Who may not buy and what may in fact be sold

They are Articles 1277 and 1278 of the Civil Code of 2020: the first settles who may execute a sale and the second opens what may be its object.

Any person with capacity to consent may agree to a sale, except for the two prohibitions of Article 1277 while they are in force.

• Capacity to consent: it is the general requirement Article 1277 opens with.Verified against the official source
• Not falling under the prohibition on officials as to the property whose administration they are or have been charged with.Verified against the official source
• Not falling under the prohibition on judges, arbitrators, mediators, attorneys, procuradores and prosecutors as to the litigious property of proceedings in which they intervene or have intervened.Verified against the official source
• That possession or transfer of the thing is not prohibited or restricted by law (Article 1278).Verified against the official source

• The Code requires no document here. If the thing belongs to another, it helps to keep proof of how the selling party will transfer or cause the transfer of ownership, because that is what Article 1278 binds them to.

1. 1

   Step 1: The general rule is broad

   Article 1277 opens by saying any person with capacity to consent may agree to a sale. The prohibitions that follow are the exception, not the starting point.

2. 2

   Step 2: First prohibition: public officials

   It reaches officials as to the property whose administration they are or have been charged with. Note the double tense: "are or have been".

3. 3

   Step 3: Second prohibition: those in the case

   It reaches judges, arbitrators, mediators, attorneys, procuradores and prosecutors, as to the litigious property in the proceedings in which they intervene or have intervened. That is the statute’s list; this guide adds no professions to it.

4. 4

   Step 4: The prohibition is not forever: one year

   The last paragraph of Article 1277 says it plainly: once one (1) year has elapsed since the person leaves the post that gave rise to a prohibition, it ends. It is the only duration the article publishes.

5. 5

   Step 5: What may be sold: present or future

   Article 1278 admits as object any present or future thing. That the thing does not yet exist does not by itself prevent its sale.

6. 6

   Step 6: And one’s own or another’s

   The same article admits a thing that is one’s own or another’s. Selling another’s thing is not prohibited by this article; what it does is load the seller with a concrete obligation, the one in the next paragraph.

7. 7

   Step 7: What the seller of another’s thing must do

   In the sale of a partly or wholly alien thing, the selling party binds itself to transfer or to cause the transfer of ownership to the buying party. Both forms are in the text: to transfer it or to cause it to be transferred.

8. 8

   Step 8: The limit on the object

   The condition the article places on all of the above is that the thing’s possession or transfer not be prohibited or restricted by law. Which goods those are is not stated by the Code here, and this guide makes no list the source does not carry.

There is no procedure or counter: these are validity rules applied when the contract is executed. If a prohibition or the object of a sale is disputed, the Court of First Instance decides. The professional conduct of judges and attorneys is further governed by their own rulebooks, which we did not read here.

• Believing an official is barred only while holding the post: the article says "are or have been charged with".
• Believing the prohibition is perpetual: it ends one year after leaving the post that gave rise to it.
• Extending the second prohibition to any property: it is about the litigious property of proceedings in which one intervenes or has intervened.
• Adding professions to Article 1277’s list.
• Treating as void the sale of a thing that does not yet exist: a future thing may indeed be the object.
• Treating as void the sale of another’s thing: Article 1278 admits it and binds the seller to transfer or cause the transfer of ownership.
• Forgetting the limit: the thing’s possession or transfer may not be prohibited or restricted by law.
• Confusing capacity to consent with the prohibitions: they are two distinct filters in the same article.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Poder Judicial de Puerto Rico

  Poder Judicial

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov