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.

CPCCN — subasta de inmuebles

The Código Procesal Civil y Comercial de la Nación governs procedure in the national and federal courts. Each province has its own equivalent code, and provincial codes differ on exactly the numbers below. Never quote a CPCCN article as if it were Argentine law generally.

The base

Art. 566. Where real property is auctioned, the base is fixed at two-thirds of the valuación fiscal. Where there is no valuation, the judge appoints an engineer or architect perito to appraise.

This one rule shapes the entire economics of Argentine auction investing:

• The opening price is tied to the valuación fiscal — the cadastral value set by the provincial catastro — not to market value.
• Argentine cadastral values have historically lagged market value badly, and inflation has widened the gap. The base is therefore frequently a small fraction of what the property is worth.
• That is why a subasta can look like a bargain on paper and why competition at the act, not the base, sets the real price.

See base-y-valuacion-fiscal.

Movables

Art. 558. Auction of muebles and semovientes is sin base and for cash.

The martillero

Art. 600 addresses the appointment of the martillero and the character of the appointment. The professional qualification itself comes from Ley 20.266, not from the procedural code.

The sequence

The auction articles sit inside the execution-of-judgment machinery. The operational sequence a reader needs is:

1. sentencia de trance y remate (or the executory stage of a judgment)
2. Court order for subasta, appointment of the martillero, fixing of base and conditions
3. edictos — publication
4. The auction act — since 1 October 2025 electronic for national and federal courts in CABA, under Acordada 15/25
5. acta de subasta, payment of the seña then the balance
6. auto de aprobación del remate
7. inscripción by oficio judicial; posesión; if necessary lanzamiento
8. Distribution, and release of the `remanente`

needs_verification

Exact article numbers for the seña percentage, the comisión, edicto lead times, the sin base re-auction rule, and the postura bajo sobre mechanism have not each been traced to a retrieved text of the current CPCCN and are marked needs_verification. Article 566 (base = 2/3 of valuación fiscal) and article 558 (movables sin base and cash) have been verified.