Do You Actually Own Your Property In Mexico?

In this interview:

• Avoiding bad, expensive advice
• How the finance process works for U.S. Citizens in Mexico 
• How MoXi works with it's borrowers from start to finish
• How our 72-hour approval process works
• Fixed term options that are serviced in USD

Video Transcript - (Speaker: Alex Koper, CEO)

Common question: "how does property ownership actually work in Mexico when you're a foreigner?"

Answer: First, the Mexican constitution originally prohibited foreigners from owning property in Mexico in restricted zones, and a restricted zone is defined as something within approximately 50 kilometers of a coastline, which is where a lot of our clients do want to buy property - or 100 kilometers of a border. Actually, that is something that still remains in the constitution today, however, there have been ***amendments*** to the constitution that permit and actually encourage foreign home ownership in Mexico.

One of those amendments enables foreign purchases in restricted zones via the use of a trust. That's the English translation for it, but the Spanish word is fideicomiso. And there are various different types of fideicomisos, and MoXi uses a customized one that offers a lot of protection to our clients to ensure that they securely own the asset that they're paying for, and that's called a fideicomisos de garantia. Technically the trust on-title owns the property, it's managed by a fiduciary bank, and that fiduciary bank grants beneficiaries under the trust.

What's that mean? Well, effectively clients can own, improve, profit from the sale, give as part of their estate, it's an actual asset, that fideicomisos, that trust, or their beneficiary, their rights under that trust. There are some misconceptions that this is a "land lease"... or something like that. It's absolutely NOT true... I don't know where that came from, but owning a property in Mexico definitely requires expertise, which our team definitely provides, in order to ensure that that property is securely owned by YOU and that it's recorded properly under Mexican law, which is something we take seriously. With respect to the recording of a property transfer sale, what some people might not know is that in order to legally own what you're buying, you absolutely need to do a real closing event. It's a 100% must.

We often hear, "Oh, well I can expedite the closing, I can do the closing from the United States." That is not true, and a "soft closing" does not mean that you're going to own what you're paying for. Unfortunately, there are lots of buyers and sellers and real estate agents that may be misinformed, and they guide buyers into doing transactions like this where they don't show up for the closing in front of a notario public. All parties must sit around a table and execute the transaction live before a notario publico.

For this reason and many others, our borrowers feel truly secure with our team. We have over 200 years of combined lending experience on both sides of the border, and we take care of our clients as if they're our family - because to us - they are family.