Practice area
Real Estate & Registry Law
Title searches, contracts, regularizations and all proceedings before the Real Estate Registrar.
What this area covers
- Property management
- Release of mortgages and liens
- Legal and commercial counsel
- Assignment of inheritance rights
- Drafting of all types of contracts, including purchase, promise-to-purchase and lease agreements
- Contract enforcement lawsuits
- Title searches
- Real estate management
- Lease litigation
- Partition proceedings
- Eviction of unlawful occupants (precario)
- Community property liquidation
- Property management mandates
- Lease and/or sale mandates
- Negotiations
- Probate proceedings
- Regularization of land divisions and constructions
- Regularization and clearing of titles and properties
- Review of all types of contracts
- Legal solutions for real estate matters
- Resolution of Registrar objections to rejected deeds
- Proceedings before the Real Estate Registrar: ownership certificates, mortgage and lien certificates, and registrations
Frequently asked questions
What is a title search and why is it required before buying?
It is a backward review of the property's history — registry entries, mortgages, restrictions, inheritances — to confirm that the seller can actually sell. It covers at least ten years, the term of extraordinary acquisitive prescription (art. 2511 of the Civil Code): beyond that, an older defect can no longer be raised.
I bought a property with an old mortgage still registered — how is it released?
With a public deed of release granted by the creditor — usually the bank — and its registration at the Real Estate Registry. Until it is registered, the mortgage keeps showing on the encumbrances certificate even though the debt is paid, and that alone is enough to stall a sale or a loan.
How do I regularize a property still registered to a deceased relative?
First the posesión efectiva — Civil Registry if there was no will, court if there was — and then the entries required by art. 688 of the Civil Code at the Real Estate Registry. Only then can the heirs dispose of the property. Where years have passed and some heirs have themselves died, the steps chain together, so it is worth checking before committing to a sale.
This is general information about Chilean law, not advice on a specific case: deadlines and requirements change with the facts.
Other practice areas
Need counsel in Real Estate & Registry Law?
Tell us what happened and we will tell you whether we can help and how. Santiago and Valparaíso, Monday to Friday.