Every week someone from the United States or Canada sits across from us with a house in Mérida already picked out. Sometimes they have already paid a deposit. The house is usually lovely. The paperwork is in Spanish, the rules are Mexican, and the way a sale works here has little in common with a closing back home. Most of the problems we end up fixing would have taken an hour to spot before anyone signed.
What follows is what we check, in roughly the order it comes up, when a foreigner buys, rents or renovates property in Mérida and the rest of Yucatán.
1. Yes, you can own a home here. Through a bank trust
Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution bars foreigners from holding direct title to land within 50 km of the coast, the so-called «restricted zone.» Mérida sits about 35 km from the Gulf of Mexico. So in practice, a foreign buyer takes a home through a fideicomiso, a bank trust authorized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE). The bank holds title. You hold every right an owner has: you can live there, rent it, sell it or leave it to your children. If the investment is not residential, buying through a Mexican company is another route.
Three things to ask before you sign the trust. Which bank will be the trustee? What does it charge to set up, and what every year after? And have you named substitute beneficiaries? That last one is the one people skip, and it is the reason a family ends up in probate to inherit a house that could have passed to them directly.
2. Is the seller really the owner? Are there debts on the house?
Don’t hand over a deposit until you know the person selling is the owner on record at the Public Registry of Property. In Yucatán the registry is run by the Instituto de Seguridad Jurídica Patrimonial (INSEJUPY). The document you want is the certificado de libertad o de existencia de gravamen. It tells you whether there is a mortgage, a lien or a lawsuit recorded against the property. Then look at the property tax (predial) and the water bills. Both should be paid up.
One more thing. Since 2024 Yucatán keeps a state registry of real estate advisors, and only registered agents may broker a sale. Ask your agent for the registration. A good one will not mind.
3. The lot that seems too cheap: ejido land
A lot of the land around Mérida and along the coast was, or still is, ejido land, communal property governed by agrarian law. You cannot buy an ejido parcel with a private contract, however official it looks. The land first has to go through a legal process that turns it into private property with a title registered in the Public Registry. When we see a beach lot priced well under everything nearby, this is the first thing we look for. Some of the worst cases in the peninsula started exactly that way, with land that was never converted.
4. The promise contract you sign months before closing
Most sales begin with a contrato de promesa de compraventa, signed well before the deed. People treat it as a formality. It isn’t. It sets the price, the deposit, the deadlines and what happens if one side backs out. The seller or the agent usually drafts it, in Spanish. Get it in English and go through it line by line. Who keeps the deposit if the deal falls apart? What are the penalties? What has to happen before you are obliged to close?
5. Closing is done before a notary, and the notary is not a formality
A Mexican notario público is not the notary at your bank who stamps a signature. It is a lawyer appointed by the state who drafts the deed (escritura), calculates and withholds the taxes and registers the sale. The buyer normally picks the notary. In Mérida the acquisition tax (ISAI) is progressive and starts at 2.5% of the property value, and total closing costs usually land somewhere between 4% and 7%. Ask for a written estimate well before the closing date so the number does not surprise you at the table.
6. Restoring a colonial house in the Centro
Many houses in the historic center are protected. You will need the municipal construction license, and if the building is listed, the work may also need a permit from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). The fights we see most often, though, are with contractors. The work stops halfway, the budget keeps growing, and the owner has paid in cash with nothing in writing. Put it on paper from day one: what exactly is being built, payments tied to progress, and a penalty for delays.
7. Renting, long term or on Airbnb
Renting a place or renting yours out, the lease should spell out the rent, the deposit, the guarantee, the term, who pays for repairs and how the deposit comes back. Most disputes we see are about one of those six things. If you rent to tourists on Airbnb or a similar platform, Yucatán’s lodging tax applies to houses and apartments too, and you have to register as a host with the state tax agency. The state has also announced new rules for short-term rentals, so if you already host, take a look at where you stand.
8. When the other side doesn’t keep its word
The seller won’t deliver. The contractor vanished with the advance. The tenant stopped paying three months ago. Mexican law gives you two options. You can sue to have the contract performed, or to have it terminated, and either way you can claim damages. A judgment can then be enforced against the other party’s assets. Don’t wait too long to decide: some of these claims have time limits.
9. A Mexican will, and powers of attorney signed abroad
If you own property in Mexico, a Mexican will makes it far simpler for your family to inherit it. And if you won’t be in Mérida when something needs signing, you can grant a power of attorney from home, but it has to be apostilled and translated before it is valid here.
Why it helps to have a lawyer who works in both languages
All of this happens in Spanish: the contracts, the registry certificates, the deed, any court filing. The most common problem we see is also the simplest one. Someone signed a document they did not fully understand. Grupo ASA is a bilingual firm with offices in Mérida and Mexico City. We go through each document with you in English before you sign, and we handle real estate, contracts, estates and litigation in Yucatán and Mexico City.
More about our English-speaking legal services in Mérida and our real estate practice. Versión en español: Comprar, rentar o invertir en Mérida siendo extranjero.
Free download: our two-page Before You Buy in Mérida legal checklist, ready to print and take to every meeting.
This article provides general information about Mexican and Yucatán law as of October 2026. It is not legal advice for a specific case; every situation should be reviewed individually.