MAGAZINE HISTORY

 The founding of The Critical Magazine of Real Estate Law in January 1925 was born as a personal project of a great scholar in the field of Mortgage Law , Jerónimo González, shared with several jurists, mainly registrars and officials of the Facultative Body of the General Directorate of Registries and Notaries. Initially, it adopted the legal form of a limited liability company, constituted by the president of the Association of Registrars, Vicente Cantos Figuerola, Registrar of Madrid, and by Jerónimo González. This legal form subsists until the National Association of Property and Mercantile Registrars of Spain directly assumes ownership of the magazine, acquiring the shares of the company, as stated in the number corresponding to January-February 1965. Since this second, more collegial, period, it is customary practice for the Deans of the Public Corporation to become permanent members of the Editorial Board. This happened with the then Dean Pedro Cabello de la Sota, and with his successors, Juan-José Benayas, José Poveda Murcia, Pío Cabanillas Gallas, Antonio de Leyva y Andía, Carlos Hernández Crespo, José Poveda Díaz, Antonio Pau Pedrón, Fernando Méndez González, Eugenio Rodríguez Cepeda, Alfonso Candau Pérez and Gonzalo Aguilera Anegón.

Distinguished jurists have chaired the Editorial Board of the Critical Review and held the position of Counselor-Secretary. Suffice it to point out that it has been presided by, no less, Jerónimo González himself, Ramón María Roca Sastre, Luis Díez-Picazo y Ponce de León, Aurelio Menéndez Menéndez, and currently, Francisco Javier Gómez Gálligo. Luis Díez-Picazo y Ponce de León also held the position of Director-Secretary, being subsequently succeeded by Francisco Sánchez de Frutos, Fernando Muñoz Cariñanos, Francisco Corral Dueñas and Francisco Javier Gómez Gálligo, and currently by Basilio Aguirre Fernández.

Rosa Carretero Pindado, daughter of Tirso Carretero García – also a famous mortgage law scholar- has been carrying out the administrative tasks of the Magazine since 1984, and has played an essential role in its functioning. Previously, auxiliary tasks were carried out, in a less institutionalized manner, by Fernando Sequeira, an official of the General Directorate of Registries and Notaries, and currently Leonor Andrés Rodríguez. 

At present, the Critical Review of Real Estate Law is more lively and active than ever. It has a community brand, is in very good health in terms of subscribers and is fully digitized. In a recent survey among Law Faculties, it has obtained one of the highest marks among the most prestigious legal journals.

Some recent reforms have been undertaken by its Executive Committee, including adapting to formal requirements imposed by the Ministry of Education, such as providing a summary of each of the works translated into English. Now this web page is created.

But the important thing is that it remains faithful to its rationale, which is the critical analysis of the legal system in general, with a special focus in real estate and registration law.

 

FOUNDATION PROGRAM

 The founding program of the Critical Review of Real Estate Law appeared in its first issue, published on January 31, 1925, in the following terms:

“The radical transformation that the Spanish real estate system underwent with the 1861 Mortgage law, which motivated the creation of the Corps of Property Registrars, has not produced all the beneficial results that could be expected from it, nor has it penetrated the rural population, said, above all, to reap the benefits of the new system.

The fault has been of the legislative measures in question, deficient and inadequate for the mortgage development; of the jurisprudence, that clings more and more to the old molds; of the Executive Power, more concerned with political action than with legal progress, and with the abandonment of real estate studies in Academies and Universities.

Against such adverse trends, the Corps of Property Registrars, as a legitimate son and representative of the inspiring spirit of the Mortgage law, has tried on different occasions to organise its forces and put its resources at stake, with success that in truth has not corresponded to the healthy intention nor the high orientations.

Abandoned by the judges and courts, forgotten by Parliament and without enthusiastic defenders in the Executive Authority, the mortgage system languidly crawls, waiting for new energies that, subjecting legislation, jurisprudence and doctrine to the poignant analysis of an impartial critic, advance on the path towards forced registration, keep the registrar in his position as territorial judge, promote the reform of the Management Body, bringing it closer to the sad reality, and return for the prestige of the Institution and of the people.

For these purposes, and to deepen how many problems are grouped under the slogan “Property and Law”, the CRITICAL REVIEW OF REAL ESTATE LAW is addressed in the first place, which will study or host in special sections:

a) The legal doctrine directly related to land property, publishing historical research articles and systematic exposition.

b) Current mortgage law matters, opening a free forum where the aspirations of the Body of Registrars and the modern orientations of the Institution can be expressed or discussed.

c) The legislation, both Spanish and foreign, the knowledge of which is essential or convenient to govern a property registry or follow the development of the system.

d) The jurisprudence of the Supreme Court and the Directorate of Registries on property and real estate rights.

e) The questions and queries that are formulated before the Central Board of the Association of Registrars on the legislation and payment of the Real Rights Tax.

f) All kinds of bibliographic news, and when the work deserves it, reviews of the main works and books included in the scope expressed.

g) Finally, the Legal miscellany that condenses or presents the most worthy of attention in other spheres of Law.

For this we need the valuable collaboration of registrars, notaries and law professors in general, to whom we address, with our warmest greetings, an urgent invitation awaiting a technical contest, we thank in advance. ”

 

THE MAGAZINE AND THE PUBLIC CORPORATION OF REGISTRARS

 In number 657 of the Magazine (January 2000), the then Dean-President of the Public Corporation of Registrars of Spain, Antonio Pau Pedrón, wrote an article synthesizing the history of the relationship between the Critical Review of Real Estate Law and the Public Corporation of Registrars, which for its historical interest is reproduced below:

“The Critical Review of Real Estate Law is not a body of the Public Corporation of Registrars. The Corporation has exercised over it – since 1965, that is, forty years after its foundation – a patronage that the magazine itself hardly needs: it has an Editorial Board that directs it, a number of subscribers that guarantees its viability and an intellectual nature in which corporate concerns should not interfere.

The presence of the Dean of the the Public Corporation of Registrars in these initial pages of the commemorative issue of the 75th anniversary, therefore, has little justification. One could only express the satisfaction that a periodical publication so closely linked to the daily activity of the Registrars – due to its mostly registry or mortgage content – has reached such a round number of years, and enjoys such an energetic vitality, indicative of great longevity.

The Critical Review arose from the coincidence of two singular personalities. The Registrar Vicente Cantos Figuerola had met Jerónimo González at the Directorate. The former was at the time Director General of the Registries and Notaries, and the latter a recently qualified Lawyer from the Directive Center who had arrived from his native Asturias, leaving his position as a mathematics teacher there.

Cantos Figuerola realised that the genius of Jerónimo and his early and permanent teaching in mortgage matters, needed a space to develop and spread. Jerónimo was not a man of complex and extensive theories, which required voluminous treatises for their development. Quite the opposite. Jerónimo had brilliant insights and brilliant ideas that could always be expressed in a dozen pages.

The Revista Crítica was the perfect setting. All of don Jerónimo's work -which the Ministry of Justice collected in three volumes the year after his death- is made up of small tesserae that form a dazzling and original mosaic. By means of small articles, Don Jerónimo renewed a mortgage doctrine that had not been able to detach itself from the ex that had not been able to detach itself from nineteenth-century exegesis. Ninety-eight works were published by Don Jerónimo in the Revista over a period of twenty years. twenty years.

Cantos Figuerola placed in the hands of Don Jerónimo the intellectual direction of the magazine, and he was the intellectual direction of the magazine, and he was left as President of the Editorial Board to Board of Editors to ensure the material subsistence of the publication. Even during the years in which he was Minister of Justice, Cantos Figuerola continued to preside the Board of the magazine. Figuerola continued to preside over the Board of the Revista.

In 1965, the Association of Registrars assumed the financial backing of the Revista Crítica. financial backing of the Revista Crítica. But at that time, the journal already had prestige that made any support for its subsistence unnecessary. subsistence.

Since 1965, the intellectual prominence of its directors -Ramón María Roca Sastre, until 1979, and, since then, Luis Díez-Picazo- has been decisive in preserving its prestige and rigor. Their leadership has not been honorary and distant, but effective and close. They have presided over the Editorial Board, have kept abreast of the daily progress of the Journal and have ensured that its various sections -already determined by Don Jerónimo in the initial issue- were in good working order. Jerónimo in the initial issue - were duly attended to.

The Secretaries of the Council have ensured that the entire bureaucratic and artisan bureaucratic and artisanal infrastructure - from the relationship with the authors to the the printing of each issue - has functioned with rigor over the decades. over the decades. Manuel Amorós Guardiola, Fernando Muñoz Cariñanos and, in recent years, Manuel Amorós Guardiola, Fernando Muñoz Cariñanos and, in recent times, Francisco Corral Dueñas, have ensured that the the Revista has not lost that punctuality that is so difficult for periodicals to maintain. difficult for periodicals to maintain.

The evils that the appearance of the Revista Crítica sought to remedy, and that and which Don Jeronimo highlighted in the first issue of the magazine were -the disregard of politicians for legal progress, abandonment of real estate studies by the University, disorientation of jurisprudence - are, to a large extent, overcome, overcome. But the continuity of the Revista Crítica in the years to come will contribute, to a certain extent years to come will contribute, to some extent, to ensure that these evils do not become a reality again. become a reality again."