The Constitutional Court (TC) of the Dominican Republic in recent years has issued two judgments that defend the rights of property owners in conflict with delinquent tenants. In the opinion of the Constitutional Court the strengthening of the right to property is essential to encourage investments in housing, as reported in Listin Diario. Historically, in the Dominican Republic the judicial processes to evict a non-compliant tenant are lengthy and costly. In the rulings the Constitutional Court has removed barriers to evict non-paying tenants.
Listin Diario reports that the Constitutional Court has been paving the way for property owners to be able to demand the eviction of tenants when they refuse to leave the property, thereby protecting the right to property, which is established in Article 51 of the Constitution.
In at least two rulings, the Constitutional Court have annulled obstacles that prevented landlords from taking legal action in certain situations.
In 2021, the Constitutional Court published judgment TC-208-21, issued on July 19, 2019. The ruling annulled Article 8 of Law 4314, which required the presentation of a receipt or a certification from the Agricultural Bank of the deposit paid by the tenants, for the owner to enforce changes in the rental contract, eviction or the fulfillment of some contractual obligation. Law 4314 dates back to October 1955.
The Constitutional Court considered that the Agricultural Bank requirement prevented the property owners from exercising administrative and judicial actions related to the protection of the right to property.
Previously, in 2014, the Constitutional Court had annulled Article 3 of Presidential Decree 4807 on rent control, that dates back to May 1959, which also imposed a series of conditions on the owner of a property in order to evict a tenant.
That text of decree 4807 had also been annulled by the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ). “This court considers, as did the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, that the restrictions to the right to property derived from the application of Article 3 of Decree No. 4807, although they were justified at the end of the fifties of the last century and during the following years, it is no less true that at present they are unjustifiable,” said the Constitutional Court in judgment TC-174-14, issued on 11 August 2014.
In the opinion of the TC judges, “what the current reality demands is policies aimed at strengthening the right to property, with the purpose of encouraging the investment of capital in housing that after being built may be rented or sold.”
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Listin Diario
Listin Diario
Listin Diario
16 March 2022