The “horror stories about Americans losing their properties” is old news. Most Mexican property foreign ownership issues have been ironed out over the last few years with dramatic improvements in and expansion of the use of bank trusts, which effectively grant permanent title to the buyer. That’s one of the reasons building has really taken off over the last 5 years down in Baja. That’s not to say that you don’t have to be careful – you do – but fraud vis-a-vis foreign buyers has declined dramatically. If you’re buying a piece of land, however, you need to be much more careful (that is, use mexican and u.s. counsel) than if you’re buying into one of the myriad condo complexes going up, for which ownership transfer has been pretty standardized.
