The State bar complaint to the family Franco for possession spot of MeirásExpertos ask the Pazo de Meirás to become part of a Heritage NacionalLos experts of the family of Franco and the Government collide with the risks of burying the dictator in the Almudena
The costs related to the Pazo de Meirás were always assumed and borne by Francisco Franco and in fact were incorporated into the prescriptive statements of income of the dictator, in which he tributó by the returns that the exploitation was from the 40’s: farms and livestock, taxes gravaban the ownership of the property or insurance policies, to give just a few examples. This has been stated by the lawyers of the family Franco in response to the demand of the legal profession of the State this Monday have been presented to the court of First Instance number 1 of La Coruña. In him to deny the existence of fraud in the purchase of the manor, that the State wants to take away now the family Martínez-Bordiú, alleging that in the year 41 the Manor passed into private hands through a sale simulated that took place three years after the first purchase.
In his writing, of 115 folios, lawyers Utrera-Molina and Gil Evangelist, of the firm of J. Y. Hernandez-Canut, argue that the State ever possessed, as “owner” of this property in the life of Francisco Franco for more to manage and bear certain expenses relating to the Manor, “the whole time that it was limited to what was the public use, in part or in large measure, was made of this property in your condition of residence of the head of the State”, but has not spread to other efforts and costs related to a real estate property, which were borne and paid by Franco and will be included in their respective statements of income.
“Sales-simulated”
In its complaint, the legal services of the State argued that it had already been purchased on August 3, 1938 to the heirs of Emilia Pardo Bazán, so that the purchase and sale of 1941 had to be a fraud. The family Franco denies him.
“The deed of 1941, by which Francisco Franco acquired the Pazo de Meirás and enrolled your name in the Registry of the Property was not a sham operation and fraudulent”, as claimed by the Administration to suppose the validity of the sale of 1938 on the so-called “Board Pro Pazo del Caudillo” was listed as the buyer. “The supposedly unknown notarial deed of 1938 that points to the Administration to found his argument did not produce and could not produce the transfer of the ownership of the Manor, as it was formalized before the seller (Manuela Esteban Collantes, widow of the son of the galician writer) had been transacted, the obtaining of the insdispensable “title to the succession”from which the power to sell or dispose of the property, as the Manor was the property of his son, Jaime Quiroga, who was murdered in August 1936.
on the other hand, are the lawyers, the “gift” of the Manor of Franco, on the part of the Board Pro Pazo in a parchment dating back to 1938, it was not more than a “symbolic act by which it was performed the delivery” of the Manor to the dictator , and void “since it has not been verified in a public deed by the party of its rightful owner.”
In summary, faced with the evidence of the legal shortcomings of the titles and broadcast of 1938, Esteban Collantes (the venderora) came the year 1941, being the legal owner of the property, so that all parties involved in the process, that is to say, a seller, Board Pro Pazo and Franco) “they decided to simplify the process and formalize a deed of sale in the year 1941, directly transmitting the property to Don Francisco Franco, what was not but the final effect is that everyone who had any participation in the proeso of sale of the Pazo de Meirás had explicitly stated from the beginning”.
however, the paper points out that although admitting that the State had come to acquire the ownership of this property by usurpation, never would have done as well in the public domain, , among other things, the evidence that it was Franco who personally assumed the expenses of the Mansion and stated to the Treasury returns are the same reported.
The passivity of the State
also Question the lawyers that the claim of the property to arrive precisely at this moment, more than 50 years after they would have been able to raise. During all this time the Public Authorities “have made explicit recognition” that the property belonged to Frank and to his successors. Proof of this, they argue, is that the State has become disengaged from 1975 with regard to the expenditure that has led to their conservation and maintenance, especially in the reconstruction that forced the fire burned he suffered in 1978) or the requirement of obligations to the family Frank in its condition of owner of the property that resulted in the declaration of the Manor as “Good of Cultural Interest” in the year 2008.
