SANTO DOMINGO.– On the morning of Wednesday, October 25, 2023, President Luis Abinader submitted to the National Congress a bill as part of the institutional reform plan he is promoting, which deals with the violation and illegal transfer of public or private real estate property.
The legal advisor to the Executive Branch, Antoliano Peralta Romero, personally delivered the document to the President of the Senate, Ricardo de los Santos, and was accompanied by the Deputy Legal Advisor to the Executive Branch, Pedro Luis Montilla, who shared the most relevant premises and ideas of the project with other senators and members of the press.
The legal consultant stated that the project on real estate property aims to comprehensively protect the enjoyment, use, and disposal of the right to real estate property in the public and private spheres, while defining punishable conduct that violates this right and establishing a system of proportionate, effective, and dissuasive penalties to prevent and punish such conduct.
He also highlighted that the project includes provisions on elements related to prosecution and criminal procedure, that is, on aggravated attempt, complicity, flagrancy and the regime of action.
“In terms of organization, it is stipulated that the Superior Police Council will create a specialized general directorate for the prevention and prosecution of invasions and irregular occupations of public and private properties,” Peralta Romero added.
If this law is approved, it would update this legal framework by repealing the current Law No. 5869, on Violation of Property in the Dominican Republic, which dates from April 24, 1962.
This law, 5869, punishes with correctional imprisonment and a fine those persons who enter urban or rural real estate without the owner's permission.
"Any person who enters an urban or rural property without the permission of the owner, tenant or usufructuary, will be punished with a correctional prison sentence of three months to two years and a fine of ten to five hundred pesos," says article one of the document.
Through Law 234 of April 30, 1964, the following paragraph was added: "The sentence issued in case of conviction will also order the eviction of the occupants of the property and the confiscation of the improvements that have been built on it, and will be provisionally enforceable without bail, notwithstanding any appeal.".
Law 5869 repealed Law No. 43, dated December 15, 1930.
