Imagine this…You found the perfect place to buy in Mexico, a beautiful house that is actual steps from the beach where you can bask in the sun. You want to put down an offer immediately to secure it and call it yours. But before you make the offer, your notario - the real estate lawyer one must have to purchase property in Mexico - asks if you know whether or not the current owner has their escritura in order. If the answer is “huh?” you’re in for a big learning experience. Simply put, the escritura is the deed to the house. While it may seem innocuous and of course the deed should be in order, it may quickly become apparent that it might not be.

An escritura is either in order or it’s not. If it’s the latter than one can be in for a rude awaking when they find out that it can be a potential years-long battle to be settled and designated. Here’s a common scenario that we see in Mexico. An individual owned a property and either left a will (testamento) to bequeath the property to more than one person (e.g., offspring, nieces and nephews, etc.) or they had no will. In the case of the property being bequeathed to more than one person, this could lead to a conflict of interests. In other words, there could be differences of opinions on who fully owns the property, who gets whatever source of income from the sale or simply that one of the members wants to sell and the other(s) does not. In the case of no will, the house sits abandoned until someone can make a claim that the property should be theirs however they deem it to be the case. This process can take years.

If you’re lucky, you get the situation where owners came to an agreement and the house is on the market where a buyer won’t hit any speed bumps. If lady luck is not in your cards, the house could be on the market without an official escritura. When this happens, the sale could go through and you’re left with waiting until the sellers gets their escritura in order and you cannot move in until it’s been completed so the deed can fully be transferred to your name. This could be weeks, months, or even years.

We went through a situation that was just like the latter. We put an offer on a house where the heirs had finalized a court judgment saying they were the owners. And while that’s great, the escritura was still in their father’s name. They had put the good fight to get the court to recognize that the deed should be in their name, but they still needed a notario to transfer the escritura from their father’s name to their names (making them the official owners).

While it may seem simple enough. there are many steps that need to be in place before a deed can transfer from one person’s name to another. These folks couldn’t afford a notario to make the name changes to their escritura so they requested funds from the offer to continue moving forward with the changes they needed. This was a very confusing and complex maze to navigate.

So, with the guidance of our notario we were able to add stipulations within our offer agreement to ensure that we would not lose out on any monetary funds should their escritura process fall through or take longer than a request period of time. Thankfully we were always in communication with our notario and agreed to rescind the offer once it was known that it would take three to six months to finalize the deal. Time we did not have to continue our work restoring houses.

Always make sure you have a great notario who will be there right along side you to ensure you are not being thrown for a loop causing money to get held up. Confused about what a notario is? Check out our post Buying Property in Mazatlán: Why You Don't Need to Work With a Real Estate Agent to get a better understanding.