This site uses cookies.
Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site,
while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used.
For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
Spanish to English translations [PRO] Law/Patents - Tourism & Travel
Spanish term or phrase:responder preferentemente
Hello. This is from internal guest regulations for a hotel:
"Los equipajes y efectos del huésped responden preferentemente al hotelero por el importe del hospedaje y a ese efecto podrán ser retenidos por éste mientras no sea satisfecha la cantidad adeudada por el huésped."
Explanation: I think the Spanish takes an enormously long time to say something that can be expressed very simply in English. I suggest the following for the whole sentence:
We may retain your luggage and personal effects as security against payment of the amount you owe us.
Or, if you're writing it in the third person,
The hotel may retain luggage and personal effects as security against payment of amounts due by guests.
no time. have 19000 words to finish tonight which came in this morning. the guest is the owner and this does not change. Romalpa is totally irrelevant, and i spend a long time drafting romalpa clauses for hosts of commercial clients around 30 years or more ago.
Adrian MM. (X)
Billh
19:39 Nov 13, 2013
Yes. Well done. I, who have actually handled a Romalpa in legal practice, threw it in as a long shot to try and fathom the preference or priority of the retentive lien. Perhaps you can give us an expert and creative exposition of a scenario where another creditor claims a priority over the guest's luggage.
Why are you waffling about Romalpa clauses which have absolutely nothing to do with this case at all. Do you actually know what a Romalpa clause is??
Adrian MM. (X)
Actual practice
19:16 Nov 13, 2013
Agreed. The country is Spain. The actual practice - virtually world-wide - is that the hotel just grabs the luggage. However, if a guest, in an unlikely scenario, is a retailer and books in with unpaid crates of wine and is or goes bust meantime. There are many UK and Aussie cases about the wine wholesaler's extended lien: www.legalmax.info/members2/sog/romalpa3.htm
Also consider if the hotel guest leaves behind e.g. a motor car on hire purchase/credit sale. Is this an 'efecto'. It is a chattel in BrE but a real estate possession in US law.
potentally so complex (i.e. possible cross-jurisdictional issues) that the hotel clearly will cross those bridges if and when it comes to them? And who says "Romalpa" clauses apply in heaven knows what jurisdictions - we don't even know whether this text is from Spain, Chile, Ecuatorial Guinea........or one of a dozen other countries?
Adrian MM. (X)
Priority lien is questionable
18:45 Nov 13, 2013
It is the guest's judgment or execution creditors who might try to enforce a Romalpa clause on insolvency and claim an extended lien taking priority over the hotelier's lien. But quaere: if the guest's luggage is virtually worthless or is carrying valuables, paintings and securities over which the hotelier may try to claim priority against the bankrupt or tax debtor etc. guest's creditors and barge them out of the way. The question is also whether a Spanish bankruptcy court will take any notice of a hotelier's 'preferential lien'.
Can a Romalpa clause apply to an unpaid hotel bill? I don't know.
What I'm really getting at here is: would the legal effect of this clause be identical in all foreseeable circumstances if the word "preferentemente" were not present and it just read "responden al hotelero"? If so, fair enough. But if not (and I suspect not), what difference does it make and how should this be reflected in English? The fact that it may well not make a difference in practice is surely not enough; if it could make a difference in principle, that difference must surely be included in the translation.
Adrian MM. (X)
Romalpa clause - extended lien
18:25 Nov 13, 2013
The fact is that a hotel guest will not counter the hotelier's lien with a Romalpa clause claiming an extended lien. 'Discuss' as in a commercial law exam question.
it's just a matter of keep the luggage if the bill isn't paid and worry about indolvency later. Ahter all, the guest may be from any one of a huge number of countries, and some of them may not even have the legal machinery to challenge the hotel. All a matter of shoot first, self help etc.
In short, I'm all for cutting the waffle when it really is waffle, but the first priority in translating legal conditions is that all relevant information is accurately reflected, rather than that it reads well.
Can this word simply be ignored in the translation? I can't help thinking that this may be a rash assumption, and that the word is probably there for a reason. I presume it means that the luggage is regarded as first priority security in the event of non-payment, though I'm not sure of the precise term. What happens if the guest leaves without paying and then proves to be insolvent? Can the hotelier sell the retained luggage to recover the debt? What if this is challenged on the grounds that the luggage is part the insolvent person's estate and must go to priority creditors? "Preferentemente" seems to me to be claiming that the hotel has a priority or first ranking claim in respect of the charges due. Whether this would be enforeceable I don't know, but it is probably worth considering whether and how to reflect "preferentemente" in the translation.
Explanation: I think the Spanish takes an enormously long time to say something that can be expressed very simply in English. I suggest the following for the whole sentence:
We may retain your luggage and personal effects as security against payment of the amount you owe us.
Or, if you're writing it in the third person,
The hotel may retain luggage and personal effects as security against payment of amounts due by guests.
philgoddard United States Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 55
peer agreement (net): -1