Constitutional Court rejects appeal over property seizure for debt

The Dominican Republic's Constitutional Court has rejected an appeal filed by Alexander Montilla Sierra, who sought to prevent the seizure of two of his properties due to a 20 million peso debt. Montilla Sierra argued that a broad freeze on his financial assets, ordered by the Public Ministry in a 2020 criminal investigation, led to his insolvency. This, he claimed, prevented him from meeting his payment obligations and adequately defending himself in civil proceedings.

He further contended that even after the Public Ministry requested a "partial lifting of registered oppositions" following a collaboration agreement with the main suspect, his brother Maxy Gerardo Montilla Sierra, and other individuals linked to the alleged criminal activity, the withdrawal of these oppositions was not promptly publicized to the Titles Registrar. This lack of timely notification, he argued, left him in a state of defenselessness and unable to utilize legal deadlines to prevent the seizure of a 142-square-meter apartment and a 266-square-meter "Functional Unit A-5."

The Constitutional Court annulled a previous ruling by the Fourth Chamber of the Civil and Commercial Court of the National District, which had dismissed Montilla Sierra's appeal as moot. The court agreed that the lower court had erred in deeming the action without object. However, the Constitutional Court ultimately refused to intervene directly in the ongoing real estate seizure process, stating that the measures requested by the appellant involved direct interference in a procedure governed by specific procedural rules, the application of which falls under the jurisdiction of ordinary courts.