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Property
What it is. Anyone with free disposal of their assets may accept or reject an inheritance (CCF art. 1653); the effects reach back to the date of death (art. 1660). Rejection must be express — in writing before a judge, or in a public instrument before a notary (art. 1661).
Why you care. Because an inheritance includes debts, rejecting can be the rational move for an insolvent estate — but it must be done formally, not by ignoring the file.
⚠ Watch out. Repudiation is all-or-nothing and essentially irreversible. Get the estate inventoried before deciding.
Business
What it is. The equity unit of a Mexican stock corporation (S.A. / S.A.P.I.) — a negotiable instrument representing a fraction of the capital, governed by the General Law of Commercial Companies (LGSM, arts. 111 et seq.). In principle freely transferable, unless the bylaws restrict it.
Why you care. Control, dividends and exit in your Mexican company all live at the level of the acción and its series: what class you hold, what rights are attached, and what the bylaws say about transfers.
⚠ Watch out. Rights don't exist unless drafted — vesting, tag-along, drag-along belong in bylaws and shareholder agreements (see S.A.P.I.). And in agrarian-linked companies holding land capital, "serie T" shares have their own regime: foreigners may not exceed 49% of them (Agrarian Law art. 130).
Business
What it is. The mandatory year-end bonus (minimum 15 days' salary) every employee receives.
Why you care. It's law, not generosity — budget it from hire #1.
⚠ Watch out. It's the floor, not the ceiling; many industries pay more by custom or contract.
Property
What it is. The person who runs the estate: presents the will, secures the assets, inventories, pays debts and distributes (CCF art. 1706). If the testator named none, the heirs elect one by majority — counted by the value of their shares, not by heads (arts. 1682–1683).
Why you care. For a cross-border estate, the choice of albacea — someone who can act in Mexico, in Spanish, before notaries and courts — matters more than most clauses in the will.
⚠ Watch out. An albacea who lives abroad and speaks no Spanish is a bottleneck installed at the worst point of the process. Name locally, or name a professional.
Litigation & Disputes
What it is. Mexico's constitutional protection lawsuit (Constitution arts. 103 and 107, and the Ley de Amparo): federal courts review acts of authority that violate human rights — including property, legality and due process.
Why you care. For an owner or investor, it's the shield against government acts that hit you directly: a closure, a permit revocation, a demolition order, an expropriation without process.
⚠ Watch out. Deadlines are short (generally 15 business days from the act) and the amparo protects rights you have — it doesn't create ones you never acquired. Its real day-to-day power is the suspensión that freezes the act while the case is decided.
Agrarian Land
What it is. The ejido's supreme governing body — the general meeting of ejidatarios that decides the community's land matters.
Why you care. Inside the agrarian world, its word is powerful.
⚠ Watch out. Its power has a boundary: it can bless possession, but it cannot convert communal land into your private property.
Agrarian Land
What it is. A Mexican adult who has lived in the ejido's settlement lands for a year or more and has been formally recognized by the asamblea or an agrarian tribunal (Agrarian Law art. 13).
Why you care. Parcel rights can only be transferred to other ejidatarios or avecindados (art. 80). "You just become an avecindado first" is the step sellers wave away — and it isn't waveable.
⚠ Watch out. Recognition is a formal act, not something that happens by merely living there — and foreigners can't hold ejidatario rights at all. A cesión to someone who isn't lawfully avecindado transfers nothing.
Business
What it is. The human being who ultimately owns or controls a Mexican company, directly or through layers of entities or trusts (the UBO). Since 2022, the Federal Tax Code requires every Mexican company to identify and keep updated its controlling-beneficiary file.
Why you care. Owning your Mexican operation through a U.S. LLC "for privacy" changes nothing: the company must document that the trail ends at you. Notaries, banks and the SAT all ask for it — at incorporation, at account opening, and in audits.
⚠ Watch out. Fines for missing or outdated UBO files run into millions of pesos per omission, and it's a favorite low-effort audit item. Ask your accountant to show you the file, not to assure you it exists.
Agrarian Land
What it is. The document issued through the National Agrarian Registry (RAN) recognizing an ejidatario's rights over a specific parcel of ejido land. Proof of agrarian rights — not a deed of private property.
Why you care. This is the paper sellers wave at foreign buyers as if it were a title. It means the land is still ejido land: transferable only between ejidatarios or avecindados until dominio pleno completes. It's also your two-minute defense: if the seller can't show one, you may be looking at common-use land.
⚠ Watch out. A certificate plus a kitchen-table cesión de derechos gives a foreign buyer nothing enforceable. If this is the seller's best document, you're at the beginning of a legal process — not at a closing.
Agrarian Land
What it is. A transfer of possession rights over ejido land. A real document with a real (limited) meaning.
Why you care. It's the paper most "cheap land" deals hand you.
⚠ Watch out. It transfers possession, never ownership — the fraud isn't the document, it's the ownership-sized price tag.
Agrarian Land
What it is. The ejido's executive body — president, secretary and treasurer, with alternates — charged with executing asamblea resolutions and representing the ejido (Agrarian Law arts. 32–33).
Why you care. Its signatures are the ones you'll actually see on ejido paperwork. It represents the community; it does not replace it.
⚠ Watch out. The comisariado executes; only the asamblea — with legal formalities — decides the community's land. A comisariado signature "selling" common-use land is exactly as void as any other.
Business
What it is. The statutory watchdog of a Mexican company (LGSM arts. 164 et seq.): a supervisory officer, independent from management, who oversees the administration on behalf of shareholders and reports annually.
Why you care. Mandatory in the S.A. — and for a minority investor, one of your few built-in eyes inside the company.
⚠ Watch out. Don't confuse it with the agrarian comisariado ejidal — same root word, different universe. And insist on a genuinely independent comisario, not the majority partner's own accountant.
Property
What it is. If the deceased and their heir or legatee die in the same disaster or the same day and it cannot be established who died first, all are deemed to have died at the same time and no inheritance passes between them (CCF art. 1287).
Why you care. Couples who travel together and name each other as sole beneficiaries have a plan that fails precisely in the scenario they should plan for.
⚠ Watch out. The fix is one clause: substitute beneficiaries — in the will and in the fideicomiso.
Energy & Concessions
What it is. A federal title to explore and extract minerals from the subsoil. In Mexico the subsoil belongs to the nation — owning the surface does NOT give you what's beneath it.
Why you care. A mining concession can legally exist under land someone else owns. Including yours.
⚠ Watch out. Surface and subsoil are two different legal worlds, held in two different registries. A clean property title tells you nothing about what lies beneath. Ask.
Property
What it is. The surviving concubina or concubinario inherits like a spouse only if the couple lived together as spouses for the five years before death or had children together — and both remained unmarried throughout (CCF art. 1635).
Why you care. Many foreign couples who own in Mexico are long-term unmarried partners. Whether the survivor inherits can hinge on proving cohabitation years.
⚠ Watch out. The article's final blow: if several concubines survive and each qualifies, none of them inherits. Documentation beats assumption; a will beats both.
Property
What it is. The promissory agreement signed before closing, usually with a deposit.
Why you care. It creates real obligations and penalties — it IS a contract, not a formality.
⚠ Watch out. Forfeit-everything deposit clauses and penalties that bind you but not the seller. Review BEFORE signing.
Agrarian Land
What it is. The legal process by which ejido parcels can, in some cases, become private property.
Why you care. It's the grain of truth behind "it's being regularized".
⚠ Watch out. It takes years, depends on votes you don't control, and fails more often than it succeeds. Never pay today for a maybe.
Agrarian Land
What it is. A member of the ejido community holding rights to work and use communal land.
Why you care. If you "buy" ejido land, an ejidatario's rights — and their heirs — remain in the picture.
⚠ Watch out. The friendly seller may not even be the rights-holder.
Agrarian Land
What it is. Communal agrarian land created after the Mexican Revolution, governed by its own legal system, registry and courts. Roughly half of Mexico.
Why you care. It's concentrated exactly where foreigners love to buy.
⚠ Watch out. While land remains under the ejido regime, foreigners cannot acquire ownership of it — whatever the paperwork says. Once lawfully converted to private property (dominio pleno, registered in the Public Registry), it can be bought like any other titled land. See our free guide The Ejido Trap, and how we verify agrarian status before you pay.
Property
What it is. The public deed, signed before a notario, that makes a property transfer legally real.
Why you care. No escritura = you don't own it, whatever you paid.
⚠ Watch out. A "private contract for now" is how bad deals begin.
Property
What it is. A renewable 50-year bank trust through which foreigners hold coastal and border property. The bank holds legal title; you hold every right that matters: use, rent, remodel, sell, inherit.
Why you care. It's THE legal route to your beach home.
⚠ Watch out. It's not a lease and not a loophole — anyone who tells you either is selling confusion. Also check your beneficiary designations — most people get them wrong.
Property
What it is. A property's unique ID number in the Public Registry of Property.
Why you care. It's the thread that unravels every lie — with it, your lawyer sees the real owner, liens and history.
⚠ Watch out. A seller who can't produce a folio is telling you something. Listen.
Property
What it is. A lien or burden recorded against a property — mortgage, attachment, lawsuit.
Why you care. You inherit what you don't detect.
⚠ Watch out. Demand a fresh certificado de libertad de gravamen — clean and issued days before closing, not months.
Property
What it is. The heir acquires universally and answers for the estate's debts up to the value of what they inherit (CCF art. 1284); the legatee receives a specific asset and carries only the burdens the testator expressly imposed (art. 1285).
Why you care. "I leave the Tulum condo to my daughter" makes her a legatee — a very different legal position than naming her heir.
⚠ Watch out. Legatees carry subsidiary liability alongside the heirs. A "clean" specific gift is not entirely insulated from the estate's debts.
Property
What it is. Under CCF art. 1281, the succession to all of a deceased person's assets, rights and obligations that do not end with death. It passes by will or by law (art. 1282) — and the two can combine: whatever the will doesn't cover falls to the legal rules (art. 1283).
Why you care. Your Mexican property doesn't transfer by itself when you die — it travels inside an estate, together with your debts.
⚠ Watch out. "Obligations that do not end with death" includes the mortgage, the unpaid predial and the lawsuit. Heirs receive the whole package.
Agrarian Land
What it is. Ejido rights do not pass through a civil will. Under Agrarian Law art. 17, the ejidatario designates a successor in a succession list deposited with the RAN or formalized before a fedatario; a later list replaces the earlier one. Without a list, art. 18 imposes its own order: spouse, then concubina/concubinario, then children and beyond.
Why you care. If your seller "inherited" ejido land through an ordinary civil succession, that chain of title has a structural problem — agrarian rights follow agrarian rules.
⚠ Watch out. The list can be replaced at any time by a later one, and a civil will does not override it. If a title rests on an ejido succession, ask for the RAN-registered list — not the family's story.
Property
What it is. A highly qualified legal professional entrusted by the State with fe pública — the power to authenticate documents. NOT the same as a U.S. notary.
Why you care. Every property closing runs through one.
⚠ Watch out. The notario doesn't represent you. Nobody at the table does, unless you bring your own lawyer.
Business
What it is. The management body of a Mexican company: a sole administrator (administrador único) or, when two or more are appointed, a board (consejo de administración) (LGSM arts. 142–143), acting through notarized powers of attorney (poderes).
Why you care. This is who can lawfully sign for your company — contracts, accounts, lawsuits. Foreign owners typically keep control through the board plus carefully limited poderes.
⚠ Watch out. A poder granted before a notario stays alive until it's revoked before a notario. Audit your company's powers regularly — old, unrevoked poderes in the wrong hands are the classic Mexican corporate fraud vector.
Agrarian Land
What it is. An individually assigned plot inside the ejido's parceled lands. The ejidatario holds use and enjoyment of it (Agrarian Law arts. 14, 76 et seq.), proven by a certificado parcelario (art. 78).
Why you care. Of the three categories of ejido land, the parcela is the only one with a legal road to private property — dominio pleno. If you're ever told "this ejido land can be bought," the honest version of that sentence involves a parcela.
⚠ Watch out. Until dominio pleno is adopted and registered in the Public Registry of Property, a parcela is still agrarian: transferable only between ejidatarios and avecindados (art. 80) — never directly to you.
Business
What it is. The equity unit of an S. de R.L. — a membership interest, not a negotiable security. Each partner holds one parte social, which grows with additional contributions (LGSM arts. 58, 65–68).
Why you care. The S. de R.L. is the vehicle many U.S. investors choose (its interests fit U.S. check-the-box planning) — and transfers require the consent of partners representing a majority of the capital — or a higher threshold if the bylaws say so (art. 65) — which keeps strangers out.
⚠ Watch out. That same consent rule that protects you going in can trap you going out — and note it's a capital majority, not unanimity: a majority partner may admit someone you never approved. Exit routes — puts, drags, valuation — must be drafted into the bylaws, not assumed.
Agrarian Land
What it is. Holding land vs. owning it — two different legal universes.
Why you care. This distinction is the entire ejido trap in two words.
⚠ Watch out. Pay possession prices for possession, ownership prices only for registered title. Never confuse the two.
Agrarian Land
What it is. A person who holds and works ejido land without being an ejidatario. The asamblea can recognize and regularize posesionarios (Agrarian Law art. 23, fr. VIII), and the RAN can issue them certificates of possession.
Why you care. Many rural sellers are posesionarios, not ejidatarios — a smaller bundle of rights than the word "owner" suggests, and a different certificate at the RAN.
⚠ Watch out. A posesionario cannot convey what even an ejidatario couldn't — and often can't convey what an ejidatario could. Pull the RAN record and see which certificate actually exists before pricing anything.
Property
What it is. The annual municipal property tax.
Why you care. Unpaid predial follows the property — meaning it can follow you.
⚠ Watch out. Always demand the no-debt certificate at closing. It's cheap insurance.
Business
What it is. A "name-lender" — a Mexican who appears as owner of your business or asset "to simplify things".
Why you care. Because someone WILL suggest it.
⚠ Watch out. You don't own what isn't in your name. People have lost everything this way, legally, to their own "helper". If it's proposed, walk.
Agrarian Land
What it is. The national registry where agrarian land lives — parallel to, and separate from, the Public Registry of Property.
Why you care. If a property only exists here, it's agrarian — with everything that implies.
⚠ Watch out. The cross-check against RAN is the step almost every buyer (and many lawyers) skip.
Agrarian Land
What it is. The umbrella term for official processes (often run through INSUS together with the ejido) that bring irregularly occupied or sold land into formal, titled status.
Why you care. 'It's being regularized' is the single most powerful sentence in the vocabulary of anyone selling you problematic land.
⚠ Watch out. Regularization decides WHO ends up with title — and it can perfectly well be someone who isn't you. It's not a promise; it's an admission that today, there is no title. Never pay an ownership price for a future. Full analysis: what "it's being regularized" actually means.
Energy & Concessions
What it is. CONAGUA's Public Registry of Water Rights (Registro Público de Derechos de Agua) — the federal registry where every water concession title is recorded: holder, source, volume, use and expiration. Under the December 2025 reform it is being reorganized as the Registro Público Nacional del Agua.
Why you care. The water under "your" land isn't yours without a concession — and this registry is where you verify it. With the 2026 regularization window open for titles expired since 2009, the registry check is where the surprises surface.
⚠ Watch out. A title registered under the previous owner's name is not your title — and after the 2025 reform it no longer transfers automatically with the land. Check name, expiration and registered use: an "agricultural" well does not cover your boutique hotel.
Business
What it is. The mandatory profit reserve of Mexican companies: 5% of net profits must be set aside every year until the reserve reaches one-fifth (20%) of the capital social (LGSM art. 20). The S.A.S. — the simplified stock company — is the one statutory exception.
Why you care. Dividends distributed before funding it are irregular distributions — the kind of thing auditors, buyers and the SAT notice.
⚠ Watch out. Startups and family companies skip it for years without consequence — until a due diligence, a sale or a dispute. Clean it up before someone else finds it.
Immigration
What it is. Mexico's two main residency statuses — renewable-temporary (up to 4 years) and permanent.
Why you care. They determine what you can do, own conveniently, and how you bank.
⚠ Watch out. The sequence — several applications must START at a Mexican consulate abroad, before you enter. Getting this backwards costs months. The right order is what we do.
Business
What it is. Your tax ID with the SAT (Mexico's IRS).
Why you care. Without it: no invoicing, no banking, no operating. Landlords and platforms increasingly demand it.
⚠ Watch out. For foreign partners, SAT paperwork takes weeks — plan it, don't discover it.
Business
What it is. Mexico's two main company types — the LLC-cousin and the classic corporation.
Why you care. The choice affects control, investors and (for Americans) U.S. tax treatment.
⚠ Watch out. Copying whatever entity your friend used is not a strategy. How we choose.
Business
What it is. The Sociedad Anónima Promotora de Inversión — a Mexican stock corporation (regulated by the Securities Market Law) built for investors: it allows the shareholder agreements, special classes of shares, tag-along/drag-along rights and vesting arrangements that an ordinary S.A. handles awkwardly.
Why you care. It's the standard vehicle for venture-backed companies, joint ventures and project SPVs in Mexico — including the special-purpose vehicles in CFE mixed-investment energy projects. If you're taking a minority stake, the S.A.P.I.'s toolbox is what protects it.
⚠ Watch out. The protections aren't automatic — they only exist if they're drafted into the bylaws and shareholders' agreement before you invest, not after the dispute.
Agrarian Land
What it is. A company type built for rural producers (Agrarian Law arts. 111–113): minimum two members, its own legal personality, and a choice of liability regimes — unlimited, limited or supplemented.
Why you care. It's how producers and ejidatarios commonly organize commercially — so it shows up across rural Mexico as your counterparty, your supplier, or the vehicle in an agrarian-industrial deal.
⚠ Watch out. An S.P.R. is not an LGSM company: it registers differently (Rural Credit Registry or Commerce Registry) and its capital and liability rules follow the Agrarian Law. Don't paste S.A. assumptions onto it — read its regime and its registry before you sign.
Property
What it is. The legal inheritance regime that opens when there is no will, the will is void, or it doesn't cover everything (CCF art. 1599). The law then calls the family in order: descendants, spouse, ascendants, collaterals to the fourth degree, and the concubina/concubinario (art. 1602).
Why you care. Die without a Mexican will and this list — not your intentions, not your home-country will's assumptions — frames what happens to your Mexican property.
⚠ Watch out. A foreign will can be given effect in Mexico, but through a slower, costlier, evidence-heavy process. Intestacy is the most expensive estate plan there is.
Litigation & Disputes
What it is. The provisional measure in an amparo lawsuit that freezes the government act you're challenging — a closure, a permit revocation, a demolition — while the case is decided. It can be granted within days of filing.
Why you care. The amparo can take a year or more; the suspensión is what keeps your business open in the meantime. For an investor facing a sudden closure or permit cancellation, it's often worth more in practice than the final judgment.
⚠ Watch out. Not automatic, may require posting a guarantee, and it can't legalize what was never permitted — it preserves the status quo, it doesn't create rights.
Property
What it is. Under CCF art. 1295, a personal, revocable and free act by which a capable person disposes of assets and rights for after their death.
Why you care. A Mexican will covering your Mexican assets is the single cheapest piece of estate planning a foreign owner can buy — and September, Mes del Testamento, discounts it further. See our Mexican wills service.
⚠ Watch out. Art. 1296 prohibits joint wills — two people cannot make one will together, even spouses, even in each other's favor. The classic U.S.-style "mirror" arrangement must be done as two separate Mexican wills.
Property
What it is. The will granted before a notary under the formalities of the CCF (art. 1511) — the standard, safest form in Mexican practice, recorded and reported to the national wills registry.
Why you care. For a foreigner, it means the will's existence and content are recorded by a public official — findable when your heirs need it.
⚠ Watch out. Formalities are not decoration: if a required solemnity is missing, the will is without effect, and the notary answers in damages (art. 1520). Interpreter and witness rules apply if you don't speak Spanish.
Agrarian Land
What it is. The undivided portion of an ejido — forest, pasture, lakefront — held collectively by the community, not by any individual member. It lives in the Agrarian Registry (RAN), not the Public Registry of Property.
Why you care. It's disproportionately the beautiful land: the jungle, the hillside, the strip behind the beach. 'Cheap paradise lots' in tourist corridors are very often this.
⚠ Watch out. By law (Agrarian Law, art. 74) it is inalienable — no individual can sell you a 'lot' of it, because no lot legally exists. Sold as OWNERSHIP, the sale is void. Offered as POSSESSION, that's a different — and fragile — conversation. Know exactly which one you're being offered, and price it accordingly. See it fail at scale in the Bacalar case.
Litigation & Disputes
What it is. Mexico's specialized federal courts for agrarian disputes — ejido boundaries, ejidatario rights, validity of asamblea resolutions. Separate law, separate registry, separate judges from the civil courts.
Why you care. If your land has agrarian origin, your dispute won't go where you expect — and may involve parties (the community, heirs of an ejidatario) who were never at your closing table.
⚠ Watch out. Foreigners routinely discover this parallel legal universe AFTER paying. The check is cheap and starts at the RAN — before you buy, not after.
Property
What it is. The municipal land-use (zoning) classification — residential, commercial, touristic, agricultural, industrial — set in municipal development plans and certified in a constancia de uso de suelo.
Why you care. It's the third registry problem buyers never check (after title and water). Perfectly titled land can still be unusable for your project: agricultural lots where rentals can't be built, land that will never get utilities. In the Bacalar case reported this month, the lots had no authorized land-use change — which is why they have no water, power or streets.
⚠ Watch out. "You can change the use later" is a sales line, not a legal opinion. Changes are discretionary, slow, and near protected areas may be impossible. Price land for the use it has today.
Property
What it is. The 20-meter federal strip measured landward from the high-tide line along every Mexican coast. It belongs to the nation — nobody owns it; it can only be used under a federal concession, usually held by the adjacent owner.
Why you care. That 'beachfront' terrace, palapa, dock or pool may sit on land that is not — and never will be — part of what you bought.
⚠ Watch out. Ask before closing: is there a valid concession, in whose name, does it transfer to you, and are its fees paid? 'Private beach' without a concession title is a view, not a right.
Property
What it is. The strip within 100 km of borders and 50 km of coastline where foreigners hold residential property via fideicomiso instead of direct title.
Why you care. Virtually every beach destination is inside it.
⚠ Watch out. "Restricted" doesn't mean "forbidden" — it means "structured". Millions of foreigners own here, correctly.