Priority

1. Criteria for setting priority. How is priority established? Is priority guaranteed by the fact of presenting firstly a document against other document that is potentially incompatible?

Entries in the land book become effective upon recording the applications in the general register for entries.

Registration rank is determined by the date, hour and minute of recording the application. Rank can be changed by agreement between parties only for mortgages.

If multiple applications are submitted simultaneously, mortgage rights will have the same rank. Other rights will gain only temporary equal rank, until the court will decide, at the request of any interested person, the rank and, if appropriate, on the canceling of the invalid registrations.

If two or more rights received provisional equal rank, it will be preferred regardless the date of titles in competition, the one who was put in possession of the immovable or, where appropriate, the one to who the debtor has firstly executed the obligations incumbent upon it, except the rights of mortgage that will have the same rank.

In case none of the purchasers was put in possession of the immovable or, where appropriate, the debtor has not performed its obligations to any of them, there would have preferred the first one who asked the court, under conditions previously invoked.

In conclusion, when the registrations on ownership and other real rights on the same immovable are required in the same time, the rights compete and temporarily receive equal rank, following the court to decide who will be registered as first.

If two or more persons were entitled to acquire, through acts signed by the same author, rights on the same immovable, which mutually exclusive, the one who has firstly registered in land book will be declared the owner of tabular right, regardless of date of title under which registration has been committed in the land book. Also in this case the priority is established by the competent court.

2. Are there any possibilities of that a document presented later may go ahead or prevail in priority rather than other documents or deeds presented earlier?

As it was previously specified, the rank can be changed in mutual agreement, without court intervention, only for mortgages.

Civil Code regulates the change of rank, by the court, in case the third-party acquirer is in bad faith.

Thus, a person entitled, through a valid legal act, to register a real right in his/her favor can require the court to cancel a concurrent right registered in land book or, as appropriate, to give preferential rank against the registration made by another person, but only if following three conditions are met:

• his/her legal document predates the one on which the third-party has recorded the real right.
• the right of the complainant and the third-party acquirer is coming from a common author.
• registration in favor of the complainant was prevented by third-party acquirer through violence or vicleim, as appropriate.

3. Let’s suppose a document presented firstly that consequently holds priority but is affected by defects or lack of legal requirements. How long would it keep priority against other document presented later?

If a document firstly registered is affected by defects or lack of legal requirements, it conserves its priority against other document later presented.

But, ownership and other real rights over immovable are registered in the land book based on legal act through they have been validly constituted or transmitted, in terms of the form required for the validity of the act.

The registrar rejects the registration in the land book if the documents submitted do not meet the legal conditions. In case of rejection, the registration loses its rank, the priority being compromised.