Franco's residence. No agreement on the uses of the Pazo de Meirás, which will open to the public in four or six weeks "with democratic memory"
Execution of the sentence. The State already has the keys to the Pazo de Meirás: "It is a day of historical justice"
The State must pay the Franco family the expenses that they have allocated to the maintenance and conservation of the Pazo de Meirás since the death of the dictator in 1975. This has been agreed by the Provincial Court of A Coruña in a resolution issued this Friday according to which it confirms that The building and its land are owned by the State, but it must compensate the heirs for all the money invested since then in what had been the summer residence of the Head of State during the Dictatorship and then remained in the hands of the family.
This resolution of the third section of the A Coruña Court responds to the appeal filed by the Franco family against the sentence handed down by the Court of First Instance number 1 of A Coruña last September, in which it forced the heirs to deliver the property to the State.
Now, the magistrates of the provincial court confirm that sentence in relation to the public property of the pazo, but they clarify it in other questions such as that related to expenses.
Thus, they partially revoke the first instance ruling and recognize the right of Franco's six grandchildren to be compensated for the necessary expenses they incurred for the conservation of the property, a request from the family that denied them the original ruling.
The judgment of the Court considers it to be proven that the heirs carried out "multiple rehabilitation and maintenance works" and that, after the fire that partially destroyed the property in 1978 they carried out "multiple repairs."
In this sense, they see "obvious" that if the Pazo de Meirás had been abandoned for forty-five years "its current state would be ruinous".
The amount to be paid by the State to the family for these expenses during the last four decades will be defined in the execution phase of the sentence.
The judge of first instance, Marta Canales, argued in her sentence that this refund of expenses did not fit because the property was incorporated into the Franco family's assets "in bad faith."
However, the Provincial Court amends its decision and concludes that there is no evidence that the heirs were aware that their grandfather's property title was invalid.
Thus, the provincial court maintains that for these heirs, the beginning of their property is an inscription in the Betanzos Property Registry in 1941 of a deed of sale granted before a notary, in which their grandfather buys the daughter-in-law of Doña Emilia Pardo Bazán the pazo.
Farm that in 1976 was awarded to his grandmother, later becomes the property of his mother and, now, of them.
The sentence states that it is an apparently impeccable chain of transmissions, so that it does not see bad faith and "there is no glimpse of the reason why they should be aware of an alleged irregularity in its acquisition."
He also insists that after Franco's death in 1975, "they have been using the pazo in a public, peaceful, uninterrupted manner and as owners for more than four decades" and that the Administration itself has treated them until now "as such owners. "They have been treated so far by the Administration itself, which until now had not claimed ownership of the property, which is now considered to be in the public domain after a lawsuit filed by the State Attorney, which was joined by the Xunta de Galicia, the Diputación coruñesa and the town councils of Sada and A Coruña.
The ruling does confirm that the 1941 acquisition that they believed to be valid is not.
They declare it invalid and believe that it was an "absolute simulation" to give the appearance of legality to a donation donation made in 1938 by the Junta Pro Pazo del Caudillo in a parchment was not a suitable title to recognize the transmission.
The court declares that donation does not exist from a legal point of view.
In any case, the magistrates clarify that "even if the possessory bad faith in Francisco Franco is taken for granted, it is not necessarily transmitted to his heirs."
At this point, the Hearing also amends the judge of first instance insofar as it considers that the final intention of the Pro Pazo del Caudillo Board was to donate the Torres de Meirás to the person of Francisco Franco, not to the Head of State, nor to the State ", as the family maintained, but denied the State and the rest of the administrations.
The sentence considers that the Pazo was "a personal gift to the general who was winning the war and whose favors the promoters intended to win", but warn that this intention "never became effective" legally because of the way it was donated, since a public deed was never granted.
"The intention was to donate to the person, but it was never donated to anyone," they conclude.
The Hearing reflects in the resolution its doubts about who exercised from 1940 to 1974 as the owner of the Meirás pazo, whether the State or Franco in a personal capacity.
In any case, it does conclude that the land adjacent to the building is occupied by the State apparatus from the first moment, "displaying its capacity to exert force on the citizens" and that until 1975 it is in charge of all the expenses inherent to the property, improvement works and maintenance.
From 1975 to the present, according to the ruling, it is the heirs who bear these costs.
This judgment is not yet final and an appeal for cassation or extraordinary appeal for procedural infringement may be filed before the Supreme Court.
Alternatively, and incompatible with the previous remedies, if it is considered that the sentence infringes the Civil Law of Galicia, it can be appealed in cassation before the Superior Court of Xustiza de Galicia.
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