LA CONTROVERSIA JURISPRUDENCIAL SOBRE LA CONCURRENCIA DE TÍTULO Y MODO EN LAS VENTAS JUDICIALES: ¿CUÁL ES SU TRASCENDENCIA PRÁCTICA?.

Abstract

Our Supreme Court holds two standpoints about the time when title and mode become attendant in foreclosure sales: the standpoint that requires a ruling approving the conclusion of the auction (title) and an official transcript thereof (mode), and that which is satisfied by the approval of the auction's conclusion (title) and the subsequent adjudication to the winning bidder (mode). This sad disparity might seem worse, inasmuch as the two postures agree that this debated instant of consummation is essential for the principle of conclusive title to come into play. This bit of intelligence may be criticized, because the third party's registered acquisition is not an a domino acquisition (in which case the conjunction of title and mode would be a telling issue under the Civil Code, art. 609), but an acquisition inscriptionis causa and a non domino, so it requires the fulfilment of all the requirements set by art. 34 of the Mortgage Act. The practical, effective impact of the jurisprudential polemics are limited, then, to the varying length of the term for the exercise of the corresponding third-party claim to ownership under art. 596.2 of the Civil Procedure Act, which is of a very restricted scope indeed.