Legal evolution of horizontal property

The real estate boom in Peru in recent years has been complemented by an ever-increasing demand for housing, mainly as a result of the housing deficit in the capitals, although other factors such as the increase in family incomes and the greater credit facilities that exist today to acquire a home (lower interest rates and longer terms) should not be overlooked.

This boom has also involved an increase in vertical urban expansion, due to the natural contradiction between housing demand and the limited urban areas or areas in the process of urbanization that exist; for this reason.

It is not uncommon to see the current growth in the construction of buildings for apartments and offices, in which several independent and autonomous real estate units coexist, but which share common areas and services.

The innovations contained in this norm as well as the modifications made have not only contributed to perfecting the regime, but have also contributed to solving the diverse conflicts that arise between neighboring condominium owners.

For this reason it is extremely important for real estate market agents to dominate the institutions and rules established for this property regime, being this book a contribution to fulfill this purpose in a practical and safe way.

Shared buildings undoubtedly have the advantage of the low cost that allows a greater number of people access to the dream of their own home; but it also has drawbacks that cannot be ignored, such as the need to resign oneself to living in reduced spaces (and not in large houses, as used to be in the past).

What is the main factor that has led to the configuration of the phenomenon of “vertical real estate growth”?

In Peru the phenomenon of a massive intensification and growth of masses in the Capital from the decade of the thirties has been presented with a lot of force; in fact.

The registry bulletins of the mentioned decade give account of the social problem that germinated with the owners that sold each room of their building as if it were an independent real estate unit; contributing with it to the urban disorder, to the tugurización, the terrible living conditions, the lack of healthiness, among other problems that faced Lima and other big cities.

Thus, we have as a souvenir of that time the estates called “alley of a single pipe”, which are nothing other than the buildings that had a common central passage that allowed access to different rooms, each of which was an independent dwelling.

That is to say, the big houses were converted, by economic necessity, and by lack of planning on the part of the Government, in a set of multiple units created artificially without the minimum conditions of quality of life.

From the limited circumstances, the buildings have been carried out, with more and more assiduity, “upwards”; that is to say, more and more, the construction of buildings itself has been elaborated, whose conformation, as it is well known, consists of several floors and, at the same time, each floor, two or more departments.

The phenomenon of the “demographic explosion” in our country constitutes a great example of a phenomenon undoubtedly recurrent in the juridical world, we refer, of course, to that the Right always is a step backwards with respect to the reality.

Laws and, in general, the instruments that Law offers society to regulate people’s behavior and their coexistence are not powerful enough to foresee upstart situations that, in certain moments of the course of a people, may cause certain difficulties or problems (as has happened in the real estate field).

Indeed, Law is a technique that allows solutions to be found (or, at least, dealt with) a posteriori (after social phenomena) by means of norms that regulate the way in which customs, behaviours, needs and interrelations among the members of each community develop.

With regard to the field of study that will be the subject of this work, it can be stated that there has been a progressive and relatively slow evolution as far as the real estate field is concerned; being that, as more adverse circumstances have been presented, the Peruvian legislator and the governmental authorities have also been paying greater attention to this sector.

But in the very long term, and have been developing more sophisticated reasoning and studies that, while they do not achieve an optimization of results, have been confronting increasingly efficiently the constant variations experienced within the field of land ownership.

The context in which we have ended up, after a long legislative evolution, is the one mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

We can affirm that the Law has submerged the task of regulating in a specific way the relations of the people within the real estate field to which it was already mentioned; task that, by the way, has been fulfilled fully as far as the emission of norms is concerned, and only partially as far as their efficiency is concerned.

However, the greatest relevance of current legislation is that which is consistent with the most efficient application (less costly and more beneficial of the laws on the subject) and to achieve this goal requires a thorough knowledge of the regulations and their correct application by all those people who are in any way related to the special regimes for the regulation of property ownership.