.August 24, 2026Phone or internet charges you did not authorize: the offense that covers themAct 62-1968 punishes charging telecommunications services, including internet, to an account, number or card without the legitimate subscriber’s authorization.August 24, 2026They recorded your live performance and are selling it: the law presumes the rights are yoursAct 43-1994 bans copying and selling recordings without the owner’s consent and presumes that, absent a written contract, the artist owns their live performance.August 24, 2026Coal ash: what the law prohibits and the $25,000-per-day fineAct 40-2017 bans disposing of coal ash on roads, lands, landfills and bodies of water, and depositing it beyond 180 days from production.August 24, 2026Outside waste in Puerto Rico landfills: the ban that admits no exceptionsAct 424-2000 bans disposing in Puerto Rico landfills of solid waste generated outside the island, and says it admits no exceptions or contrary contracts.August 24, 2026SILVER Alert: what to do if a person with Alzheimer’s goes missingAct 132-2009 requires the Police to issue a SILVER Alert within six hours. Bring the doctor’s letter or the prescribed medications: it is one of the five criteria.August 24, 2026Rescuing a child or animal locked in a car without facing chargesAct 36-2016 exempts you from criminal and civil liability for entering a vehicle to save a minor or an animal, if you meet six requirements.August 24, 2026AMBER Alert: the four criteria and the 24-hour deadlineAct 70-2008 requires four criteria to issue an AMBER Alert and orders it broadcast within no more than twenty-four hours from the complaint.August 24, 2026Mayra Elías Alert: what is needed when someone hits and runsAct 187-2016 creates a public alert to locate a driver who flees after causing serious harm, and a partial plate number is enough to activate it.August 25, 2026Asking for your fingerprints and photographs back after an acquittalAct 45-1983 lets you ask the court for the return of fingerprints and photographs if you were acquitted or received a full and absolute pardon.August 25, 2026Which fireworks are legal in Puerto Rico and when it becomes a felonyAct 83-1963 bans fireworks save for narrow exceptions, and above ten units seized the penalty goes from misdemeanor to felony.August 25, 2026Shelter and protection for victims and witnesses: the new 2026 lawAct 62-2026 creates the Shelter, Assistance and Protection Program for Victims and Witnesses, and lets the victim request the referral themselves.August 25, 2026I cannot pay the court fine: subsidiary imprisonmentAct 21-2026 sets one day in jail per $50 unpaid, capped at 90 days, 30 days to pay, and a $50 credit per day already served if you pay later.August 25, 2026Violence in emergency shelters: what the law requiresAct 139-2025 requires every shelter to keep the Protocol available and post a visible notice, and sets prevention, detection and intervention measures.August 25, 2026Civil remedies for animal protection: how to sueAct 115-2026 lets anyone sue in civil court over animal cruelty, abandonment or abuse, separate from the criminal case.August 26, 2026Compensation for crime victims and witnesses in Puerto RicoAct 183-1998 compensates crime victims up to $6,000 per person or $15,000 per family unit, if you report within 96 hours and claim within a year.August 26, 2026Closed-circuit testimony for an elderly crime victimAct 109-2026 lets an elderly victim of abuse or financial exploitation testify outside the courtroom, via closed-circuit TV, if the judge authorizes it.August 26, 2026Protection order for sexual violence victimsAct 148-2015 creates a protection order for victims of sexual assault, lewd acts, sexual harassment and incest, with no prior complaint required.August 26, 2026Reconsideration of a denied parole requestAct 50-2026 requires the Parole Board to address a reconsideration request within one year of a denial.August 26, 2026Mandatory recording when a minor waives their rightsStarting around late September 2026, Act 51-2026 requires the interrogation be recorded in audio and video for a minor's waiver of rights to be admissible.August 26, 2026The municipal liaison for domestic violence victimsAct 138-2026 requires every municipality to designate a liaison for women's affairs and domestic violence victims, trained by the OPM.August 26, 2026Sexual harassment in sports: protections and how to report itAct 133-2024 and its 2026 amendments create a confidential complaint channel at the DRD and hold sports entities liable.August 26, 2026Diversion in Act 54 cases: what it is and when the court cannot grant itThe court can suspend the case and order a re-education program. Your opinion as a victim counts, and since 2026 sexual assault is excluded.September 1, 2026Suspended sentence: the offences that are left outThe court can suspend imprisonment and place the person on probation, but there is a closed list of offences that do not qualify.August 27, 2026BLUE Alert: what it means and what you are being asked to doIt activates when an officer, municipal officer or NIE agent is hurt, killed, threatened or goes missing. The Police decide and the media broadcast.August 27, 2026When criminal prosecution expires: the Article 87 termsThe full criminal prescription table under Act 55-2026: 5, 10 and 20 years, and the new 10-year term for fraud of $500,000 or more.August 27, 2026Firearm parts: you now need a licence to buy themAct 123-2026 defines slide, barrel, chamber and firing mechanism as firearm parts, and requires a current licence to acquire them.August 27, 2026Illicit enrichment: what it is and why it now carries restitutionAct 155-2026 makes restitution mandatory when the official obtains the benefit. Three years for using the information, eight for profiting.August 27, 2026Failing to report child sexual abuse: two years in prisonAct 164-2026 made it a felony to stay silent on knowledge or suspicion of child sexual abuse. Two fixed years, and three for lying.August 27, 2026Gambling without a franchise: who commits a crime and what it costsAct 30-2026 raised the penalties: running an unlicensed hall is $15,000 or a year, and $25,000 or three years on each later conviction.August 27, 2026Violating a protection order: mandatory arrest and eight yearsAct 183-2026 sets eight years for violating an order, obliges officers to arrest, and adds electronic monitoring if a sentence is suspended.August 27, 2026They broke in to damage, not to steal: that is now burglaryAct 45-2026 added the damage offence to Article 194 of the Penal Code. Entering property intending to damage is a felony with a fixed 3-year term.August 28, 2026Alerts on digital billboards: a 72-hour minimum on screenAct 177-2026 requires the Amber, Silver, Mayra Elías, Rosa and Ashanti alerts to stay on digital boards for a minimum of 72 hours.August 28, 2026ROSA Plan: what to do when an adult woman goes missingAct 149-2019 creates the ROSA Plan for missing or kidnapped women 18 or older. The Police and the Women’s Advocate decide together whether it is activated.August 28, 2026Ashanti Alert: what to do when an adult goes missingAct 1-2021 requires the Ashanti Alert to be broadcast within no more than 24 hours of the complaint. Bring a photo, clothing and the time last seen.August 28, 2026The 0-0-0 line: the domestic violence emergency lineAct 49-2020 created the 0-0-0 domestic violence line, attached to the Women’s Advocate. What the law says, and why 9-1-1 remains the verified route.August 28, 2026The 9-1-1 charge on your bill: how much it can be and what it pays forAct 20-2017 caps the 9-1-1 charge at $0.50 a month per residential line and $1.00 commercial, and bars charging you for the emergency call.August 28, 2026Explosives: the fixed sentences the law now imposesAct 88-2026 fixes the Explosives Act penalties: fifteen years for illegal use, eight for possession with illegal purpose and six months for illegal possession.August 29, 2026Livestock theft: how to prove the animal is yoursAct 517-2004 presumes illegal possession if you move livestock outside the hours or in an unauthorised vehicle, and punishes livestock theft as a felony.August 29, 2026How to recover property the police are holdingThe Bienes Advenidos Act requires police to hold property at least a year where the public can examine it, and to hand it to whoever proves ownership.August 30, 2026Reward for information on a fugitiveAct 14-1974 authorises the Superintendent to pay up to $100,000 for information leading to a fugitive’s capture or a murder or manslaughter conviction.August 30, 2026Adopt a police station or fire stationAct 224-2018 lets businesses, communities, organisations, families and individuals adopt a police or fire station by formal agreement of at least three years.August 30, 2026Mandatory police course on sexual assaultAct 184-2009 makes a course on the protocol for attending sexual assault victims compulsory for candidates entering the Police Academy.August 30, 2026Registry of domestic violence convictionsAct 59-2017 created a public registry at Justice of persons convicted under Act 54, searchable online or by written request to the Police.August 30, 2026Selling metal for recycling: what the law requiresAct 41-1982 requires every copper, aluminium and lead transaction logged within 24 hours, bans cash payment and limits hours to 7 a.m.–7 p.m.August 30, 2026When the offender is released: who tells youAct 91-1988 requires notifying the victim in five different situations. Protection, by contrast, must be requested and covers only three of them.August 31, 2026Probation: requirements and conditionsThe four requirements that must all concur to suspend a sentence, the conditions that only count in writing, and the terms of a revocation.August 31, 2026Parole: how it is applied forThe application consents to the Board seeing the whole file. It then weighs eleven criteria, among them the victim’s opinion and where you plan to live.August 31, 2026Reporting domestic violenceAct 54 requires the officer to arrest without a warrant and requires the prosecutor or officer to sign the complaint. The victim is not required to.September 1, 2026The offences under Act 54Abuse, aggravated abuse, strangulation, threat, restriction of liberty and sexual assault by a partner, with the fixed terms the Act prints.September 1, 2026Bail conditions in Act 54 casesSix conditions the court must impose, and notice to the victim one hundred and twenty days before the aggressor completes the sentence.September 1, 2026Substitute address and confidentialityAct 54 creates a substitute address register so agencies can answer public records requests without revealing where you live.September 1, 2026The protection action planAct 54 writes down the escape plan, the emergency bag, the code word with the children and safety at home, at work and online.September 1, 2026Alcohol and drug limits for drivingAct 22-2000 sets four thresholds by age and vehicle type, and says having a prescription for the drug is not a defence.September 1, 2026Penalties for drink drivingA $500 fine the first time, jail from the second, licence revoked indefinitely on the third and vehicle confiscation for repeat offenders.September 1, 2026Drink driving that harms someoneThree years for bodily harm, five for grave bodily harm and a fixed fifteen if it causes death, with the licence suspended from one to seven years.September 1, 2026The breath and sobriety testsDriving in Puerto Rico gives consent to the tests. Refusing leads to arrest and a blood draw with a prior court order.September 1, 2026Rehabilitation and licence after a DUIASSMCA reports in thirty days, the court sentences in ten, and the licence returns when you pass the course or if the Department is late.September 1, 2026Street racing and reckless drivingFive thousand dollars and six months without a licence for racing or wheelies, with the vehicle confiscated. Fifteen years for death plus fleeing.September 1, 2026Your senior housing emergency plan: generator, shelter and your sayThe project files it every 1 May, must consult you, and the generator covers common areas and lifts.September 3, 2026Permits during a state of emergency: the dispensation and its clocksWith an emergency executive order there is a dispensation, an exemption from stamps and fees, and five- and ten-day terms.September 3, 2026Finding something lost: what you must hand in and what you getIf the owner is unknown it goes to the municipal authority; after three months unclaimed it is yours, and whoever recovers it pays you a tenth.September 7, 2026
Education
51 guidesHow to enroll a student in public school in Puerto RicoOnline enrollment, the seven regional offices with their email addresses, and who to ask about documents.August 13, 2026School vaccines: the certificate, provisional enrollment and exemptionsAct 25-1983 requires the immunization certificate to enroll. What happens without it, when provisional enrollment applies, and which exemptions the law recognizes.August 16, 2026School bullying: what the law requires and how to complain at schoolAct 85-2017 requires every school and university to have an anti-bullying Protocol. What it must include and how to use it if your child is bullied.August 16, 2026School absenteeism: attendance is compulsory from age 5 to 18School attendance is compulsory from age 5 to 18. What happens after three consecutive unexcused days and what a parent or guardian risks.August 23, 2026Diabetes at school: the management plan and the deadlines the law setsAct 199-2015 requires public and private schools to draft a School Diabetes Management Plan, with trained staff and at no charge to parents.August 23, 2026Hospital education: keeping school going during a hospitalizationAct 164-2024 creates the right of students aged 5 to 18 to keep studying during a hospitalization or prolonged treatment, with an individualized plan.August 23, 2026Rights of deaf or hard-of-hearing students at schoolAct 173-2018 recognizes the right to freely choose between sign language and oral communication, and requires the Education Department to provide the resources.August 23, 2026Classes suspended by emergency: four weeks of printed assignmentsAct 2-2019 triggers an automatic protocol when the Governor decrees an emergency: printed assignments for four weeks, handed in and graded on return.August 23, 2026Pregnant student: seven rights in public schoolAct 220-2004 gives you the right to stay a regular student, to counseling, to guidance on aid, and to a lactation area that cannot be the restroom.August 23, 2026Gifted student: acceleration, university courses and accommodationsAct 146-2018 lists 32 rights: academic acceleration, university courses while in high school, credit convalidation and admission without age discrimination.August 23, 2026School safety: the security level before enrolling and the incident reportAct 110-2006 gives you the right to know a school’s security level before enrolling and to receive the semester report of violent incidents.August 23, 2026A student’s SSN: it cannot be the identification numberAct 186-2006 bars schools and universities from using the SSN to identify students or post grades or lists. Fine from $500 to $5,000.August 23, 2026Special education: the complaint and the Provisional RemedyIf the Department cannot provide a service that is in the IEP, the Provisional Remedy lets you contract it. And complaints go to a centralised unit.August 14, 2026School vouchers: the Free School Selection ProgrammeTwo years in public school, application in May, and allocation by lottery. You arrange admission with the school yourself.August 14, 2026Validating studies done outside Puerto RicoThe Equivalency Studies Unit validates transcripts, authorises provisional enrolment and guides homeschooling students.August 14, 2026School transport: regular and individualisedIt is not one thing. The individualised type can collect the student at home and take them to school, a centre or a place of therapy.August 14, 2026Puerto Rico Student Bill of Rights: what it protects and how to enforce it in courtIt applies to public and private schools, covers ages 5 to 21, forbids asking about immigration status, and claims are filed through the Tribunal Electrónico.August 14, 2026Enrollment and textbooks: the public school cannot charge you for eitherAct 5-1952 forbids charging any enrollment fee at public schools and orders textbooks and school supplies provided free of charge.August 24, 2026Head injury at school or on the team: the protocol they must followAct 202-2012 requires immediately removing a minor suspected of concussion and no return without a release, with written physician authorization if referred.August 24, 2026Braille in public school: it is the default method and departing from it must be justifiedAct 240-2002 provides that a blind student’s education be given fundamentally in Braille, unless the Multidisciplinary Committee certifies otherwise.August 24, 2026Sending children to collect money or sell tickets door to door is prohibitedAct 216 of 1945 bans using public school children in money collections or in the door-to-door sale of tickets for public shows.August 24, 2026Your child’s BMI was measured at school: consent, privacy and the letterAct 172-2016 requires a consent procedure, measurement in a private setting, confidentiality of the BMI code and an explanatory letter to parents.August 24, 2026Game machines near a school: the 200 meters and the class-hours ruleAct 45-1982 bans locating businesses with coin-operated game machines within 200 meters of a school, and requires them closed during class hours.August 24, 2026Your child has the right to use their inhaler or medication at schoolAct 56-2006 gives every public or private school student the right to self-administer medication, with a medical certification and parental consent.August 24, 2026Oral exam certificate: which grades require it to enrolAct 63-2017 requires the oral exam certificate in kindergarten, second, fourth, sixth, eighth and tenth grade, with provisional enrolment and 30 days to provide it.August 24, 2026The 40 community service hours to graduate from high schoolAct 26-2009 makes 40 hours of community work a graduation requirement, and Act 88-2017 added mentoring in special education.August 24, 2026Cell phones in public school: the ban through eighth gradeAct 185-2025 bans phones and other devices through eighth grade all school day, with three exceptions and duties the Education Department must meet.August 25, 2026Victoria Act: rights of bedridden or wheelchair-using studentsAct 109-2025 gives rights to bedridden, wheelchair-using or life-support students, and an expedited remedy in the Municipal Court.August 25, 2026Student Assistance Program: mental health in public schoolAct 94-2025 sets minimum services: eight psychologist and eight psychiatrist visits a year, 24/7 access and disputes resolved within 24 hours.August 25, 2026Automatic admission to UPR for the top 20% of the classAct 113-2025 automatically admits to UPR every eleventh-grade student in the top 20% of their class, with notice before the first Monday of October.August 26, 2026The twelve emergency codes at Puerto Rico public schoolsAct 175-2026 creates twelve uniform emergency codes for schools: what ROJO, GRIS, VERDE, AZUL, H2O and the rest mean.August 26, 2026100% tuition scholarship for a fallen police officer's familyAct 142-2026 clarifies that the tuition scholarship for a fallen officer's surviving spouse and children covers one hundred percent of the cost.August 26, 2026School Action Plan for an Epileptic Crisis: how to request itAct 76-2026 gives every student with epilepsy the right to a School Action Plan, trained staff, and reasonable accommodations at school.August 26, 2026School transfer for domestic violence victimsAct 47-2026 lets you enroll a dependent in a closer school at any point in the year if the family is a domestic violence victim.August 26, 2026Experience Programme: youth aged 15 to 18 and the entry bonusAct 139-2026 added the Police, the Rangers Corps and Corrections. Completing the modules and hours puts you on a list with a score bonus.August 27, 2026High school diploma: the same day or within 30 daysAct 125-2026 requires the Regional Superintendent to hand over the diploma on graduation day or within 30 days, and otherwise to issue a grade certification.August 28, 2026College credits from high school to join the PoliceAct 125-2026 orders the Education Secretary to create, with the Police, associate-degree courses for high schoolers planning the Academy.August 28, 2026Contacto Verde: nature and agriculture hours every semesterAct 141-2026 brought agriculture into the Contacto Verde Programme and guarantees minimum contact hours each semester, with workshops and farm visits.August 28, 2026Reasonable accommodation and extended admission at universityAct 250-2012 asks for the accommodation request a year before the College Board, and requires universities to offer extended admission if the exam fails you.August 29, 2026Studying when you come from a foster or group homeAct 123-2020 requires the postsecondary institution to cover tuition, housing, food and materials no grant covers, for youth from foster or group homes.August 29, 2026Scholarship for relatives of firefighters or NIE agents killed on dutyAct 215-2012 authorises tuition and textbook scholarships for the surviving spouse and children of firefighters and NIE agents who died in the line of duty.August 29, 2026Scholarships, internships and prizes of the Legislative AssemblyAct 198-2024 requires publishing every July, in a newspaper and on three websites, all scholarships, internships and prizes the Legislative Assembly sponsors.August 29, 2026UPR scholarship to offset the tuition increaseAct 4-2022 created a UPR scholarship for undergraduates and graduate students with financial need and good academic progress. Having Pell does not disqualify you.August 29, 2026Where government scholarships and educational aid come fromAct 170-2002 splits scholarship funds among UPR, ADFAN and Education under two opposite rules: grades regardless of income, talent regardless of grades.August 29, 2026The school’s emergency plan: what they must hand youAct 46-2019 requires every school, college or care centre, public or private, to hand you a copy of the emergency plan during enrolment.August 29, 2026Academic agreements for university athletesAct 220-2024 gives student athletes the right to extensions, exam postponement, electronic submission and enrolment priority, requested 10 days ahead.August 30, 2026The Free Schools of MusicAct 365-1946 creates three free schools of music in San Juan, Ponce and Mayagüez and names the courses. It publishes no admission requirements or tuition cost.August 30, 2026Institute of Culture scholarships and aidAct 89-1955 creates the ICP Scholarship Programme for plastic arts and allied disciplines, awarded competitively on merit with one free activity in return.August 30, 2026Música 100x35: youth orchestras and choirsAct 94-2012 creates Música 100x35 under the Conservatory, with the mission of giving mass access to children and youth, especially those of low income.August 30, 2026How a youth cooperative is organisedFive people under 29 are enough, the share is at least one dollar, and under 21 no notary is needed.September 2, 2026School zone: how it is designated and what happens to businesses already thereInside the zone no permit issues without the Secretary of Education’s recommendation, deemed issued at thirty days if no objection comes.September 4, 2026
Veterans
10 guidesEvery government agency has a veteran affairs coordinatorAct 51-2011 requires every agency to designate a coordinator and an auxiliary for veteran affairs, with a duty to handle your requests inside that agency.August 23, 2026State Veterans Home in Juana Díaz and the rent subsidyAct 313-2000 subsidizes monthly rent at the Veterans Home: up to $600 a month in the domiciliary system and up to $800 in nursing care.August 23, 2026State Veterans Cemetery: who may be buried thereAct 106-2000 creates the State Veterans Cemetery in Aguadilla. Who qualifies, what happens with family, and why there is no fee for the veteran.August 23, 2026The Veterans’ Bill of Rights: what the law recognises and how you prove itAct 203-2007 gathers the Puerto Rican veteran’s rights into one text: taxes, housing, vehicles, education and employment.August 16, 2026The three property tax exemptions a veteran hasAct 203-2007 recognises one exemption for every veteran, a total one for the disabled veteran, and a partial one that stacks on the first.August 16, 2026Plate fees, excise and parking sign: what the law exempts on a veteran’s vehicleAct 203-2007 exempts the disabled veteran’s vehicle from excise and licence fees, and other fees for veterans over 60.August 16, 2026Veteran study benefits when the federal aid runs outAct 203-2007 grants free tuition at UPR to the veteran who exhausted their federal study benefits without completing their degree.August 16, 2026Veteran employment rights: ten points, your job back and retirementAct 203-2007 obliges the government and private employers to give preference, reinstate, and add points on employment tests.August 16, 2026Housing preference for veterans and veterans' surviving spousesVeterans and their surviving spouses have preference for government housing. Act 145-2026 requires it to be announced in every notice.August 26, 2026You were activated: no colegiación dues and no penaltyAct 8-2010 exempts you from dues while activated, removes penalties for late reports and gives a one-third discount on return.August 28, 2026
Public Utilities
231 guidesHow to put LUMA service in your nameThe service transfer: the seven requirements, the meter number, and why you do not need a use permit.August 13, 2026How to request new electric service from LUMAThe eight requirements LUMA asks for, why the use permit is needed, and how this differs from a transfer.August 13, 2026How to cancel LUMA service when you move outService disconnection: the single requirement, the three ways to request it, and why not to leave it pending.August 13, 2026How to submit your own meter reading to avoid estimated billsThe route LUMA publishes so your bill comes from your real consumption and not an estimate.August 13, 2026How to request the electric credit for medical equipment (Act 152)The 50% credit for life-preserving equipment, and how it reaches 100% with the Familia letter.August 13, 2026How to report a streetlight that is out or damagedLUMA’s streetlight repair request: where to file it and what is worth having noted down.August 13, 2026How to request tree trimming near power linesLUMA’s trimming request, where to file it, and why it is not solved with a ladder.August 13, 2026How to register your generator with LUMAThe generator registration LUMA asks for, why it exists, and where to do it.August 13, 2026How to claim damaged equipment from LUMA after a power surgeThe formal damage claim, what documents LUMA asks for, and why it cannot be filed online.August 13, 2026How to dispute a LUMA bill that does not add upThe bill inquiry, how to submit your own meter reading, and the medical equipment credit.August 13, 2026How to report a water leak or an outage in Puerto RicoWhich AAA number to call, at what hours, and what else you can resolve on the same call.August 13, 2026How to activate water service or put it in your name with AAAThe three routes to request water service: the Mi Acueductos portal, the (787) 620-2482 phone center and AAA’s offices.August 26, 2026Integrated Service Centers (CSI): many procedures, one buildingWhat the CSIs are, which agencies attend (Demographic Registry, CESCO, Treasury, Medicaid, WIC), where the 21 centers are, and how to book.August 16, 2026Prescription: how long they can collect from you or sue youPersonal actions prescribe in 4 years and damages in 1 year from learning who caused them. Acknowledging the debt restarts the clock.August 16, 2026You bought something with a hidden defect: what you can claimWhoever transfers an asset for value answers for eviction and hidden defects even if unaware of them. But the defect claim prescribes in 6 months.August 16, 2026Express line and priority turns: who qualifies and whereAct 297-2018 requires agencies, municipalities and private entities with public funds to give priority turns. Who qualifies and the fine for refusing.August 23, 2026Debt collection agencies: the 15 practices the law forbids themAct 143-1968 licenses collection agencies and forbids fifteen practices, from threatening violence to charging additional fees never agreed to.August 23, 2026Emergency price freeze: it is automatic and the fine is $10,000Since Act 52-2019, prices of essential goods freeze automatically when the emergency is declared. Who enforces it and how big the fine is.August 23, 2026Taking something in for repair: receipt, estimate and written approvalAct 272-2000 makes the shop give you a four-item receipt, bars repairs without your written approval, and bans charging for the estimate if it cannot be fixed.August 23, 2026Gas cylinders: a 20-pound tank must contain 20 poundsAct 18-2022 requires each cylinder to contain the net weight of its capacity, certified by an authorized weigher, with the net content labeled.August 23, 2026Bill of Rights for People with Disabilities: the 33 in Article 4Act 238-2004 lists thirty-three rights, from reasonable accommodation to medical confidentiality, and requires every law to be read liberally in your favour.August 23, 2026Assistance animal: where you may enter and what may be asked of youAct 51-1970 lets you enter public transport and establishments with your assistance animal at no extra charge, and punishes whoever prevents it.August 23, 2026Rent-to-own: the right to reinstate your contractIf you fell behind and returned the item within 5 days, you may reinstate the contract without losing what you paid. Late fees cap at $3 or 10%.August 23, 2026Self-storage: when they lock you out and when they can auctionAfter 7 days they may deny you access with no notice. But auctioning requires two notices, a notarial inventory and a published edict.August 23, 2026Funeral homes: the price list and what else the law guarantees youEvery funeral home must give each client a list of the costs of each good and service. And a rented casket must be disclosed in writing beforehand.August 23, 2026Your data was breached: what they must tell you, and how fastThe entity has a non-extendable 10 days to inform DACO, and DACO 24 hours to announce it. You must be notified as expeditiously as possible.August 23, 2026Telemarketing: the hours, the consent and the free trialThey may not call a residence outside 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., nor call or message you without prior consent. And your silence is not a yes.August 23, 2026Credit union member: your rights, and when they are suspendedYou may examine the books through a sworn request. But all your rights are suspended if you are not current — even on a loan you merely co-signed.August 23, 2026Consumer Bill of Rights: 12 rights you can citeArticle 7A of Act 5-1973 gives you a copy of the contract before signing, bans blank spaces, and protects access to water and power without a property title.August 23, 2026Seniors: 90 days for an agency to resolve your caseFrom age 67, Act 147-2019 puts agencies on a clock: a strict 90 days to resolve, 45 for the written order, and 30 to start if your health is at stake.August 23, 2026Insurance: 15 days to acknowledge, 90 to resolve, 30 to reconsiderArticle 1.120 of the Insurance Code puts dates on your claim and bars treating an unaccepted cheque as a waiver of your claims.August 23, 2026Cancelling cell, internet or TV: the penalty must drop every monthAct 157-2013 bans early termination charges unless prorated, with monthly reductions and a term that never exceeds two years.August 23, 2026Cancelling a contract the same way you signed itAct 132-2015 requires an adhesion contract to be terminable the same way it began, and that you be told the cancellation routes before signing.August 23, 2026Pawnshops: maximum interest, deadlines and when they can sellAct 23-2011 sets interest between 5% and 20% per 30 days, caps service charges at $1, and requires holding the item 30 more days after maturity.August 23, 2026Paid parking: damage, theft and overchargingAct 120-1973 gives DACO primary jurisdiction over your claim for vehicle damage or overcharging, and treats the operator as a bailee.August 23, 2026The tip is calculated on the consumption, not the total with sales taxAct 9-2018 bars a business from calculating the tip on the total price including sales tax. The base is the consumption total only.August 23, 2026Weights and measures: the scale in view and net weight on the packageAct 145-1968 requires scales within consumers’ reach to verify packages and bans the words "approximately", "when packed" and "when cut".August 23, 2026Old electronics: the store is obliged to take them backAct 18-2012 requires retailers to receive the electronic equipment a consumer decides to return or discard, and to say so at the point of sale.August 26, 2026Cancelled show: the 15-day refund and the Saturday refund windowAct 182-1996 requires the promoter to refund tickets within 15 days, give you at least 7 to ask, and open eight working hours including Saturday.August 23, 2026Civil Lawsuit Registry: what the government has been sued for and what it paidAct 1-2003 created at Justice a public registry of government civil lawsuits over $5,000, with the amount claimed and the amount awarded or agreed.August 23, 2026Surcharge for paying by card: prohibited, and in leases tooAct 150-2008 bars any merchant from charging extra for using a credit or debit card, in both sale and lease transactions.August 23, 2026Personal data when you buy: they cannot require it to complete the saleAct 38-2016 bars requiring your phone, address, licence or SSN to complete a purchase, whatever the payment method.August 23, 2026Previous subscriber’s water debt: not yours, and they cannot deny you serviceAct 14-2014 bars PRASA from charging you a previous subscriber’s water balance at the same property or denying you service until it is paid.August 23, 2026Billed for power you never received: objecting freezes the chargeAct 3-2018 bars billing consumption the Authority did not generate during an emergency, and the mere objection freezes collection of the disputed amount.August 23, 2026Solar panels and batteries: the OGPe certification they must haveBefore being sold for installation in Puerto Rico, renewable energy equipment needs an OGPe certification. What it requires and how it helps you.August 15, 2026Infrastructure Recommendation Application: when your project needs powerThe form an engineer uses to ask LUMA for a load study, plan endorsement or the connection of solar panels.August 15, 2026Call and Ride: AMA transport for those who cannot board a busAMA’s ADA paratransit. You must be certified eligible, the application is processed in 21 business days, and the no-show policy has exact numbers.August 16, 2026The AMA bus: which towns it reaches, how many routes there are, and how to complainAMA runs 24 routes and 101 buses across eight metro-area municipalities, plus 44 Call and Ride buses.August 16, 2026Your electric bill claim was denied: review before the Energy BureauYou must exhaust the informal process with the company first. Then the amount decides whether your case goes summary or ordinary.August 14, 2026Complaint before the Energy Bureau (everything that is not the bill)The forum adjudicates far more than bills: energy public policy, AEE non-compliance, interconnection and contracts.August 14, 2026How to file a consumer complaint with DACOThree routes: online, on paper at a regional office, or by phone at 787-722-7555. And there is no single form.August 14, 2026What filing a case costs: Puerto Rico court fees and stampsThe Judiciary’s official fee schedule: complaints, appeals, copies, weddings, service of process and marshal’s work.August 14, 2026Summoned for jury duty in Puerto Rico: what to do, what you are paid, and what happens if you skip itThe Bureau’s questionnaire, the five requirements, paid leave of up to 15 working days, the fine of no less than $500, and your job protection.August 14, 2026Your day in court in Puerto Rico: how to behave, when you speak, and what to do if you loseThe courtroom rules, what to do when called to testify, the order in which parties speak, and how to ask for reconsideration on the spot.August 14, 2026Free court-run mediation in Puerto Rico: settling without suingMediation Centers in all thirteen judicial regions — free, voluntary and confidential, in person or by videoconference.August 14, 2026Ley 140: the court’s fast track for neighbour, mechanic, wage and contractor disputesAny adult can file, the hearing is set within no more than 5 days, and the outcome is a binding Provisional Statement of Right.August 14, 2026Going to court without a lawyer in Puerto Rico: what self-representation requires, and what you will not be givenThe four requirements, when to request it, why permission can be suspended, and the Pro Se Centers that guide you free of charge.August 14, 2026How Puerto Rico’s court system is organized, and who is who in the courtroomThe three levels and what each is for, why you do not testify at the Court of Appeals, and what each official you will meet does.August 14, 2026Puerto Rico court marshals: which orders they serve and when they knock on your doorThe seven orders they carry out — from serving process to evictions — the Special Marshals Unit, and why they are the ones who attend the jury.August 14, 2026The Bill of Rights: what Puerto Rico’s Constitution guarantees youThe Bill of Rights sections explained, including the labour ones — eight-hour day, overtime, strikes and picketing — and the three statutory bills of rights.August 14, 2026Requesting a document from the government: the Transparency ActAnyone can request public information without explaining why. 20 business days, 30 if old or bulky, and silence is a denial that opens the courthouse.August 15, 2026ICP grants for artists and cultural projectsThe Basic Arts Grant Program funds projects by individual artists, 501(c)(3) nonprofits and governmental entities, through annual calls.August 15, 2026DRD programmes: where your child can play and what to sign firstThe DRD runs about 122 Sports Development Centers and around 40 adapted ones, the Juegos de Puerto Rico for ages 7 to 18, and school sport by semester.August 15, 2026Mi Acueductos: registering and managing your water accountWhere you pay your water bill and set up direct debit: the data to link your account and the 30-minute activation link.August 14, 2026How your water bill is calculated and what the AAA charges per serviceThe base charge by meter diameter, the consumption blocks, and the reconnection, disconnection and connection charges.August 14, 2026Your image used without consent: Act 139-2011 and its $750 to $100,000 damagesIf they use your name, photo, voice or an AI-made version of you to sell without permission, you can stop it and claim damages. You have 1 year.August 24, 2026They threw out the files with your data: how the law requires destroying themAct 234-2014 requires shredding, deleting or modifying files with personal information before discarding them, and recording it before a notary.August 24, 2026Your receipt faded: the store had to print it on durable materialAct 95-2006 requires every establishment to issue receipts and warranties in permanent ink and paper lasting more than a year, or as long as the warranty.August 24, 2026The previous tenant’s electric debt: they cannot charge you or deny you serviceAct 7-2014 forbids charging a new customer the previous subscriber’s balance at the same property, and forbids denying them service for that reason.August 24, 2026"The warranty does not apply in Puerto Rico": selling that appliance is prohibitedAct 93-1971 forbids selling in Puerto Rico household articles and appliances with warranty certificates that do not include Puerto Rico in their coverage.August 24, 2026Free veterinary clinics: the provisional licence that makes them possibleAct 86-2020 lets veterinarians licensed in the U.S. or Canada offer free services here with a shelter, through a provisional licence at no cost.August 24, 2026Movie ratings: the notice the cinema must post before selling you the ticketAct 141-2002 requires cinemas and stores to post in Spanish and English what each rating means, and to warn if adult trailers will run in children’s showings.August 24, 2026Computer with used parts: the label, the 10 days and the full refundAct 240-2006 requires a 1x2-inch bilingual label and gives you repair in 10 days or a full refund if you are sold equipment with used parts without notice.August 24, 2026Video games: the store notice and the rating every ad must carryAct 420-2004 requires stores to post in both languages what each video game rating means, and every local ad to include the game’s rating.August 24, 2026Single-use plastics: the ban exists, but is under moratorium until 2027Act 51-2022 bans handing out or selling single-use plastics, but its prohibition and fines are under moratorium until December 31, 2026.August 24, 2026If a law school legal clinic serves you, you are exempt from court feesAct 81-1964 exempts people receiving free legal services from law school clinics from paying fees, stamps and taxes.August 24, 2026Coffee: how the label tells you if it is Puerto Rican or foreignAct 60-1964 requires the label to state who processed the coffee and whether it is foreign, in letters no less than a quarter inch tall.August 24, 2026Unequal prizes for men and women: when it is illegal and whom to claim fromAct 10-1996 bans awarding women less than men in equal categories, at sports events that receive public funds.August 24, 2026An official overcharged you: the law that punishes it per infractionAn 1904 law punishes with a $25-$500 fine per infraction any official who maliciously demands or receives fees greater than the law allows.August 24, 2026Donating food without fear of being sued: the good samaritan lawAct 66-1993 shields from civil and criminal liability anyone who donates healthy-looking food in good faith to a gleaner or a nonprofit.August 24, 2026Civil Rights Commission: what it can do for you and what it cannotAct 102-1965 creates the Civil Rights Commission, which investigates and educates but does not adjudicate individual cases or grant remedies.August 24, 2026Officials and paid Olympic trips: the ban that lasts four more yearsAct 165-2012 bars officials, mayors, judges and legislators from traveling with the Olympic delegation at the expense of COPUR or entities receiving public funds.August 24, 2026Government ads: the sign language interpreter and the one-third screen ruleAct 266-2018 requires a sign language interpreter in every government ad with sound, no smaller than one third of the visual, plus subtitles.August 24, 2026Cement: what the bag must say and the bond that answers if it failsAct 132-2001 requires every cement bag to state in Spanish and English the type, factory and importer, and requires a million-dollar bond from importers.August 24, 2026What a clothing label must say by lawAct 134-1980 requires every textile product to carry a label with fibers by generic name, each one’s percentage, and the country of manufacture.August 24, 2026Your cell phone or cable contract cannot renew itselfAct 76-2015 bans automatic renewal clauses in cell phone and paid TV contracts: at expiry, the contract becomes month to month.August 24, 2026How often your electric meter must be read and what the bill must sayAct 80-1972 requires the electric meter be read at least once every two months and lists the data the bill must carry so you can verify it.August 24, 2026Objecting to the bill: service cannot be suspended while you claimAct 33-1985 gives 20 days to object to the AAA bill, requires an investigation within 30, and bars suspending service while the procedure is pending.August 24, 2026They must hand you a copy of the note and everything you signedAct 96-1971 requires handing the debtor a copy of the note and any other signed document, and caps how much of your savings can be pledged.August 24, 2026Extended appliance warranty: it is optional and they must tell youAct 95-1971 requires separate contracts, makes the service contract optional, bars pressure, and gives a DACO complaint if it is forced on you.August 25, 2026AI in government: your right to speak with a humanAct 116-2026 requires agencies to warn you before an AI system takes over and gives you the right to ask for a human at any stage.August 25, 2026Single digital record: no more carrying the same papersAct 6-2025 creates one digital record across Health, Family, Education and Vocational Rehabilitation, and bars demanding papers already stored in it.August 25, 2026Pet insurance: what the insurer must disclose to youAct 186-2026 regulates pet insurance in Puerto Rico: fifteen days to return the policy, a 30-day waiting-period cap, and no waiting period for accidents.August 26, 2026A loan does not generate interest unless expressly agreedAct 131-2026 clarifies the Civil Code: every loan is presumed interest-free unless the parties expressly agree otherwise.August 26, 2026Report fraud against public funds and receive a rewardAct 154-2018 lets any person sue on the government's behalf over fraud and collect between 10% and 30% of what is recovered.August 26, 2026Government services for deaf people and sign language interpretersThe Deaf Community Liaison Office interprets, assists and refers before agencies. Act 48-2026 ordered a catalogue of every service.August 27, 2026Asking the court to disqualify a lawyerRule 9.3 now lists the five criteria the court must weigh, and requires hearing the lawyer before ruling.August 27, 2026Works that affect your service: they must give 30 days’ noticeAct 57-2026 requires every agency to publish its improvement projects and to start informing 30 days before, or 48 hours before if unforeseen.August 28, 2026DRD volunteer inspectors: what they can and cannot doAct 180-2026 creates the DRD Volunteer Inspector Corps to observe, orient and document, with no punitive or quasi-police functions.August 28, 2026Expert drafts: what the other side can no longer requestAct 172-2026 gives work-product protection to expert report drafts and attorney-expert communications. Three exceptions remain that the court may still order.August 29, 2026Subpoenaing a witness outside Puerto RicoAct 178-2026 lets you request the subpoena at your own court’s clerk office when the witness is in another state, without submitting to that state’s courts.August 29, 2026Who represents the agency at your administrative hearingAct 194-2026 lets agencies use their own or contracted attorneys. Any settlement you negotiate with them needs the Justice Department’s prior approval.August 29, 2026If a government website is not accessible, there is a complaint and a fineAct 229-2003 requires every public entity, municipalities included, to keep its website accessible. The complaint goes to the Defensoría and the fine reaches $2,500.August 29, 2026ATMs: braille and headphone access are mandatoryAct 201-2008 requires banks, cooperatives and private companies to put braille keypads and headphone systems on all their ATMs.August 29, 2026The Disability Defence Office: what it can do for youAct 158-2015 gives the Defensoría power to adjudicate complaints, order corrective action, fine up to $5,000 and charge fees to the losing party.August 29, 2026Free legal representation for people with disabilitiesAct 64-2021 creates an independent office that provides legal services, investigates abuse and neglect, and can bring actions against the Government of Puerto Rico.August 29, 2026What each agency does for people with disabilitiesAct 84-2019 requires each agency to publish on its website a chapter on its disability programmes, and to say so if it has none.August 29, 2026Which products fall under the price freezeAct 131-2005 names the first-necessity goods and services freezable in an emergency, and JR 49-2023 added dog and cat food.August 29, 2026Roads to the beach and nature trailsAct 314-2000 declares royal roads and time-immemorial beach accesses public, and creates DRNA’s Register of Natural Trails.August 30, 2026Entering or exploring a cave: what the law allowsAct 111-1985 protects caves and sinkholes: eight prohibited acts, fines up to $10,000, and permits requiring written consent.August 30, 2026Adopt a Hectare: donating to conserve landAct 108-2001 creates a DRNA programme giving a certificate, photo, a sign with your name and visits to those who donate to acquire high-value natural areas.August 30, 2026COSSEC insurance: $100,000 per memberCOSSEC insures shares and deposits up to $100,000 against insolvency. Not every co-op is under COSSEC: some remain federally insured.August 30, 2026Fishing licence in Puerto RicoSeven licence types with different terms, separate permits for lobster and conch, and fines of $100 to $5,000 for each illegal catch.August 31, 2026Sport hunting licence in Puerto RicoIt lasts five years and expires on your birthday. It needs a hunter course, a medical certificate and a clean record, and renews this way only three times.August 31, 2026Where and when you may hunt in Puerto RicoNo hunting in state forests, on public roads or within a hundred metres of dwellings. You must carry the licence and the weapon’s registration on you.August 31, 2026Permits for exotic species in Puerto RicoPossessing, importing, selling or transporting an exotic species without a prior DRNA permit is illegal, and so is advertising it online. Fines run per specimen.August 31, 2026Wildlife in captivity and rehabilitationKeeping wildlife in captivity, or taking nests, eggs or young, requires written authorisation from the DRNA Secretary. The Act names the permits that exist.August 31, 2026Reporting irregularities to the Inspector GeneralAny citizen can report fraud or misuse of public funds through the confidential line. But the OIG does not audit municipalities, the UPR or the other branches.September 2, 2026Adopt a Highway: how it worksA formal agreement with DTOP to maintain a stretch of state road. The agency installs two signs with your name and offers technical guidance.September 2, 2026Tren Urbano: hours and tickets16 stations across San Juan, Guaynabo and Bayamón, every day from 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. The ticket machines take cash only.September 2, 2026ATI fares: train and busThe regular fare is $0.75 and routes 20 and 30 cost $2.00. The unlimited card runs from $5.00 for a day to $90.00 for ninety.September 2, 2026The interest a court judgment paysOCIF certifies two interest rates on judgment amounts every six months: one for government, one for everyone else.September 2, 2026If your cooperative’s assembly lacks quorumAct 165-2025 cut the wait for a second call from an hour to thirty minutes in diverse-type cooperatives.September 2, 2026Who runs a cooperative: the Board and the ExecutiveThe Board sets policy and appoints the Chief Executive; the Executive administers. COSSEC clarified both roles bindingly.September 2, 2026What happens after your OPPEA complaintThe Procurador may impose fines up to $10,000 and damages, emotional ones included. They may also decline to investigate.September 3, 2026Can your municipality fix the street lighting?Energy Bureau Regulation 9774 opens three levels of municipal work on street lighting, and prohibits the rest.September 3, 2026Aqueduct and sewer works: from the permit to the AAA connectionThe fast certification route fits six equivalent units, 2,400 gallons a day and a one-inch meter.September 4, 2026Recycling in the permit: six cubic yards per fifty unitsEvery new project must designate a recyclables recovery area, separate from ordinary waste, with water, signposted and sized by table.September 4, 2026Renewable energy system: five days to certify and five to interconnectThe installation certification is filed with OGPe within five working days, and the AEE interconnects within five days of the Permiso Único.September 4, 2026The business generator: the permit, the AEE endorsement and the five daysThe designer must be a Professional Engineer, the endorsement is filed by the AEE’s means, and after the Permiso Único interconnection comes within five days.September 4, 2026Advertisements in parks, bus stops and terminals: fifty square feet and a clear sidewalkEach bus stop advertisement needs an individual permit, may not exceed 50 square feet and may not block pedestrian passage.September 6, 2026When two things belonging to different owners are joined or mixedThe owner of the principal thing keeps the accessory and pays its value; if they were mixed, each acquires a proportional share.September 7, 2026Putting an asset up as security for a debt: the common rulesThe creditor may not keep the asset outside an execution, and any agreement saying otherwise is null and treated as unwritten.September 7, 2026The pledge: leaving a movable asset as security for a debtThe creditor retains it until paid and may not use it without permission. To sell it: a notary, a public auction and summons to the debtor.September 7, 2026Antichresis: paying the debt with a property’s fruitsThe creditor collects from the fruits and in exchange pays taxes, conserves the property and renders accounts. But they may hand it back whenever they wish.September 7, 2026Having first claim to buy something: option, tanteo and retractoThey are real rights only if set in a public instrument and recorded. Without that they bind the parties but not third parties.September 7, 2026The option to purchase: how long it lasts and what it must sayAs a real right it lasts five years on immovables and two on movables. Once recorded it is an encumbrance and binds later buyers.September 8, 2026Selling with a right to buy back: the pacto de retroventaAbsent express agreement it lasts four years; agreed, no more than ten. And if the buyer takes no possession, the law presumes a mortgage loan.September 8, 2026What an obligation is and where it comes fromSix sources, and the list stays open. Whoever performs knowing they were not bound cannot demand it back.September 8, 2026Delivering a thing: accessories, expenses and who bears the lossWhoever must deliver must also preserve, hand over the accessories and pay the delivery expenses. Receiving costs fall on the creditor.September 8, 2026Money debts: what they are paid in and when interest runsThe Code requires payment in the specie agreed and, failing that, in legal tender. It says "legal interest", and Article 1169 says which.September 8, 2026When what is promised is conduct: doing, not doing, and undoing bad workIf they do not do it or do it badly, performance is ordered carried out at the debtor’s cost and bad work can be ordered undone.September 8, 2026One thing or another is owed: who chooses and when it is fixedThe choice is the debtor’s unless given to someone else, and it only takes effect once notified. Once notified, it stops being alternative.September 8, 2026Several debtors: when each pays a share and when one is charged the lotSolidarity is not presumed: the obligation or the law must say so. Without it, the debt is presumed divided into equal parts.September 8, 2026What can be performed in parts and what cannotIf there are several and the performance can be split, each owes their part and one who defaults does not oblige the others.September 8, 2026No date and no place agreed: when and where performance is dueWith no term, payment is due at once unless the deal implies a tacit one. With no place, the municipality where the debtor resides.September 8, 2026No one has to accept part payment or a different thingThe obligation is extinguished when what is owed is delivered in full. The creditor cannot be compelled to take part, or something else.September 8, 2026Paying for someone else, and paying the wrong personAnyone may pay another’s debt, with or without permission. But paying someone unauthorized does not always release you.September 8, 2026Several debts with one creditor: which one your payment goes toYou choose at the moment of paying, but interest comes first. And a receipt for principal with no reservation presumes interest paid.September 8, 2026The creditor will not take payment: releasing yourself by consignmentFour cases open consignment. If the court finds it well made after an unreasonable refusal, it sanctions the creditor up to 5%.September 8, 2026Settling with something other than what is owed: giving in paymentIt takes agreement, at the very moment the different thing is handed over. No new obligation arises: the existing one is performed.September 8, 2026Paying another’s debt and keeping the credit and its securitiesSubrogation is not presumed outside the Code’s cases: it must be clearly established. In three cases it is presumed.September 8, 2026If you owe me and I owe you: when debts cancel themselves outThey are extinguished in the concurring amount, even if neither knows. But five requirements apply, and some debts are excluded.September 8, 2026When the one who collects and the one who owes become the same personThe obligation is extinguished together with its securities. But the heir’s own debts are not merged with the estate’s.September 8, 2026What cannot be attached from you: the Civil Code listEleven subsections with dollar caps: $10,000 in household goods, $10,000 in trade equipment, the work vehicle and three quarters of wages.September 8, 2026From when someone is late: delay and its four exceptionsAs a rule you must demand, in or out of court. But with a certain date in the contract, delay runs by itself.September 8, 2026Carelessness, bad faith or bad luck: who answers for whatWith no agreed standard, that of a prudent and reasonable person applies. Waiving the action for wilful breach is void.September 8, 2026What is claimed when someone breaches: loss suffered and gain not madeA good-faith debtor answers for what was foreseeable at contracting; one who breaches wilfully, for everything. On money debts, interest.September 8, 2026Forgiving a debt: when conduct is enough and when form is requiredVoluntarily handing you the private document of the debt implies waiving the action. And if you hold it, delivery is presumed.September 8, 2026Swapping the debt for another: when the old one is really extinguishedChanging the deal is not enough: it must be declared categorically or both obligations must be totally incompatible.September 8, 2026Your debt was sold to someone else: what happens to what you oweIf you paid the old creditor before learning of the assignment, you are released. And the assignment carries all accessory rights.September 8, 2026Passing on your share of an inheritance: what you answer for and what notWhoever assigns an inheritance without listing its contents answers only for their capacity as heir. Fruits already taken are credited.September 8, 2026They bought your debt mid-lawsuit: you can settle it for what they paidYou reimburse the price, the costs and the interest, and the credit is extinguished. But the period is thirty days of caducidad.September 8, 2026Keeping the thing until you are paid: the right of retentionNo court permission is needed to retain, but the retainer may not use the thing or keep it: any agreement otherwise is void.September 8, 2026What you sign has the force of law: the limits of freedom to contractYou may contract or not, and with whom you like, but not abusively. And what the contract omits is filled by law, usage and good faith.September 8, 2026From when there is a deal: the offer, the acceptance and the exact momentConsent exists when the offeror receives the acceptance. And replying with changes is not accepting: it is a new offer.September 8, 2026Which deals must be put in a document, and the one the law forbidsFive cases must appear in a public or private instrument for evidentiary purposes. And a contract on a future inheritance is forbidden.September 8, 2026The contract you could not negotiate: seven clauses that are annullableIf one party drafted the form, it is read against them. And the Code marks seven clauses as especially annullable.September 8, 2026Bringing someone else into the deal: naming, promising for another, or in their favourYou may reserve naming later who takes your place; failing an agreed period, thirty days. And a benefit to a third party is revocable until they accept.September 8, 2026I will not perform until you do: when you may hold back your sideIn reciprocal contracts you may refuse to perform while the other neither performs nor offers to. And if they half-perform, you reduce proportionally.September 8, 2026Ending the contract without suing: the six rulesThe power to rescind out of court is implicit, but needs delay, a requirement with warning, and it operates when that requirement expires.September 8, 2026Earnest money: what you lose, or return doubled, if you back outWhoever gives them and backs out loses them; whoever receives them and backs out returns as much again. Only until performance begins.September 8, 2026The penalty the contract sets: when it is collected and when a judge tempers itThe court must recognize the agreed clause and may only temper it where there is extreme economic disproportion with the performance.September 8, 2026When the deal ended up lopsided: annulling it or readjusting itIf the advantage exceeds half the promised value, taking advantage is presumed. And if an unforeseeable event made it excessive, there are six months.September 8, 2026The deal fell through before signing: when there is liabilityPre-contract dealings require loyalty and good faith. Breaking them off suddenly, inopportunely or arbitrarily obliges you to compensate expenses and reliance harm.September 9, 2026What a sale is, when it is a barter, and what form it needsTransferring ownership for a certain price. If part of the price is another thing, it is still a sale as long as the money is worth the same or more.September 9, 2026Who may not buy and what may in fact be soldOfficials and judges, arbitrators, mediators, attorneys, procuradores and prosecutors face prohibitions. And a future or another’s thing may indeed be sold.September 9, 2026The thing bought was destroyed: until when the risk is the seller’sRisk does not pass to the buyer until the seller places the thing at their disposal. If shipping was requested, it passes on handing it to the carrier.September 9, 2026What the seller must do and what the buyer must doSeven duties for the seller and six for the buyer, plus the warranty deadlines: four years for immovables, six months for movables.September 9, 2026The price in a sale: who sets it and what if the parcel measures otherwiseThe sale is void if the price is left to one party’s will. And if agreed by measure, a deviation over 5% lets the buyer rescind.September 9, 2026Pacts that may be added to a sale, and one that is voidRepurchase, return, preference and retention of title. The "better buyer" clause is void and deemed unwritten.September 9, 2026Barter: swapping one thing for another with no price between themEach party has a seller’s obligations, except the expenses, split evenly. And if what you received is taken, you may claim back what you gave.September 9, 2026The loan in the Civil Code: what is handed over and what comes backFungible goods are handed over in ownership and the same quantity, kind and quality comes back. And if the lender fails to deliver, there is a remedy.September 9, 2026Interest on a loan: when it is owed and what happens if it is excessiveA clause obliging a natural person to pay more interest than the rules allow is void: only 75% of the principal may be collected.September 9, 2026A loan with no due date: ten days from the demandWith no agreed time, payment is made within ten days of the demand. And the lender answers for bad quality in what was lent, with nuances.September 9, 2026The financial lease: they finance the thing and give you the option to buy itThe lessor finances the acquisition, transfers possession and grants a purchase option. That option’s price and duration must be clear.September 9, 2026Financial lease: what the lessor owes, what the lessee owesOnce three quarters of the thing’s price are paid and the option is communicated, the lessor must sell, save agreement otherwise. And it pays the policy.September 9, 2026A financial lease goes in writing — and on an immovable, by deed and recordedOn immovables it needs a public deed and recording, whatever its duration, with a ten-year maximum. And without recording it is not effective against third parties.September 9, 2026You fell behind on the lease: what the lessor may do, and whenOn immovables, the more you have paid the longer they wait: 60 days past a quarter of the cánones, 120 past three quarters. On movables, five days.September 9, 2026The services contract, and how it differs from a contract for worksThe provider supplies a service, without being subordinate, for a price. It is agreed for a set time; if not, supply-contract rules apply.September 9, 2026Services contract: what the client owes and what the provider owesTwo duties for the principal and four for the provider, including the ordinary materials and a reasonable time where none was agreed.September 9, 2026Cancelling a service: the lost profit gets paid tooThe principal may rescind even after work began, but pays expenses, work done, and the profit the provider could have obtained.September 9, 2026What you owe whoever acts for you: pay, expenses, and accounts in 30 daysA mandate is presumed paid. And if you do not protest the final accounts within thirty days of their rendering, they are deemed accepted.September 9, 2026Acting for another: the mandatary’s eleven duties and two rightsExecute personally, follow instructions, disclose conflicts and render accounts. And they may retain the goods with preference until paid.September 9, 2026When a mandate ends, and what still counts once it hasIt ends by full execution, expiry, death or incapacity — except a durable power — and by revocation. Acts done before learning of it stay valid.September 9, 2026Leaving something in safekeeping: a deposit is presumed paidArticle 1457 presumes the deposit is paid for, and 1460 bars requiring you to prove ownership to get it back.September 10, 2026They keep your goods: they cannot use them, but can hold them if you oweArticle 1461 bars the depositary from using the good and requires discretion; 1463 lets it hold the good until full payment.September 10, 2026Lending free of charge: only the owner or usufructuary may do itA commodatum is the free loan of a non-fungible good that must be returned. Article 1465 limits who may lend it.September 10, 2026Lent something free: you answer even for a fortuitous eventArticle 1468 makes the borrower indemnify loss even by fortuitous event, unless it proves it would have happened in the lender’s hands too.September 10, 2026You lent something: six months from its return to claim the damageArticle 1471 gives the lender six months from the return to claim deterioration, and 1469 allows an early demand in two cases.September 10, 2026Settling a dispute: the agreement has the effects of res judicataArticle 1500 gives the settlement the effects of res judicata, and 1499 orders it interpreted restrictively.September 10, 2026Settling a dispute: in writing, and never over future supportArticle 1503 voids a settlement not in writing or in a court ruling, and 1502 bars settling future support and non-waivable rights.September 10, 2026Contracts of chance: the risk is assumed, the rest can still be rescindedArticle 1507 subjects aleatory contracts to the general rules of efficacy and inefficacy, rescission included, except as to the assumption of risk.September 10, 2026Unlawful gaming debt: uncollectable, and if you paid you get half backArticle 1510 denies any action to collect unlawful gaming winnings, and 1511 returns 50% to the payer; the other 50% goes to the Treasury.September 10, 2026You took on someone else’s affair uninvited: you cannot just drop itArticle 1517 requires the manager to notify without delay and to continue until the interested party can take over, ratify or entrust it to another.September 10, 2026You managed another’s affair: expenses are repaid up to the benefit it gaveArticle 1519 makes the interested party who benefits reimburse expenses and losses up to the benefit received, even without having ratified.September 10, 2026You paid what you did not owe: you need not prove you were mistakenArticle 1520 gives the right to demand restitution of what was paid without legal cause, and says expressly it does not depend on a mistake.September 10, 2026You received a payment not yours: good faith changes what you returnArticle 1522 makes a bad-faith recipient pay interest or fruits; 1523 limits the good-faith one to the extent they were enriched.September 10, 2026Unjust enrichment: if a contract binds you, it does not applyArticle 1526 requires indemnifying in the measure of one’s own enrichment, and 1527 bars the action where another exists or a contract binds the parties.September 10, 2026Announced reward: it binds from the moment the public learns of itArticle 1529 binds whoever publicly promises a reward from the moment it reaches the public, and anyone who complies may demand it.September 10, 2026Withdrawing a reward: if you already complied, revocation misses youArticle 1533 requires revoking in the same form as announced, and leaves out whoever complied before the revocation was first published.September 10, 2026Negligence damage: family immunity applies, with two ways outArticle 1536 requires repairing damage caused by fault or negligence; 1537 bars it between certain relatives, save a crime or no family unity.September 10, 2026How damage is repaired: money, restoration, or both — your choiceArticle 1538 leaves the form of reparation to the injured party’s choice, and allows an additional award where the act is a crime or wilful.September 10, 2026A product hurt you: you do not have to prove negligenceArticle 1542 makes whoever sells an unreasonably dangerous product in the flow of commerce answer even without fault or negligence.September 10, 2026You were partly at fault: you do not lose the claim, it is reducedArticle 1545 says the injured party’s concurrent imprudence does not exempt from liability, but reduces the award in proportion to its degree.September 10, 2026Voiding a contract for your own mistake makes you pay the other side’s expensesArticle 286 of the Civil Code of 2020 makes only the author of deceit, violence and intimidation indemnify; in error, whoever invokes it pays.September 12, 2026A calculation error in a contract is corrected; it does not void the dealArticle 290 of the Civil Code of 2020 orders calculation errors rectified, and Articles 288 and 289 limit which errors do void.September 12, 2026Staying silent on purpose is deceit; and if both deceived, nobody indemnifies anybodyArticle 292 of the Civil Code of 2020 counts an intentional omission as deceit, and Article 294 leaves reciprocal deceit without remedy.September 12, 2026Threatening someone you love voids the contract, and it counts even from a third partyArticle 295 of the Civil Code of 2020 includes imminent harm to your loved ones, and Article 296 reaches a threatening third party.September 12, 2026Performing the contract after the cause ends costs you the right to void itArticle 350 of the Civil Code of 2020 turns full or partial performance into tacit confirmation, and 351 extinguishes the action with it.September 12, 2026If the document does not clearly say you sign for another, the deal is yoursArticle 318 of the Civil Code of 2020 treats the representative as acting on their own account when the act does not clearly say otherwise.September 12, 2026Your agent may not sell themselves what is yours without your express consentArticle 322 of the Civil Code of 2020 makes voidable any act the representative makes with themselves without the principal’s express consent.September 12, 2026The silence of whoever was asked to ratify is understood as a refusalArticle 325 of the Civil Code of 2020 reads silence as a refusal to ratify, yet ratifies silently whoever takes the deal’s benefit.September 12, 2026If the bound party blocks the condition, the Code treats it as fulfilledArticle 307 of the Civil Code of 2020 deems fulfilled a suspensive condition the bound party blocked, and unfulfilled a resolutory one they provoked.September 12, 2026Falling into insolvency ends the term even with no court declaring itArticle 313 of the Civil Code of 2020 voids the term if the debtor falls into insolvency, even undeclared, unless they secure performance.September 12, 2026Not answering is not accepting, except in the three cases the Code listsArticle 267 of the Civil Code of 2020 says silence or inaction do not declare will, save by law, agreement, or prior dealings.September 12, 2026If the contract’s purpose is frustrated through nobody’s fault, you may resolve itArticle 276 of the Civil Code of 2020 lets the injured party resolve the act, or adjust performances, if the causa is frustrated through no party’s fault.September 12, 2026If you agreed on a form, doing it another way leaves the act with no validityArticle 277 of the Civil Code of 2020 strips validity from an act done in a form other than the one the parties agreed.September 12, 2026A private document with no certain date is useless against a third partyArticle 283 of the Civil Code of 2020 says a private instrument without a certain date is not opposable to third parties, even if acknowledged at trial.September 12, 2026An ambiguous clause is read against its drafter and for the weaker partyArticle 358 of the Civil Code of 2020 reads an ambiguous clause of a bilateral act against its drafter and for whoever had less bargaining power.September 12, 2026Handing your debt to someone else does not free you without the creditor’s consentArticle 359 of the Civil Code of 2020 says transmitting an obligation frees the transmitting debtor only when the creditor authorises it.September 12, 2026
Travel & Passports
14 guidesHow to apply for a U.S. passport from Puerto RicoThe passport is a federal procedure. What citizenship evidence is needed, where the application is submitted, and how to reach the official site.August 13, 2026The ferry to Vieques and Culebra: fares, vehicles and ticket rulesIt leaves from Ceiba. An adult fare is $2.00, a compact car $13.00 one way, and there are no refunds for any reason.August 17, 2026The Cataño ferry to Old San Juan: times and faresA twelve-minute crossing for $2.00. People 60 to 74 and people with disabilities pay $0.50, and 75 and over ride free.August 17, 2026Boating in Puerto Rico: licence, sticker and life jacketsIf you were born after July 1, 1972 you need a course and exam to operate. Under-12s wear life jackets, and the alcohol limit drops with age.August 23, 2026Airport wifi: the 15 free minutes the law requires for passengersAct 42-2008 orders wireless internet at Ports Authority terminals, with at least 15 free minutes a day for passengers.August 24, 2026Boat marbete: an extension when the federal government cannot issue your certificateAct 170-2026 lets DRNA extend your marbete up to 90 days when a federal agency cannot issue your documentation for reasons beyond your control.August 27, 2026Boating accident: what the law requiresHelp first, give your details and report: twelve hours for death or injury, forty-eight if damage tops a hundred dollars, plus a written report to DRNA.August 31, 2026Boating tickets and fines in Puerto RicoYou have thirty days to seek reconsideration. The fine is entered on the vessel’s register and blocks the sticker and any transfer until it is paid.August 31, 2026When your vessel is deemed abandonedA sticker expired six months is enough to meet the definition. Thirty days to answer, sixty before seizure and auction, then collection of the debt.August 31, 2026Claiming an abandoned vesselThe Act opens a route: certified letter, newspaper notice, Police and Justice certifications, a sworn statement and a fee that cannot exceed fifty dollars.August 31, 2026Lodging: what the host owes the guest and the guest owes the hostA clean room, measures for the guest’s life, health and goods, and respect for their privacy. The guest pays, takes care, and declares valuables.September 9, 2026The contract of carriage: delay, damage, and who answersA late carrier loses freight in proportion, and all of it if it took double the period. And it answers for damage unless it proves another’s fault.September 9, 2026Travelling as a passenger: safety covers boarding and getting off tooThe carrier must move you with your luggage and guarantee your safety during the journey, boarding and disembarking. And you have six duties.September 9, 2026Your cargo arrived damaged: you have ten days to report itThe Civil Code gives the consignee ten days from receiving the cargo to tell the shipper of loss or damage that was not visible on receipt.September 9, 2026
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