Argentina (AR) — civil law.

Nothing on this page describes United States practice. There is no certificate sold to an investor, no administrative sale, and no post-sale redemption window in Argentina. If you arrived carrying US assumptions, read falsos-amigos first.

Afectación a vivienda — the registered home shield

The voluntary, registered protection of a dwelling under CCyC arts. 244–256, in force 1 August 2015. It is the successor of the bien de familia of Ley 14.394, arts. 34–50, which Ley 26.994, art. 3 derogated in full. The chapter is unamended since 2014 — a word-level check of the InfoLEG text of Ley 26.994 against the Buenos Aires registry’s compilation current through Decreto 1017/2024 comes out identical, thirteen articles (244–256), none missing. Nothing protects until the affectation is registered: the shield is an asiento on the folio real, and its date is what every execution fight turns on.

What the affectation is not

It is not a bar on selling or mortgaging the home — art. 250 permits both, with the spouse’s or registered conviviente’s conformity. And it is not absolute: creditors whose cause predates the registration, and four enumerated classes of later creditors, execute the property notwithstanding it. What it does is decide who may force the `subasta` and where the money goes afterwards.

Who may affect, and what — arts. 244–247, 256

• One inmueble destinado a vivienda, for its whole value or a stated part (art. 244). Never more than one: a sole owner who ends up with two affected properties must opt within a period fixed by the autoridad de aplicación, failing which the affectation constituted first is deemed to survive (“bajo apercibimiento de considerarse afectado el constituido en primer término”).
• The titular registral requests it; in condominio, all co-owners jointly. It can also be constituted by will, or ordered by the judge who attributes the home in a divorce or on the end of a unión convivencial where there are beneficiaries who are incapable or of restricted capacity (art. 245).
• Beneficiaries (art. 246): the owner, spouse or conviviente, ascendants and descendants; failing those, collaterals to the third degree who live with the constituent. At least one beneficiary must inhabit the home, and the effects subsist while one remains (art. 247). The owner alone, with no other beneficiary, is enough.
• A rural property qualifies up to the unidad económica, as locally regulated (art. 256).
• The Capital Federal registry’s practice admits affectation by holders of usufructo or uso, which is broader than art. 245’s titular registral; the legal basis, and whether other provinces follow, is needs_verification.

Registration is constitutive — and its forms are local

Art. 244 sends registration to the provincial Registro de la Propiedad Inmueble “según las formas previstas en las reglas locales”, with temporal priority governed by Ley 17.801. Three consequences:

1. Constitutive effect. The Buenos Aires registry states it in terms (Orden de Servicio 45/2015): the registration of the affectation is constitutive, not declarative. No asiento, no shield.
2. Priority is by presentation (Ley 17.801, art. 19) — with the twist of art. 5: an escritura presented within 45 days of execution takes priority from its execution date. An affectation escritura inside that window can therefore outrank an embargo presented earlier, and the window matters when computing which creditors count as prior-cause.
3. Forms vary by province. In the Capital Federal (DTR 4/2015 and 4/2016 of the RPI), the affectation is made by administrative petition before the registry — free of charge — or by escritura pública, or by judicial decision. In Buenos Aires Province (OS 45/2015), the beneficiaries are not published in the asientos, only in the filing paperwork, so an informe de dominio shows the affectation and its date but not who is protected.

Do not carry registry mechanics across provinces.

Art. 244 makes the forms local by design. The CABA and PBA rules above are those two registries’ rules and nothing more; each province has its own disposición or orden de servicio. Whether the affectation may be included in the very escritura of acquisition — standard notarial practice suggests yes, via the escritura pública channel — is stated in terms by no norm retrieved for this page and is needs_verification per province.

The core rule — art. 249

Art. 249 is the article an auction reader needs. Its structure:

1. Prior-cause creditors. The affectation is inoponible to creditors whose cause is anterior to its registration. “Cause” means the source of the obligation — not the date of the judgment or of the embargo. These creditors attach and execute as if the affectation did not exist.
2. Posterior debts. The affected home cannot be executed for debts later than the registration, except four enumerated classes:
   • (a) expensas comunes, and impuestos, tasas o contribuciones that burden the property directly;
   • (b) obligations secured by a garantía real on the property constituted with the art. 250 conformity — the mortgagee’s slot;
   • (c) obligations arising from construction or other improvements to the dwelling;
   • (d) alimony owed by the owner to children who are minors, incapable, or of restricted capacity.
3. The shield follows the money. Creditors with no right to execute cannot collect from the property nor from the sums that substitute it as price or indemnity — “aunque sea obtenido en subasta judicial”, in an individual or a collective execution.
4. The surplus goes home. If the property is auctioned and a surplus remains, the `remanente` is delivered to the owner — not distributed to posterior creditors.
5. In insolvency, only the creditors enumerated in this article may seek the execution of the home.

The prior-cause creditor executes for itself alone.

Inoponibilidad opens the property to that creditor, not to everyone. The waterfall runs for the entitled credit and stops: what is left returns to the owner, even in a quiebra. The CNCom enforced exactly this in Fasciolo (below).

In an ejecución hipotecaria

Map the mortgage’s date against the affectation’s asiento (see `ejecución hipotecaria`):

• Hipoteca before the affectation — the affectation is inoponible (art. 249, first paragraph). The mortgagee executes normally.
• Hipoteca after the affectation — valid and executable if constituted per art. 250: where the owner is married or in a registered unión convivencial, the transfer or gravamen of the affected home requires the conformity of the spouse or conviviente, replaceable by judicial authorization if the latter opposes, is absent, incapable, or of restricted capacity. A mortgage so constituted sits in exception (b) of art. 249.

Either way the mortgagee sells the property despite the affectation. What the affectation changes is who else may concur on the price and the destination of the surplus. The auction buyer takes free of the affectation, which is cancelled after the permitted execution under art. 255 inc. e).

In a juicio de apremio

Exception (a) covers only levies that burden the property directly: the impuesto inmobiliario, municipal tasas, contribuciones de mejoras — and expensas comunes. A fisco executing one of those proceeds despite the affectation regardless of dates. An `apremio` for a tax that is not levied on the property itself (for example, a tax on the owner’s business turnover), whose cause postdates the registration, falls outside the exception and is repelled.

Note the double edge of expensas: they are an art. 249 exception and they follow the unit to the auction buyer — see `expensas` and the auction buyer.

In a quiebra

Under art. 249’s last paragraph, only the enumerated creditors may seek the home’s liquidation in a proceeding under Ley 24.522. The operative appellate authority:

• CNCom Sala D, “Fasciolo, Alejandro Ariel s/ quiebra” (expte. 18023/2022, 8 July 2025, full text retrieved): the affected home is excluded from the desapoderamiento (art. 107 LCQ). A declaration of inoponibilidad obtained by a prior-cause or alimony creditor lets that creditor liquidate the asset; the bankrupt’s own request to de-affect under art. 255 inc. a) cannot be used to fold the home into the general estate over that creditor’s already-recognised position — the property “solo podrá ser liquidado para satisfacer íntegramente la acreencia” whose anterior cause was recognised by firm resolution, any surplus question being premature until that credit is paid in full.
• CNCom Sala A, “Peloso, Alejandro Héctor s/ quiebra”: de-affectation in quiebra “no beneficia a toda la masa sino tan solo a los acreedores de obligaciones anteriores a su inscripción”. This decision is known to this page only through a secondary case report, and its reported date (12 June 2015) precedes the CCyC’s entry into force — its exact reasoning is needs_verification against the original text.

Inoponibilidad is not desafectación.

Reading an auction order requires this distinction, drawn expressly in Fasciolo: declaring inoponibilidad benefits particular creditors, who alone may execute; ordering desafectación cancels the registration and extinguishes the right, so that all creditors may attach and execute. An order reciting one does not imply the other.

Subrogación real — art. 248

The protection travels: to a dwelling acquired in substitution of the affected one, and to the sums that substitute it as indemnity or price — including a judicial-auction price obtained by a creditor with no right to it (art. 249, third paragraph). Registry mechanics diverge:

• Buenos Aires Province (OS 45/2015): a deferred substitution requires an express reserva of the right to subrogate in the sale escritura, referenced later in the purchase escritura with the original affectation’s data.
• Capital Federal (DTR 4/2016, art. 4): the reserva was expressly abolished — it is neither necessary nor registrable.

Both registries support the simultaneous operation: sale, new purchase, and transfer of the affectation in a single act.

Desafectación — art. 255

Five routes to cancellation:

1. Request of the constituent — with the assent of the spouse or registered conviviente; failing assent, judicial authorization (inc. a).
2. Majority of heirs, where constituted by will, unless the surviving spouse or registered conviviente objects or incapable beneficiaries exist — then the judge decides in the beneficiaries’ interest (inc. b).
3. Majority of co-owners, by undivided shares, with the same limits (inc. c).
4. Any interested party, or the court’s own motion, when the chapter’s requirements lapse or the constituent and all beneficiaries die (inc. d).
5. Expropriation, reivindicación, or an execution authorised by this chapter (inc. e) — the auction route — “con los límites indicados en el artículo 249”: the cancellation operates to the extent of the entitled creditor and does not hand the asset, or the surplus, to everyone else. This limit is precisely what Fasciolo enforced.

Provincial automatic-protection statutes are unconstitutional

Several provinces enacted automatic, unregistered protections of the vivienda única. The CSJN has struck them down as invasions of the national Congress’s substantive competence: “Banco del Suquía S.A.” (Fallos 325:428, 19 March 2002, striking the Córdoba rule and its regulating law), “Banco de la Nación Argentina c/ Martín” (Fallos 327:1484, 27 May 2004), and “Romero” (Fallos 332:1488, 23 June 2009). The SCBA adopted that line as doctrina legal in C. 120.341 “Vázquez” (19 December 2018) and C. 119.623 (25 September 2018), striking PBA Ley 14.432. The Cámara Primera de Apelación de La Plata, Sala II, followed that doctrine in “Tulini, Bruno Juan c/ Chavez, César Oscar y otro s/ ejecución prendaria” (causa 247.689, 20 November 2020): it confirmed Ley 14.432’s unconstitutionality — only the voluntary, registered national regime (Ley 14.394, now CCyC arts. 244 ss.) governs opposability between debtor and creditors — yet still granted the ejecutada’s plea, declared the property inejecutable and annulled the ordered subasta, integrating the regularización-dominial protection of Ley 24.374 for a vulnerable elderly debtor on art. 28 CN reasonableness grounds (reported by diariojudicial.com, “No se puede subastar la casa de la jubilada”, and the Muñoz case note, LL RCCyC April 2021).

Practical consequence in Buenos Aires Province: an invocation of Ley 14.432 itself fails under current doctrina legal, but that does not mean the subasta proceeds — as Tulini shows, a court may still block the sale on other grounds (Ley 24.374, vulnerability, art. 28 CN reasonableness), so expect the incident to be litigated on the whole protective framework, not the provincial statute alone. The status of automatic-protection statutes in provinces other than Buenos Aires and Córdoba is needs_verification.

What an auction bidder should check

Part of any `estudio de títulos` and of pre-auction diligence:

• Find the asiento. The affectation appears on the folio real and in any informe de dominio — labelled afectación a vivienda, or in older matrículas BIEN DE FAMILIA — Ley 14.394. Its exact wording and heading per province is needs_verification against a specimen; in PBA, remember the beneficiaries will not appear.
• The asiento’s date is the pivot. Compare it with the cause-date of the executing credit. If the execution is by a prior-cause creditor or an art. 249 exception creditor, the subasta is valid, desafectación follows under art. 255 inc. e), and the buyer takes free. The auction order should recite the declared inoponibilidad or the exception invoked — if it recites neither, ask why before bidding, and see `nulidad de subasta` for what a defect costs.
• Check the art. 250 conformity (spouse/conviviente, or judicial authorization) in the escritura constituting any hipoteca that postdates the affectation. A mortgage lacking it is vulnerable.
• Mind the 45-day retro-priority of escrituras (Ley 17.801, art. 5) when the affectation and a competing measure were registered close together.
• Surplus mechanics do not affect the buyer, but the parties should know: the remanente goes to the owner, not to posterior creditors.

A worked distribution

Home affected and registered in 2018. Creditor A’s cause dates from 2016 (prior, ARS 10,000,000); creditor B’s from 2019 (posterior, unsecured, ARS 8,000,000). The subasta fetches ARS 15,000,000. A, to whom the affectation is inoponible, collects ARS 10,000,000 in full. The ARS 5,000,000 surplus is remanente and goes to the owner (art. 249, fourth paragraph). B collects ARS 0 from the property and ARS 0 from the price (art. 249, third paragraph) — and the same result holds in a quiebra, where the home is outside the desapoderamiento and only A-type creditors may seek its liquidation.

The old law — bien de familia, Ley 14.394

Registrations constituted under Ley 14.394, arts. 34–50 (derogated 1 August 2015) remain on the folios, and courts treat them as subsisting, governing their post-1 August 2015 effects — executions, desafectación, remanente — by the CCyC (Peloso, Fasciolo). Ley 26.994 contains no express transitional article for this chapter; the practice rests on CCyC art. 7 (immediate application) and is consistent at chamber level but needs_verification as against any statutory or CSJN settlement.

Substantive deltas from the old regime worth knowing when reading an old asiento: the CCyC dropped Ley 14.394’s valuation cap tied to family needs; it admits the conviviente and the owner alone (the old art. 36 family definition required kinship); it permits transfer with assent where the old art. 37 prohibited enajenación; and its exception list adds alimony (inc. d) and names expensas, which the old art. 38 did not.

Precision limits

• No post-2015 CSJN decision squarely construing arts. 244–256 in executions was located for this page; the operative case law is chamber-level (CNCom Salas A and D) plus the pre-2015 CSJN line on provincial regimes. That negative is itself needs_verification — check the CSJN’s own database before asserting the absence of precedent.
• Peloso rests on a secondary report, with the date anomaly flagged above.
• Whether the affectation may be made in the acquisition escritura itself: needs_verification per province.
• The exact asiento wording per province: needs_verification from specimens.
• Affectation by usufructo/uso holders outside CABA practice: needs_verification.
• The transition rule for pre-2015 registrations: consistent in practice, needs_verification as settled law.
• Automatic-protection statutes outside PBA and Córdoba: needs_verification.
• Registry forms and costs for provinces other than CABA and PBA: not surveyed — each has its own rules under art. 244, needs_verification per province onboarded.

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Statute text was checked verbatim against InfoLEG (Ley 26.994, Anexo I) and cross-checked word-for-word against the Buenos Aires registry’s compilation current through Decreto 1017/2024 — identical, exactly thirteen articles (244–256). Registry mechanics come from DTR 4/2015 and 4/2016 (RPI Capital Federal) and Orden de Servicio 45/2015 (RPBA). The decision in Fasciolo was retrieved in full text; Tulini*‘s holding is stated per the diariojudicial.com report and the Muñoz case note (LL RCCyC April 2021) — confirmation against the full sentencia is needs_verification;* Peloso was not retrieved, as flagged.