Buying property in Mexico? Check who you're buying from before you pay.
I'm a litigation attorney in Mérida. Most foreigners I meet about property come to me after the money has left their account. This page is for the ones who want to come before.
The three mistakes I see most often
- Trusting the seller, the agent, or the friend who speaks both languages. None of them is your lawyer. The seller and the agent are paid when you buy. The bilingual friend means well and doesn't know Mexican property law. I have seen people lose everything they had this way.
- Paying before anyone has checked the seller. People come to me when they have already paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, start noticing odd things, and wonder whether it might be a fraud. By then the question is how much can be recovered. Checking first costs far less than suing later. It's a small expense at the start that would have saved them a lot of money and grief, but the excitement of the house usually wins.
- Assuming a contract here works like a contract back home. In Mexico a contract can't always be enforced, least of all one signed electronically or exchanged as a PDF. In practice a PDF won't get you far in a Mexican court, and sometimes it isn't even enough to file the case: the judge will ask for a signed original or a notarized contract. I've seen buyers who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and hold nothing but a scanned PDF with no signatures on it, because nobody told them it mattered.
How I can help
Before you buy: due diligence and closing
I check the title, the seller and the paperwork, review the closing before the notary, and go with you to the signing.
Fideicomiso
Fideicomiso or Mexican company: which one fits what you plan to do with the property.
The developer didn't deliver
You paid and there is no house, no deed, or no answer.
Someone is on your property
Squatters, a neighbor who built over the line, or a property you can't get back.
What it looks like when it goes wrong
An American couple bought a house in Mérida. Three years later they had paid for the property, the fideicomiso and the closing costs in full, and still had no deed and no house. We filed a criminal complaint and a civil suit and brought public attention to the case. They got their deed and their house.
Details are omitted to protect my clients' identities. Every case is different, and this one doesn't predict yours.
I explain it on video
How to avoid real estate fraud in Mexico
Don’t buy that house in Mexico… yet