First of all, there is no word or phrase that could translate into English what a deslinde means.  Real Estate Cadastral Individualization, maybe?

In order to explain the concept of DESLINDE in the Dominican Republic, it is important to go back to the circumstances that lead our authorities to request such process as a mandatory prerequisite to the transfer of a real estate, by order of Law 108-05 sobre Registro Inmobiliario, therefore to assign any real estate over to a new owner a deslinde must have been performed, if needed.

For many years, sellers and purchasers of real estate created the common practice of not observing the adequate registration of their portions of land when separated from a larger property because the process to amend the nation’s map took years and it was very expensive.

How were partial sales registered prior to Law 108-05?

For example, Juan Pérez was the owner of Parcel 101 with an extension of 1,000 square meters, which property rights are contained in Title No. 90. Then María González buys from Juan Pérez a portion of land of 200 meters, within Parcel 101. The correct proceeding would be to file an amendment to the public cadastral plan to separate that portion of land from the original property; however, since almost all sales were made without an amendment to the cadastral plan to reflect an individualization of the new parcel created, an ANNOTATION was made within the Title indicating that María González  acquired 200 meters from Juan Pérez therefor that specific title had a remaining 800 meters of land. Then María González would receive a document called Annotated Constancy (“Carta Constancia” o “Constancia Anotada”) printed out in a security paper similar to the ones used for the actual titles, with the annotation indicating  María González acquired 200 meters within Parcel 101.

Now, where exactly are the 200 meters located within Parcel 101? At the frontal area, facing the street? At the back, with access to the lake? At the center of the Parcel, through Juan’s remaining land? Is the acquired portion a square, rectable, irregular shape? These are some of the questions that would cause conflicts with other purchasers within the same parcel when an individual cadastral plan is not pursued to determine the dimension, shape or exact satellite location, specially if María decide not to start construction right away. Later, Juan continues selling more land to other purchasers but none of them has any official instrument setting up their exact location within Juan’s parcel of land.

That way, for may years the rights of each purchaser within the same parcel were determined by their possession or occupation, which caused and continues to cause many conflicts.

At the beginning of the 70’s, more than half of the real estate transactions were supported by annotated constancies, therefore more annotated constancies than actual titles were issued!

In order to speed up the regularization process, the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ), in accordance with Law 108.05 which prohibits the issuance of any more annotated constancies, has approved several Rules for the control and reduction of annotated constancies, and all real estate transactions supported by annotated constancies have been prohibited. Also, steps have been taken so that the amendments to the nation’s cadastral plan is drastically reduced from several years to only 6 to 8 months.

Pros of a Deslinde

A deslinde is not only necessary because the law so requires it. A deslinde protects the rights acquired by the purchaser. Before performing a deslinde, your real estate property is a portion of land within a larger parcel owned by several owners, all of which have the same cadastral description.

A deslinde allows to determine the correct location and exact distribution of the land by separating it from the original parcel and it provides the basis for a clear title.

Without clear title, your property is at risk such as the risk of conflicts arising out of co-owners within the same parcel wanting to possess their amount of land at the same location. Therefore the market value of your propery increases.

Also, you cannot access financing using your property as collateral if the property is pending deslinde.

What is a deslinde in the Dominican Republic, exactly?

In accordance with article 10 of Resolution No. 355-2009 issued by the Supreme Court, a Deslinde is “the contradictory  process by means of which the real estate rights supported by annotated constancies are located, determined and individualized”.

In summary, the Deslinde process starts with a Technical Phase carried out by a Surveyor, who will measure the land and prepare an individual cadastral plan and the projected amendment to the general map defining the new parcel, which is filed with the Cadastral Agency (Dirección Regional de Mensuras Catastrales) for approval.

In certain cases, a Judicial Phare must be observed and carried out by a lawyer, when a co-owner or any interested party claims that the cadastral plan does not show the correct distribution of the land or in the event of a estate. This phase ends with a judgment from one of the judges of the Courts of Lands.

Finally, in the Registration Phase, the file is sent out to the Registry of Titles to issue the Title duly cleared for the new parcel createdtherefore the Annotated Constancy is cancelled.