RURRAL EARTH Law 26.737 National Domain Protection Regime on the Property, Position or Tendency of Rural Lands. Sanctioned: December 22, 2011 Promulgated: December 27, 2011 The Senate and Chamber of Deputies of the Argentine Nation assembled in Congress, etc. sanction with force of Law:
PROTECTION REGIME TO THE NATIONAL DOMININE ON PROPERTY, POSESION OR TREATMENT OF RURAL EARTH
CHAPTER I
Territorial and law enforcement personnel
ARTICLE 1 — This law governs the entire territory of the Argentine Nation, as a public order.
It must be observed according to the respective jurisdictions, by the authorities of the federal, provincial and municipal government, and will apply to all natural and legal persons who, by themselves or by interposite person, own rural lands, whether for agricultural, forestry, tourism or other uses.
For the purposes of this Act, rural land shall be defined as all prediums located outside the urban ejido, irrespective of location or destination.
CHAPTER II
Object
ARTICLE 2 — Sets the object of this law:
(a) Determine the ownership, catastral and dominial, of the situation of possession, under any title or de facto status of rural lands, and establish the obligations arising from the domain or possession of such lands, as provided for in this Act;
(b) To regulate, in respect of foreign natural and legal persons, the limits on the ownership and possession of rural lands, irrespective of their destination for use or production.
CHAPTER III
From the limits to the foreign domain on the ownership or possession of rural lands
ARTICLE 3o — For the purposes of this law, it shall be understood as foreign ownership of the ownership or possession of rural lands, any acquisition, transfer, transfer of possessory rights, whatever form, denomination imposed by the parties, and temporary extension thereof, in favour of:
(a) Individuals of foreign nationality, whether or not they have their real domicile in the territory of the Argentine Nation, with the exceptions set out in article 4 of this Act;
(b) Legal persons, according to the framework provided for in article 32 of the Civil Code, constituted in accordance with the corporate laws of the Argentine or foreign nation, whose social capital, in proportion greater than fifty-one per cent (51%), or in proportion necessary to form the majority social will regardless of the share of the shareholder, is the holder of natural or legal persons, of foreign nationality, under the conditions described in the preceding paragraph. Any modification of the shareholder, by public or private instrument, shall be communicated by the legal person to the National Register of Rural Lands, within thirty (30) days of the event, for the purpose of the infringement of compliance with the provisions of the law. They are also included in this precept:
1. Legal persons, regardless of their social character, who are in a position of controlled by any form of corporate or foreign cooperative, in accordance with the definitions set out in this law, in a percentage greater than twenty-five per cent (25%), or have the necessary votes to form majority social will regardless of the shareholder.
2. Those foreign natural or legal persons who, without formal accreditation as a partner, act in a society as if they are.
3. Corporations that have issued negotiable or deserving obligations and this allows their legitimate holder to increase in their shareholdings or turn them into shares in a percentage greater than twenty-five percent (25%), or that they are allowed to form majority social will regardless of the shareholder, and are foreign natural or legal persons, in accordance with the definitions set out in this law.
4. When the property is transferred, under any of the forms provided for in the existing laws, by virtue of a trust contract and whose beneficiaries are foreign natural or legal persons in a percentage greater than that authorized in the preceding subparagraph.
5. Inaccurate-participation societies, collaborative groups and temporary business unions, according to the regulation of the Societies Act, and any other form of enterprise collaboration of an accidental and prospective nature that is regulated in the future, where foreign natural or legal persons participate in them in a greater percentage than that authorized by this law;
(c) Legal persons of public law of foreign nationality;
(d) Simple associations under article 46 of the Civil Code or societies in fact, on the same terms as their social capital, as provided for in subparagraph (b) of this article.
ARTICLE 4o — The following natural persons of foreign nationality are exempted from the application of this Act:
(a) Those with ten (10) years of continuous, permanent and verified residence in the country;
(b) Those who have Argentine children and demonstrate a permanent, continuous and verified residence in the country of five (5) years;
(c) Those who are united in marriage to an Argentine citizen with five (5) years prior to the constitution or transmission of the relevant rights and demonstrate continued, permanent and verified residence in the country on an equal basis.
ARTICLE 5o — The regulation shall determine the requirements to be observed by foreign natural and legal persons in order to establish compliance with the provisions of this Act, and the enforcement authority shall be responsible for their control and enforcement.
ARTICLE 6o — Any interposition of natural persons of Argentine nationality, or of legal persons constituted in our country, is prohibited for the purpose of setting up a national ownership in order to violate the provisions of this law. This will be considered an unlawful and fraudulent simulation.
ARTICLE 7o — All legal acts which are held in violation of the provisions of this Act shall be of total, absolute and unsanitary nullity, without the right to claim any compensation for the benefit of the authors and participants of the anti-legal act. For the purposes of this provision, participants will be considered to be involved in the delivery of the land or to grant instruments, public or private, which make up the anti-legal work, which will respond personally and in solidarity with their heritage for the damages of these acts. The enforcement authority is empowered to examine legal acts in accordance with their actual nature, without being subject to the name of the grantor parties.
ARTICLE 8o — It is established in fifteen percent (15%) the limit to any domain or possession of rural lands in the national territory, regarding the persons and assumptions regulated by this chapter. This percentage will also be computed on the territory of the province, municipality, or equivalent administrative entity in which the rural property is located.
ARTICLE 9o — In no case can natural or legal persons, of the same foreign nationality, exceed thirty percent (30%) of the percentage assigned in the preceding article to foreign ownership or possession on rural lands.
ARTICLE 10. - The rural lands of the same foreign holder cannot exceed one thousand hectares (1,000 ha) in the core area, or equivalent area, according to the territorial location.
This equivalent area shall be determined by the Inter-Ministerial Council of Rural Lands provided for in article 16 of this Act, in accordance with the following parameters:
(a) The location of rural land and its proportion to the municipality, department and province that they integrate;
(b) The capacity and quality of rural land for use and exploitation.
The enforcement authority, for the purposes of granting the certificate of qualification, shall control the amount of rural land owned or owned by the acquiring person.
It also prohibits the ownership or possession of the following properties by foreign persons as defined in article 3 of this Act:
1. Those that contain or are riparian of large and permanent bodies of water.
2. Property located in border security zones with exceptions and procedures established by Decree-Law 15.385/44 as amended by Act No. 23.554.
ARTICLE 11. - For the purposes of this law and in accordance with the Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) signed by the Argentine Republic and which are in force at the date of entry into force of this law, it will not be understood as an investment the acquisition of rural lands, because it is a non-renewable natural resource provided by the receiving country.
ARTICLE 12. - Owners or holders of rural lands, natural or legal persons, who have no status as foreigners, shall within one hundred and eighty (180) days, counted from the date of entry into force of the regulation of this law, proceed to the complaint to the National Register of Rural Lands, provided for in article 14, of the existence of such ownership or possession.
ARTICLE 13. - For the acquisition of a rural property located in a security zone by a person covered by this law, the prior consent of the Ministry of the Interior is required.
CHAPTER IV
From the National Register of Rural Lands
ARTICLE 14. - The National Register of Rural Land within the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, with the integration of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Nation, will be the authority to implement the following specific functions:
(a) To record data concerning rural land of foreign ownership or possession in the terms of this Act;
(b) To require the competent provincial units to register, register and register legal persons, the information necessary for the performance of their functions;
(c) To issue certificates of all acts for which property or possession rights are transferred on rural lands in the cases covered by this Act. Certificates of Enabling shall be regulated by the regulation of this Act and shall be processed by the public scribe or the judicial authority involved;
(d) To exercise control over compliance with this law, with active legitimization to prevent administrative headquarters, or to claim nullity in judicial headquarters, of acts prohibited by this law.
ARTICLE 15. - There is a provision for a cadastral, dominial and registration of legal persons to determine the ownership and possession of rural lands, in accordance with the provisions of this law, to be carried out within the end of one hundred and eighty (180) days of the creation and operation of the National Register of Rural Lands.
CHAPTER V
Interministerial Council of Rural Lands
ARTICLE 16. - The Inter-Ministerial Council for Rural Lands, which will be chaired by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights and formed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of the Chief of Staff of Ministers, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of the Interior, with the representatives of the provinces, will have the following functions:
(a) To direct actions for the implementation of this Act;
(b) To implement the national policy on rural lands;
(c) To seek the collaboration of centralized and decentralized agencies of the national State and provinces;
(d) To determine the equivalence of areas of the national territory referred to in article 10 of the present Act, on the basis of technical instruments developed by the competent official bodies.
ARTICLE 17. - This law does not affect acquired rights and its provisions will enter into force on the day after publication.
(Note Infoleg: by art. 8° Decree No. 820/2016 B.O. 30/6/2016 states that for the purposes of this article foreign persons who, upon the date of entry into force of this Law, are holders of rural land in excess of the limits set by that law, (i) shall not be obliged to transmit such rural lands in excess; and (ii) in case of transmitting rural lands of their acquired ownership prior to the entry into force of this Law, they may then acquire the equivalent of such rural lands, Watch: from the day after your publication in the Official Gazette.) ARTICLE 18. - Transitory clause: any acquisition, transfer, transfer of possessory rights, regardless of the form, denomination and temporary extension imposed by the parties, in favour of foreign natural or legal persons under article 3, to be carried out in the period between the entry into force of the law and its regulation by the national executive branch, is reached by the provisions of this Act and subject to the consequences provided for in article 7 of the Act.
ARTICLE 19. - Contact the national executive branch.
IN THE SESSION OF THE ARGENTINE CONGRESS, IN GOOD AIRES, TO THE TWENTY DAYS OF THE TWO YEAR DOS MIL ONCE.
# 26,737 #
LOVE BOUDOU. - JULIAN A. DOMINGUEZ. - Gervasio Bozzano. — Juan H. Estrada.
