Real Estate Lawyer in Mexico City

Buying property safely as a foreigner

Mexican law lets foreigners own real estate almost everywhere in the country, including Mexico City. The one legal limit is the “restricted zone”: land within 100 km of any border or 50 km of the coastline (Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution). Inside that zone — beach towns like Tulum, Playa del Carmen or Los Cabos — foreigners cannot hold direct title to residential land; they use a fideicomiso, a bank trust where a Mexican bank holds legal title and you keep every real right: you use it, rent it, improve it, sell it, and pass it to your heirs. Outside the restricted zone — Mexico City, most of the interior — foreigners can buy in their own name, exactly like a Mexican national.

Either way, the risk is never the paperwork of the purchase itself. It is what the seller does not tell you: a property with a lien or mortgage still registered against it, a “seller” who is only one of several heirs with no authority to sell alone, an unpaid property tax or maintenance debt that follows the property — not the seller — to the next owner. None of that shows up when you walk through the house. It lives in the Public Registry of Property (Registro Público de la Propiedad), and it is exactly what a real estate lawyer checks before you commit a deposit.

Our due diligence before you sign or pay covers:

• Certificate of no liens (certificado de libertad de existencia de gravámenes): confirms who is legally the owner and whether the property carries a mortgage, lien, lawsuit annotation or easement.
• Chain of title: verifying the seller actually holds registered title, is legally capable of selling (marital consent where required, valid power of attorney if an agent signs, a closed probate if the property was inherited).
• Outstanding debts: property tax (predial), water, and — if it is a condo — maintenance fees, all of which attach to the property itself.
• Fideicomiso structuring when the property sits in the restricted zone: setting up the bank trust correctly from the start avoids costly fixes later.
• Contract review or drafting: the purchase agreement (promesa de compraventa) decides who bears each risk — earnest money, delivery timelines, penalties if either side backs out. If the seller’s side wrote it, it protects the seller’s side.

We deliver a clear verdict — buy, renegotiate, or walk away — in days, not weeks, so a seller’s manufactured urgency never becomes your problem.

Lease agreements & landlord protection

Real estate is also the area where foreigners in Mexico most often get burned without ever buying anything: a lease signed in a hurry, in Spanish, with clauses nobody explained. We work both sides of a lease.

If you are renting (as an expat, retiree or remote worker), we review the contract before you sign: deposit terms and how you get it back, who pays which repairs, early-termination penalties, rent-increase clauses, and whether the unit is legally allowed to be rented the way you intend to use it. We flag the clauses written only to protect the landlord and negotiate the ones that matter.

If you are a landlord— a foreign owner renting out a property in Mexico, in person or long-distance — we draft leases that hold up in court: clear grounds for eviction, a security deposit that is actually enforceable, and a paper trail that prevents a tenant’s non-payment from turning into a year-long eviction lawsuit or, worse, into an adverse-possession claim over your own property (see below). If a tenant already stopped paying or refuses to leave, we handle the eviction lawsuit (juicio especial de arrendamiento) from notice to enforcement.

Full service detail for Spanish-language contracts and litigation: Lease agreements & eviction in Mexico City

Adverse possession (usucapión) disputes

This is the risk foreign property owners hear about last — and it is the one that can cost them the entire property. Mexican law recognizes usucapión (adverse possession, also called “positive prescription”): someone who occupies a property “as if they owned it” — openly, continuously, and peacefully — for a legally defined period (typically 5 years in good faith, 10 in bad faith, under Mexico City’s Civil Code; periods vary by state) can sue to become its legal owner.

For a foreign owner who lives abroad and rents out or lends a Mexican property, this is exactly the failure mode to guard against: a tenant who stops paying and is never formally evicted, a caretaker or relative “watching the house” for years without a clear written arrangement, months or years without a site visit or a paid property-tax receipt in your name. Distance and absentee ownership are precisely what usucapión claims are built on.

We work this from either side:

• Preventive protection: written leases or loan agreements that make the occupant’s possession unmistakably precarious (not “as owner”), documented rent or utility payments in your name, periodic proof of ownership acts — the paper trail that interrupts any prescription period before it matures.
• Active defense: if you have already been served with a usucapión lawsuit, we attack the legal requirements the claimant must prove — that possession was truly “as owner,” uninterrupted, in good faith, for the full statutory term.
• Filing a usucapión claim: if you are the one who bought informally (a private contract, an unregularized inheritance) and never obtained registered title, we can build the claim that turns years of possession into a registrable deed in your name.

Full legal detail and case examples: Adverse possession (usucapión) in Mexico

Closing process & costs

Closing a Mexican real estate purchase always happens before a notario público — a notary with far broader legal authority than a US or Canadian notary, who verifies the transaction, calculates and withholds taxes, and formalizes the deed. Your lawyer and the notary play different roles: the notary is neutral and represents the transaction, not you; your lawyer represents only your interests, negotiates the contract on your behalf, and checks the notary’s work before you sign.

Typical timeline: 4-8 weeks from a clean, fully-documented offer to signing — longer if there is an unclosed inheritance, a missing spousal consent, or a fideicomiso to set up from scratch.

Costs to budget for, on top of the purchase price:

• Notary fees, calculated as a percentage of the property value under local fee schedules
• Acquisition tax (impuesto sobre adquisición de inmuebles), a local transfer tax whose rate depends on the state and the property value
• Registry fees to record the deed in the Public Registry of Property
• Fideicomiso setup and annual bank trustee fee, if the property sits in the restricted zone
• Our legal fees for due diligence and closing support — always a closed quote, given before you commit, not billed by the hour. The initial consultation is $2,000 MXN (about $100 USD).

Full detail on the safe-purchase process and what we check before you sign: Safe property purchase in Mexico

Our full real estate law practice (in Spanish) covers purchases, sales and hidden-defect claims in depth.

Common questions from foreign buyers and tenants

Know exactly what you are signing before you pay

A property purchase, a lease or a possession dispute in Mexico always comes down to what is actually in the Public Registry and in the contract — both get reviewed in the first consultation, in English, for $2,000 MXN.

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