John Cummings
TUG Lifetime Member
My wife is Mexican, we lived in Mexico and I started a business there. I am fluent in Spanish and know the culture very well. The reason for stating all this to offer some insight to my opinions regarding living in Mexico and owning property there.
First, a foreigner cannot directly own property in Mexico in what they call the forbidden zone which is within 100 km from the border and 50 km from the ocean. As others have pointed out land can be purchased in the forbidden zone through a bank trust called a fideicomiso. Below is a link with the details of owning property in the forbidden zone:
http://www.blueroadrunner.com/ownprop.htm
I would definitely heed Pat's advice on buying an existing home vs. vacant land. Apart from potential problems with the ownership, there is the problem of utilities, especially water. I have seen many instances where people bought thinking that they would have utilities but it never occurred. A good friend of mine bought an oceanfront lot in San Felipe. They promised that there would be water connections. Well he built a huge 4,000 sq. ft. house but the water never happened. fortunately he was able to sell it after waiting over 5 years for water that never materialized.
It serves no purpose to waste your money on title insurance. Like Pat said, you need a competent attorney and everything must go through a Notario Publico who will research the land title etc. This is a pretty expensive process.
As far as living in Mexico, that is a personal choice. I strongly suggest that you spend a lot of time there before making a move or buying anything. Living there and visiting as a tourist are not the same. I am retired. Before retiring, I spent 10 years researching where we wanted to retire. We considered Mexico, especially because all of my wife's family lives there. However, we decided against it early on for various reasons. Actually my wife was more adamant against living there than I was. We love to visit and do so often but we would never live there. We enjoyed living there when we did but that was many years ago when things were much different. I am not going to go into the reasons for not living there but if anybody wants to know, they can PM or e-mail me. Each person needs to make their own decisions based on their preferences. The important thing is to spend a lot of time there in a living situation.
First, a foreigner cannot directly own property in Mexico in what they call the forbidden zone which is within 100 km from the border and 50 km from the ocean. As others have pointed out land can be purchased in the forbidden zone through a bank trust called a fideicomiso. Below is a link with the details of owning property in the forbidden zone:
http://www.blueroadrunner.com/ownprop.htm
I would definitely heed Pat's advice on buying an existing home vs. vacant land. Apart from potential problems with the ownership, there is the problem of utilities, especially water. I have seen many instances where people bought thinking that they would have utilities but it never occurred. A good friend of mine bought an oceanfront lot in San Felipe. They promised that there would be water connections. Well he built a huge 4,000 sq. ft. house but the water never happened. fortunately he was able to sell it after waiting over 5 years for water that never materialized.
It serves no purpose to waste your money on title insurance. Like Pat said, you need a competent attorney and everything must go through a Notario Publico who will research the land title etc. This is a pretty expensive process.
As far as living in Mexico, that is a personal choice. I strongly suggest that you spend a lot of time there before making a move or buying anything. Living there and visiting as a tourist are not the same. I am retired. Before retiring, I spent 10 years researching where we wanted to retire. We considered Mexico, especially because all of my wife's family lives there. However, we decided against it early on for various reasons. Actually my wife was more adamant against living there than I was. We love to visit and do so often but we would never live there. We enjoyed living there when we did but that was many years ago when things were much different. I am not going to go into the reasons for not living there but if anybody wants to know, they can PM or e-mail me. Each person needs to make their own decisions based on their preferences. The important thing is to spend a lot of time there in a living situation.