Title due diligence in Chile for energy projects: the estudio de títulos

By Nicolás Chaparro SoumastrePublished November 4, 2026

How does the Conservador de Bienes Raíces work?

Each comuna, or group of comunas, has its own Conservador de Bienes Raíces, the local land registry (Código Orgánico de Tribunales, art. 447; Ley del Registro Conservatorio, art. 1). A property is recorded with the Conservador of the territory where it lies, and with each of them if it spans several (Civil Code, art. 687). A long gen-tie or a large wind polygon can involve more than one office.

Each Conservador keeps three registers (Ley del Registro Conservatorio, arts. 31 and 32):

• Property (Registro de Propiedad), for transfers of ownership.
• Mortgages and Encumbrances (Registro de Hipotecas y Gravámenes), for mortgages, usufructs, easements and similar charges.
• Interdictions and Prohibitions (Registro de Interdicciones y Prohibiciones de Enajenar), for contractual, legal and court restrictions on the property.

Transfers of ownership, usufruct, use, habitation, censo and mortgage must be recorded. Easements, leases under art. 1962 of the Civil Code and prohibitions may be recorded (arts. 52 and 53).

Why is the chain of title followed entry by entry?

Ownership of land passes when the title is recorded with the Conservador (Civil Code, art. 686), and possession of recorded land is acquired only by recording (art. 724). That possession ends only when the recording is canceled, by agreement of the parties, by a new recording or by court order (art. 728). Against a recorded title, prescription runs only in favor of another recorded title (art. 2505).

The indices are kept by the parties’ names, with the name of the estate, and closed every year (Ley del Registro Conservatorio, arts. 41 to 45). There is no tract index to search by parcel. The study starts from the current owner’s recording and follows each one back to the recording it came from, name by name and year by year, until it reaches the horizon agreed with your counsel.

Each link is read for what it says about the parcel: who transferred, under what title, which area and boundaries, and which charges were noted against it.

Which certificates should you order?

For each parcel, from the Conservador and the tax service:

• Certificate of current title (dominio vigente): who owns the parcel today, according to the Property register.
• Certificate of mortgages, encumbrances, interdictions and prohibitions (hipotecas y gravámenes): what is recorded against the parcel in the other two registers.
• Litigation certificate: lawsuits noted against the property.
• SII appraisal certificate: the parcel’s rol de avalúo and tax appraisal. The roll is a tax identifier.
• Recorded plans: where a recording refers to a plan filed with the Conservador, a copy to compare with the survey.

Certificates show the registers on the day they are issued, so we pull a new set before each signing and again before financial close.

How far back does the study go, and why?

Ordinary acquisitive prescription of real property takes five years (Civil Code, art. 2508). Extraordinary prescription takes ten years, runs against everyone and is not suspended (arts. 2510 and 2511). A review that reaches a recording older than ten years rules out a third party who could claim the land by prescription, which is why counsel usually go back at least that far.

Ten years is a floor, and a single link can push it back. A chain that passes through an estate, a regularized title or a subdivision is read back to the recording that explains it. Your lenders’ counsel may also set a longer horizon of their own. It costs less to know it before the certificates are ordered than to reopen the study after the options are signed.

What if the owner is an estate or a group of co-owners?

Heirs cannot dispose of a property until two things are on file: the recorded grant of heirship (posesión efectiva) and the special recordings of the property in their names. With both, they dispose of it jointly (Civil Code, art. 688). The Civil Registry grants heirship for estates without a will, and a court for estates with one (Ley 19.903, art. 1). If an heir has died since, that heir’s own estate needs a grant too.

With co-owned land, no co-owner is bound to stay in co-ownership (Civil Code, art. 1317), and none may make changes to the property without the others’ consent (arts. 2081 and 2305). The study lists every co-owner of the comunidad and their recorded shares, so that each one signs.

Agricultural communities (comunidades agrícolas) follow their own statute. Encumbering or transferring their common land requires the consent of all members, unless the community’s bylaws allow a special quorum (Ley 19.233 of 1993, art. 1 No. 22, which amended DFL 5 of 1968).

Who else has to authorize: spouses, guardians, companies?

• Spouses. A husband married under community property (sociedad conyugal) needs his wife’s authorization to lease marital rural land for more than eight years, or to encumber it (Civil Code, art. 1749). The same eight-year limit applies when he leases her own rural land, and a lease beyond it does not bind her (arts. 1756 and 1757).
• Family home. Property declared a bien familiar needs the authorization of the spouse who does not own it (art. 142).
• Guardians. A guardian cannot lease a ward’s rural land for more than eight years, or beyond the ward’s coming of age (art. 407).
• Companies. When the owner is a company, counsel check that the signatory’s powers are current and cover the deed.

The marital regime does not appear on the land title, so we ask for the owner’s marriage certificate together with the title certificates.

What changes when the title comes from DL 2.695?

Decree-Law 2.695 lets someone who has possessed a property for five years or more, without a recorded title, regularize it if its tax appraisal is at most 1,000 UTM, a tax unit indexed to inflation (arts. 1 and 2). The recorded resolution gives regular possession. Two years of recorded possession make the possessor owner by prescription, and third parties’ actions against the title prescribe (arts. 15 and 16).

The new owner cannot encumber the property for two years from recording, or transfer it for five (art. 17). A DL 2.695 title belongs to a small parcel by definition, and a gen-tie or an access road can cross several of them. Counsel check the recording date against those periods before an easement or a lease is signed, and the study notes when each period ends.

Where are mining, water and indigenous land rights recorded?

Three rights that affect a site are not on the land title:

• Mining. The State owns all mines, notwithstanding ownership of the surface (Constitution, art. 19 No. 24). A mining concession is a real right separate from land ownership (Mining Code, art. 2). It can burden the parcel with easements, granted by public deed or court ruling and recorded to be enforceable (arts. 120, 122 and 123). We search Sernageomin’s mining cadastre for every parcel.
• Water. Water is a national asset for public use, and a water use right is a separate real right. It is recorded in the Conservador’s Water Property Register and listed in the DGA’s public water cadastre (Water Code, arts. 5, 6, 114 and 122).
• Indigenous land. Indigenous land is defined by law and listed in CONADI’s public registry (Ley 19.253, arts. 12 and 15), and its lease and encumbrance are restricted (art. 13). We check the registry for every parcel, together with the indigenous land rules.

What did Law 21.772 change in the registry?

Law 21.772, published on October 1, 2025, reformed Chile’s notaries and Conservadores. It renamed the 1857 registry regulation as the Ley del Registro Conservatorio de Bienes Raíces. It also requires each Conservador to keep electronic systems, a digital backup and remote consultation of its indices (Ley 21.772, art. 2; Ley del Registro Conservatorio, arts. 5 and 5 bis).

Remote consultation of the indices helps when a project spans several comunas, as a transmission route often does. The method stays the same. The indices are still kept by name, and the study still follows each recording back to the one before it.

How do we run the study with your Chilean counsel or ours?

We order the certificates from each Conservador and the SII, read the chain for every parcel and build a land matrix with owners, recordings, encumbrances and open issues. Project counsel reviews that work and issues the title opinion your lenders rely on.

Boundaries get the same treatment. We compare the area and boundaries (deslindes) in the recording, in any recorded plan, in the SII roll and on the ground. Older rural recordings describe boundaries by their neighbors, so a surveyor’s plan is tied to the recorded plan where one exists. A mismatch is a typical finding, and it costs less to settle before the option than at financial close.

Where the study turns up an estate, a co-owner who cannot be found or a prior mortgage, we tell you before outreach, with what it would take to fix. To start, send us your parcel list or target area.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Código Civil (Civil Code), arts. 142, 407, 686, 687, 688, 724, 728, 1317, 1749, 1756, 1962, 2081, 2305, 2505, 2508, 2510 and 2511 (verified on November 4, 2026)
2. Ley del Registro Conservatorio de Bienes Raíces, arts. 1, 5, 5 bis, 31, 32, 41 to 45, 52 and 53 (verified on November 4, 2026)
3. Ley 21.772 (registry and notarial reform, October 1, 2025), art. 2 (verified on November 4, 2026)
4. Código Orgánico de Tribunales (Courts Organization Code), art. 447 (verified on November 4, 2026)
5. Ley 19.903 (grant of heirship), art. 1 (verified on November 4, 2026)
6. Decree-Law 2.695 of 1979 (regularization of small rural property), arts. 1, 2 and 15 to 17 (verified on November 4, 2026)
7. Ley 19.233 of 1993, amending DFL 5 of 1968 (agricultural communities), art. 1 No. 22 (verified on November 4, 2026)
8. Ley 19.253 (Indigenous Law), arts. 12, 13 and 15 (verified on November 4, 2026)
9. Constitución Política (Constitution), art. 19 No. 24 (verified on November 4, 2026)
10. Código de Minería (Mining Code), arts. 2, 120, 122 and 123 (verified on November 4, 2026)
11. Código de Aguas (Water Code), arts. 5, 6, 114 and 122 (verified on November 4, 2026)
12. DS 88/2019, Ministry of Energy, Small Distributed Generation Regulation, art. 43 (verified on November 4, 2026)

This article is general information and does not replace legal advice on your case. The laws cited may change; check their current text at the Library of the National Congress of Chile (bcn.cl).