Mexico Weighs Opening Up to Foreign Property Buyers Laurence Iliff - The Wall Street Journal
go to original July 29, 2013

CANCÚN - Mexico is poised to lift century-old restrictions on foreign ownership of property along its coasts and borders, a move real-estate developers believe could boost the nation's vacation-home market.

Mexico currently prohibits foreign ownership of land within 50 kilometers (31 miles) of the coast or 100 kilometers of an international border. The limits were written into Mexico's 1917 constitution because of worries about U.S. expansionary ambitions at the time. Mexico lost about half its territory to the U.S. in the mid-1800s after the annexation of Texas and the Mexican-American war. An exception was created in the 1970s to allow foreigners to acquire property through a special trust in partnership with a bank, a time-consuming and complicated process that many potential buyers find unappealing.

But now, Mexican real-estate brokers and developers are backing a constitutional amendment that would remove those prohibitions, though only for residential properties. The amendment - sponsored both by the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the National Action Party - recently passed the lower house and now is in the Senate.

Leftist legislators opposed to the move say the constitutional change amounts to a selling out of sensitive lands to foreign interests and have vowed to protest the move. But the leaders of the two main parties say they have the votes to get it signed into law.

Read the rest at The Wall Street Journal

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