Category: Business Spanish Courses Online – Learning Resources

Feminine plural noun. From the Latin folium. Page. In Legal Spanish, a file has not páginas but fojas. E.g. …de acuerdo con la declaración testimonial a fojas 25, according to the testimonial statement on page 25. Note that we say a fojas (plural) and not en foja, but if we are speaking about a book we say en página 25.
Another twist, a escritura, a contract and an administrative file have no fojas nor páginas but folios (masculine noun). E.g. Como atesta la firma en folio 4, as as attested by the signature on page 4.
In all cases you can still say página, but it’s not what a lawyer would do. dc

Masculine plural noun. It is the file of a judicial or administrative procedure. It refers also to the set of actions or pieces of a judicial procedure. E.g. El acceso a la pieza confidencial de los autos estará limitado a las partes frente a las cuales no se haya ordenado ningún tratamiento confidencial: Access to the confidential section of the file shall be confined to the parties in respect of whom no confidential treatment has been ordered.
Why I consider this term relevant to be in my blog? Because the word auto, a masculine singular noun that in Argentina means car, in Legal Spanish refers to a judicial resolution that decides secondary, previous, incidental or execution issues, for which no sentence is required; auto interlocutorio, a court order. dc

Verb. From llano, flat, to make something flat, to smooth.
In Legal Spanish allanar means nothing like the above but to search a property with a court order. The noun is orden de allanamiento. Curiously, allanamiento de morada is a crime: home invasion.
Another twist, the verb allanarse a (reflective) means to accept, to conform, to settle and agree to something. In Legal Spanish is used in the expression allanarse a la demanda, when the demandado accepts the claim made by the demandante. dc

Feminine noun. SRL is a type of company in which the responsibility of each of its partners is delimited by the capital that they have contributed to it.
The capital of a limited company is divided into participaciones and not acciones as in a sociedad anónima. Contrary to what happens with the acciones of the sociedades anónimas, in a sociedad de responsablidad limitada the participaciones are personal and cannot be traded. The contributions of the partners in this type of company are said to be social, indivisible and accumulative. The SRL is usually the tipo de sociedad chosen by family firms. dc

Masculine noun. Contract by virtue of which the owner of a thing, movable or immovable, grants another the use and enjoyment of it for a specified time, at a certain price or service to be satisfied by the recipient, in a nutshell: lease.
We tend to make a difference and call arrendamiento just a lease of a rural property and locación when it is an urban property. Why is this important? because the minimum term for an arrendamiento rural is usually much longer than for a locación urbana. How do you know when a property is rural? It is rural (or rústica) if the sewers and the public services like street lighting or garbage collection do not arrive to it. Of course, this may vary according to the country.
The lessor is called arrendador and locador and the lessee or tenant is called arrendatario and locatario. A way to remember who is who: Otario siempre paga. dc