P.R. Laws tit. 4, § 2111
(a) The transfer to the General Archives of Puerto Rico of the notarial protocols that are kept conserved in the Archives of Notarial Protocols of Puerto Rico, which on the effective date of this act have been in existence more than sixty (60) years, is hereby authorized. The future transfer to the General Archives of Puerto Rico of those protocols that as time goes by reach that limit of antiquity, is also hereby authorized.
(b) The General Archives of Puerto Rico shall be the custodian of the notarial protocols transferred to the General Archives of Puerto Rico pursuant to subsection (a) of this section. It shall be the duty of the General Archives to take the necessary measures to ensure the proper conservation of the protocols placed in its custody, always conserving them in their original form and order.
(c) The protocols referred to in this section shall continue to be secret pursuant to the provisions of this chapter. With regard to bona fide historical investigators, the General Custodian of Puerto Rico shall establish, through regulations to such effect, the norms necessary to establish their condition and to authorize investigations.
(d) The notarial custodian for the District of San Juan is hereby empowered, with the exclusion of any other official, to issue copies of the deeds found in the protocols referred to in this section, pursuant to the provisions of this chapter, including the cases of protocols transferred to the General Archives of Puerto Rico or of those documents in his custody and of those under temporary custody of the Director of Notarial Inspection.
The Director of the Notarial Inspection Office shall likewise authorize notaries to destroy any book of affidavits whose last affidavit is dated over thirty (30) years ago. Said authorization shall be transacted in the manner provided by the Supreme Court through regulations. No register may be destroyed unless it has been previously examined and approved by an inspector of protocols. Once the destruction of these registers has been authorized, the notary may conserve them in his/her possession if he/she wishes, but they shall not be received in any notarial archive, unless so directed by the Supreme Court.
History —July 2, 1987, No. 75, p. 242, § 69; Dec. 13, 2007, No. 196, § 14.