Joselin B. Vásquez Morel presented the figures at the ACOSDE Congress. The Real Estate Registry website does not contain figures for Santo Domingo or for condominiums with which to compare them.
SANTO DOMINGO– The head registrar of Santo Domingo, Joselin B. Vásquez Morel, said that the Registry of Titles receives more than 400 applications daily and handles 229 condominium procedures per year.
Vásquez presented the figures last Thursday, October 29, at the Business Congress of the Association of Builders of Santo Domingo East (ACOSDE), without specifying the period to which they correspond, and interpreted them as a sign of the "climate of confidence in investment that currently exists.".
At the same congress, the Minister of Housing and Buildings, Jean Luis Rodríguez, reported that MIVED issued 1,584 building permits from January to October 2026, 84% more than in the same period of 2025.
Licenses represent a stage prior to registration. No figures for Santo Domingo or condominiums were found on the Real Estate Registry website that would allow Vásquez Morel's data to be placed within a series.
Nationally, the institution submitted applications on September 30 for 313,377 in 2019 and 564,885 in 2025.
The conference was titled "Legal security and registry management: keys to boosting real estate investment and urban development" and was given at the second edition of the congress, held at the Crowne Plaza Santo Domingo hotel.
Detecting problems on the ground
Vásquez Morel suggested that behind every visible project there is "a legal infrastructure" and asked the builders when it is convenient to discover a problem on the ground: before starting the work, when there are already promises of sale with buyers or when the credit entity has already granted the financing.
As a preliminary step, he said, there must be due diligence that begins with a certification of the legal status of the property, which can be requested online, as well as the consultation of registered entries through the virtual office of the Registry.
He devoted a significant portion of his presentation to the certification with reservation of priority, which, he explained, allows for a registration block to be recorded against the property, preventing third parties from registering a lien, encumbrance, or real right, even if the legal transaction has not yet been finalized. It is sufficient, he said, to declare the intention to carry it out in a formal legal proceeding.
He clarified that the application is subject to a procedure and requirements regarding who can request it, due to the protection owed to the registered owner. He stated that the legal mechanism has existed for some time and that recent modifications facilitate the application process, without specifying which ones.
Officials from the Real Estate Registry described that certification in 2024 as a 15-business-day registration block that ensures the registration date of the business, according to a note from El Inmobiliario on May 7 of that year.
The service's information sheet on the institutional portal also sets the maximum period of immutability of the legal status at 15 business days, although Vásquez Morel did not mention the deadline in his presentation.
Regarding the qualifying function, he stated that the registrar reviews the documents to verify the rights that are registered and not to hinder business, and that this criterion applies to the State itself, for example, when it acquires a property through expropriation.
He also said that the platform allows scheduling virtual interviews with registrars and that the regulations, resolutions and technical provisions of the Real Estate Registry have been subject to public review.
The institutional portal hosts a project from October 2025 on requirements for registry actions presented as a public consultation, and a note from September 30, 2026 mentions the automated management of face-to-face and virtual appointments, without referring to interviews with registrars.
National Graduation Plan
The registrar also cited the National Land Titling Plan, which she said has issued title certificates to people who previously occupied the land. El Inmobiliario reported in July 2025 on the start of the plan's work in Valverde province, with an initial phase of issuing 900 title certificates to 3,600 people, according to UTECT's executive director, Duarte Méndez Peña.
Vásquez Morel was sworn into that position in November 2024, along with six other registrars. In January 2025, the Property Registry reported 507,461 applications for Title Registration and Cadastral Surveys in 2024 nationwide, 5.4% more than in 2023, with Santo Domingo among the provinces with the highest demand, although specific figures for that province were not available.
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