THE FORCE OF REGISTRATION ENTRIES IN SPAIN’S FIRST MORTGAGE ACT

Abstract

This is a study on the force or value of registration entries in Spain's first Mortgage Act. It takes a systematic look at not only those provisions of the 1861 Act that specifically address registration entries, but also many other provisions related with registration entries. The idea, then, is not to examine the 1861 Act for the precedents of today's legislation in order to back up a given interpretation of modern law; instead, a systematic and, insofar as possible, aseptic analysis is conducted. The methods of interpretation that modern legal thought employs to analyze prevailing legislation are used to identify the structure of this long-repealed law. In other words, to avoid anachronisms, the 1861 Mortgage Act is examined as a whole, without focusing solely on the articles that are generally considered to be more interesting, and therefore without taking articles out of the logical and historical context that makes them meaningful. Accordingly, in the paper and its footnotes, special attention is paid to transitional law and the substantive civil law then prevailing under the Partidas. History is not a science that establishes rules; it is a science that describes. The facts (even if the facts are texts, which certainly endows them with an essential uniqueness) are what they are, regardless of whether we like them or not. This research aspires to be historical, not dogmatic; descriptive, not prescriptive.