Real Estate Investment Alert - July 2026
Registry Tribunal Reaffirms the Inadmissibility of Acquiring Title to Communal Land by Adverse Possession Through Notarial Proceedings
On July 4, 2026, a new binding precedent issued by the Registry Tribunal was published in the Official Gazette El Peruano. The precedent establishes that notarial declarations of adverse possession over land registered in the name of peasant communities may neither be recorded nor registered. This criterion is based on Article 89 of the Constitution, which provides that certain categories of property are not subject to acquisitive prescription, and is limited exclusively to notarial adverse possession proceedings.
The precedent was adopted during the extraordinary session of the 320th Plenary of the Registry Tribunal, held on June 22, 2026, and incorporates the reasoning set out in Resolution No. 4339-2025-SUNARP-TR of October 3, 2025. That resolution upheld the rejection of an application seeking to register a notarial declaration of adverse possession over land registered in the name of a peasant community, even though the proceeding had previously been the subject of a preventive registration.
The resolution held that the constitutional protection against acquisitive prescription remains in force even where it is alleged that the community has ceased carrying out its institutional activities, since such circumstances neither extinguish its legal personality nor affect its property rights. Likewise, adverse possession cannot be recognized even where it is argued that the communal land has been urbanized or is no longer under the community's physical occupation.
The Registry Tribunal further clarified that this constitutional protection applies even where a notary has declared the acquisition by adverse possession. In this regard, it emphasized that the registrar's review authority includes verifying whether the notarial declaration is consistent with the information contained in the Registry, including the constitutional protection afforded to communal land against acquisitive prescription.