The Mexico Land Deal

Chapter 4: Be careful what you wish for

A Tulum Beach. Photo by Spencer Watson on Unsplash

Hola Amigos! Our one step forward, two step back process of buying land in Mexico. And the beat goes on!

Back in San Francisco we returned to life as we knew it: work, stress and traffic. In our spare time we lived and dreamed Mexico. This Mexico dream Paul and I were creating went back to my flower child roots and gave me hope that I still had a bohemian streak in my now routinely ordinary life.

Alejandro arrived mid-summer and we had papers drawn up as fully as possible without actual parcel numbers and the legalese required in a land buy. We depleted our savings and wrote Alejandro a check. Now we were one step closer to owning a beachfront lot in the Mexican Caribbean. To finance construction we planned to sell our California house but would wait until paperwork was finalized before taking that ultimate decisive action.

We depleted our savings—now we were one step closer to owning a beachfront lot

Every chance we had we ran back to Mexico. On one trip we sat down with Alejandro and drew up house plans. Not long afterwards Alejandro was back in the States. It was 1986. He’d finished construction on his Puerto Morelos home, built a cottage in back, and hired a Maya worker as caretaker. He’d placed an ad in travel sections of U.S. newspapers and rented his house out to tourists. Apparently business was brisk. We were impressed . . . again.

And what was happening with the title for the property? That’s why he was back in the U.S. To prepare the property for future sales he’d need infrastructure, electricity and roads, so he was looking for more investors. Paul and I decided to wait to take our next trip south until there was something we could sign, like the fideicomiso.

By October I hadn’t heard from Alejandro and we’d hoped to take a vacation at Christmas if the title had cleared. Even though we avoided calling, not wanting to become nuisances, it had been long enough. His secretary put me through.

“Hello, Jeanine. As a matter of fact I had planned to call you. I have news about the land. Some important news.”

As that sentence dangled before me, he continued. “Things have changed a bit and I’ve been waiting for confirmation. Now I have it. It was looking a little bleak for a few months and I didn’t want to worry you and Paul. But here it is.

“It was looking a little bleak and didn’t want to worry you”

“It seems the State of Quintana Roo has decided to pre-empt my purchase of the land near Playa del Carmen. The state needs that land to build a new car ferry to Cozumel. They plan to move it from Puerto Morelos to Playa.”

A thousand thoughts raced through my mind. Pre-empted? Car ferry? “But Alejandro,” I stammered. “What about our lot?”

“That’s why I haven’t called for some time. I’ve been in negotiations with the governor’s office for several months trying to sort this out. They’re seizing the land by eminent domain and had planned on giving me fair market value for the property. Of course, their view of what the property is worth and my view differ widely. Since I purchased the property two and a half years ago, tourism has soared in Cancun and you’ve seen how Playa del Carmen has grown. They’d planned to give me $50,000 U.S. for the land and I know it’s worth much more than that.”

By this time Paul was nearby and had sensed my anguish. He probably also saw I was hyperventilating.

“What’s happened?” he demanded. “What’s going on?

I lowered the phone’s mouthpiece and spoke over it. “They’ve seized the land by eminent domain and want to give Alejandro $50,000.”

“What?” Paul yelled. “Who seized it?”

“But hold on, hold on,” continued Alejandro. “I have more news. Better news. My brother has a friend in the governor’s office and he’s convinced them that instead of simply giving me market value for the property, they should actually find another piece of land—beachfront—and trade my land for this new property. It’s taken a while to find something still available and a worthwhile swap. But we found land nearby. The parcel is much larger and it has potential, with a fresh water stream feeding into the ocean, and cenotes.”

Cenotes are freshwater pools common in the Yucatán as the Peninsula has only a few rare rivers above ground.

“Where it it?” I murmured, feeling like I’d just been hit by a Mack truck.

“It’s four kilometers north of Playa. The land is close to Capitán Lafitte. Are you familiar with that property?”

Of course I was familiar with Lafitte’s. It was a small, picturesque hotel with palapas on the beach and a restaurant. Quite the romantic setting, laidback and off the beaten track.

Well, that didn’t sound so bad. Lafitte’s beaches were something to behold. Maybe Alejandro had dodged the bullet by having friends in high places. Maybe we would still own land in Mexico after all.

But this part of our adventure let me know one thing for certain . . . when buying land in a foreign country, fasten your seat belt because anything can happen. We were heading for a very bumpy ride.

Beach Photo by Braden Callum for Unsplash