
    Porto Rican Leaf Tobacco Co., Appellant, v. Registrar of Caguas, Respondent.
    Appeal from a Decision of the Registrar of Property Recording a Mortgage with Curable Defect.
    No. 266.
    Decided June 24, 1916.
    Corporation — Purchase of Real Property — Engaging in Business. — The acquisition and ownership of real property by an unregistered foreign corporation is not equivalent to engaging in business within the meaning of the Act of March 9, 1911.
    The facts are stated in the opinion.
    
      Mr. Andrés Mena for.the appellant.
    The registrar appeared pro se.
    
   Mr. Justice Wolf

delivered the opinion of the court.

The only difference in the principle involved in this case and that of the Isabella Grove v. Registrar of San Juan, Section 2, ante, p. 240, is that there the registrar much more properly recorded the deed with a curable defect. This action emphasizes the fact that questions of this kind are not submitted to the registry. In this case the registrar was probably satisfied independently of the title presented that the corporation had complied with the law, but in the former case the registrar had no personal knowledge one way or another. The actual information from the record in either case was the same. The note of the registrar in this case says that it does not appear that the company was a domestic corporation or authorized to do business in Porto Rico. As the deed offered was the acquisition of a piece of property, the registrar should have recorded the same without the necessity of an inquiry into whether or not the corporation had complied with the laws regarding foreign corporations, to which class the appellant belonged as shown by the deed. For these reasons and those more extensively set forth in the case of Isabella Grove v. Registrar of San Juan, supra, the note must be

Reversed.

Chief Justice Hernández and Justices del Toro, Aldrey and Hutchison concurred.  