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(00:00):
are you interested in investingin real estate here in Mexico,
but you're afraid that you mightget scammed?
Well, in this video, I'mactually talking with Monica
Loyo, one of our trusted realestate, immigration and legal
partners.
Who has got over 20 years ofexperience in helping expats get
visas from Mexico by real estatein Mexico and make sure
everything is done above boardand safely.
(00:22):
In this video, we're gonna,we're gonna talk specifically
about what some of the commonscams are in real estate to look
out for here in Mexico, as wellas how to avoid them and making
sure that you really do your Ddue diligence, you cross your
T's, you dot your i's andeverything else.
If you've been watching ourvideos from for some time and
have not yet subscribed,definitely hit that subscribe
(00:44):
button so that you don't missany of our latest content and
give this video a thumbs upbecause it really helps us with
our mission to reach a millionexpats and aspiring entrepreneur
expats.
So welcome, Monica.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
And one other thing that I'llshare with our audience today
before we get started is that ifthey're interested in working
with our team, with your teamdirectly, uh, if they're
(01:06):
interested in having us helpthem.
With their immigration, withtheir visa process here in
Mexico, you can actually go toentrepreneur expat.com/consult
and apply for a freeconsultation.
Or we'll, we will go into yourspecific questions and help you
create an action plan on how toget started.
So Monica, thank you again forbeing here.
(01:26):
Thank you for having me, Justin.
It's a pleasure to be here withyou and, uh, and yeah, let's,
um, let's start to, to tellpeople how to avoid.
All these traps in Mexico andhow to avoid scams both in
timeshare and in other types ofinvestment.
Absolutely.
So let's jump right into whatsome of the most common things
(01:46):
that you're seeing, uh, in termsof cases that people have
brought to you.
I know we were talking aboutthis a little bit earlier.
Where somebody's like, oh, youknow what, this happened to me
and these people ran off with mymoney for this real estate deal.
And they said, you know, hey,can you, can you fix it?
Like what are some of the mostcommon things that you're seeing
that are like that?
So the most common things wherewe see scams is in timeshare.
(02:10):
Timeshare has a lot of scams,especially after people have
bought their timeshare property,which that by itself we were
saying is a bit of a scam.
But anyway, after peoplepurchase, everyone almost wants
to get rid of their timeshare.
So then they start getting, um,I don't know, by some way, they,
they start getting contacts frompeople that wanna buy their
(02:32):
time, or at least they tell themthey wanna buy their timeshares.
But that just in the.
In the majority of cases, if notall the cases are just pure
scams.
So that's where we get most ofthe scams.
There's also scams in terms of,like you were saying, you didn't
do your due diligence.
You want to buy property, uh,outright, not timeshare.
(02:52):
And, and that also sometimes is,you know, can cause conflicts if
they didn't check if thatproperty is actually owned by
the person that's selling youthe property or if, uh, if it's
not.
If it doesn't have like a doubledeed or it's been sold to two
different people, stuff likethat.
So let's break it up a littlebit into categories then.
Yeah.
So you mentioned timeshares andwhen people are reselling
(03:13):
timeshares, maybe they, theydon't even know that they wanna
resell it yet, but they're justkind of done with it for obvious
reasons.
Like didn't the thing that theysaid that timeshare was, or
fractional ownership in mostcases.
I mean, there's someopportunities in everything,
right?
Right.
But.
From a lot of what you've seen,like that it, it was just not
aligned with what they's notthought they, they were gonna
get and they were trying to getrid of it.
(03:33):
And then people actuallycontacted them outta the blue
and said, Hey, you know, we'reinterested in, in, uh, buying
your, buying your timeshare.
What, what happened then?
So the thing is, uh, these,these scammers and contact the
people are really good.
I mean, they're really good atwhat they do, which is scamming
people.
It's a whole, it's not just anindividual person.
It's a whole, you know, like,um.
(03:56):
Almost like a whole crime group,you know, that, that does these
types of scams.
And what they do is they tellyou, you know, that they know
you're selling your timeshare.
That they're either from a,they, they pose as either real
estate agents or um.
Some sort of, you know, groupthat's buying, uh, different,
(04:16):
different, uh, properties orsometimes even as attorneys
representing a certain, uh,group or whatever.
And, and their credentials seemfine because they'll give you,
you know, a webpage or somethingand you go into the webpage and
it does exist and you're like,oh yeah.
Or they're brokers and it'slike, oh yeah.
There's a company here and itsays, uh, whatever, uh,
(04:38):
brokerage company and, and thisand that.
So they're like, okay, they mustbe legit.
Which is not the case.
A website doesn't actually meanthat they're, that they're
legit.
Exactly.
And so when people fall forthis, so my first advice is if
you get a call like this orsomeone contacts you just out of
the blue email, phone call orwhatever.
(04:58):
Just be, be suspicious andcontact an attorney because
right from the start, this is ared flag.
And if you go on with a process,it gets more and more
complicated as we're gonnadiscuss.
So I would say, you know, theclients that have reached out to
us at this stage, it's very easyto avoid it.
And we give them all the properlegal advice.
Uh, if they go on with itsaying, oh, okay, this sounds
(05:19):
good, and I want to get rid ofmy timeshare, and they buy into
it, then that's where the realproblem begins, you know?
So then let's talk a little bitabout the process, where they're
buying into the timeshares.
What, what is the concept, likehigh level, how would you
describe what timeshares are?
Uhhuh and also how they'repackaged and how they're
(05:40):
presented like to people,because that's a very common
thing, and especially incountries like Mexico where
things are a little bit lessregulated.
I know that in the US, themajority of timeshares, I mean,
I wouldn't necessarily call themscams.
It's, it's a gray area, right?
Yeah.
But, but you know, I'm not gonnasay outright, they're all scams.
But it's, it's, it's certainly,there's certainly a lot of
(06:02):
things in there that don't makethem advantageous.
And I think here with lessregulation, right, it can
potentially be even worse.
Even worse.
So how are they packaged thatyou've seen and, and how, what's
actually going on under thesurface?
So, just to backtrack a littlebit, when, um.
Of course resorts are alwaystrying.
I mean, most major resorts inMexico are trying to sell
timeshares because they make alot of profit out.
(06:23):
Yeah.
Of timeshares.
Imagine instead of setting,selling one unit to one person,
you can sell that unit a hundredtimes.
Well, of course that's a betterbusiness, right?
So people, first of all, the waythey try to catch'em is right as
you get off the plane, you'regoing to a vacation in Cancun or
Los Gales or whatever.
You're a tourist and you're justhere for a vacation and they,
(06:44):
you know, snatch you with, oh,you know what, let me.
We can invite you to a free, uh,breakfast or whatever.
Just come listen to ourpresentation and that's how they
catch people.
You know, here you have twotickets or whatever, you know.
So once you go there, they'lltell you, okay, yeah, we're just
gonna give you breakfast free,breakfast free drinks.
Free drinks, it's always acatch.
(07:05):
Mm-hmm.
You know, free margaritas.
Yeah.
And, uh, get you a little,little buzzed, a little loose.
Exactly.
And once they're, you know,talking to you, they're like,
oh, come take a look at ourresort and everything.
They'll, you'll see it.
Most of them are beautiful.
I'm not gonna deny that.
And they'll have you there forhours, you know, you just wanna
get out of it.
They're telling you, you know,giving you more and more
information, you're having moredrinks.
(07:25):
And then by the time,'causethese people are good, you know.
So they're gonna sell you whatthey want.
Most of the time, they end upselling you what you know, what
they want to sell you.
Mm-hmm.
So basically, uh, what, so onceyou sign, they give you a
contract, which you don't,you're not even allowed to read
really?
Because they're like, no, justsigned here.
Sometimes they even take awayyour passport.
I don't know if you realizethis, and they're holding onto
(07:47):
your passport.
You're like, okay, I wannaleave.
Give me my passport.
Oh yeah, we're almost done.
And we'll give you your passportat the end of the presentation.
Wow.
That that's, yeah, that happens.
That's really something.
Oh my goodness.
And uh, and so let's say by theend of the presentation you're
like, okay, you know, sign here.
And some people just signedbecause they're so, you know,
they just so want to get out ofthat.
And they're like, okay, theysigned, they didn't even know
(08:09):
what they signed.
Then they give you a contract.
Oh, congrats.
You got your new time timeshare.
And, um.
Once, you know, maybe the dayafter you realize, what did I
get myself into, right?
Uh, they got your credit cardinfo and everything, so now it's
pretty hard to get out of it.
Mexico has a, just so you know,timeshare, you're not really
(08:29):
buying property.
You have no entitlement at theowner to that property or that
they told you you're gonna be anowner.
Because sometimes they tell you,no, you're gonna be an owner of
this, you know of this thing.
But it's not ownership.
You just have.
Um, couple weeks a year that youcan use.
And these are like on a verylimited basis because you have
(08:51):
to, to give you the blackoutdates.
Exactly.
A lot of blackout dates andstuff and when you try to book.
And then I've heard also.
You can't actually book, youknow, less than a certain number
of weeks in advance, but thenthey charge you to book more
than a certain number of weeksin advance.
Exactly.
So you basically end up alsohaving to pay extra to book it
in in an availability or like aRight.
An amount of time where thesystem even allows you to book
(09:13):
it at all.
You're ending, ending up payingdouble or triple.
Exactly.
And sometimes like, uh, theyalso charge you, uh, maintenance
fees or other type of fees,which were not even in the
contract.
Right.
So you end up paying more thanif you would pay.
Just a regular stay at a nicehotel or resort, you know?
And so it doesn't really giveyou any advantage.
(09:33):
Uh, most people realize thiswhen it's too late, because in
Mexico for, um, timeshare, youdo have, we do have something
called proco, which is, uh, thepro, which is basically a
consumer agency which helpsconsumers, uh, from these types
of, that have been scammed orwhatever.
(09:54):
So technically you could place,you know, um, um, you could
place a a, I guess on, on, onProco, but you only have three
to five days to do it.
So by the time the touristrealizes they sign something,
they don't even know thisbecause of course they're not
gonna tell you this, right?
(10:14):
And so they're like, wow, whatdid I get myself into?
Then they wait till they getback home.
To cancel or contact a, anattorney or something.
Well, then it's too late.
Then we can't cancel it all andall.
You can do, well, you cancancel.
I mean, I'm sorry, but you'rejust not gonna get your money
back.
Right, right.
That is what everyone isinterested about.
(10:36):
So even canceling is a longprocess with Proco.
If it's not within that timeperiod.
And, um, and so cancellationturned so difficult that most
people are like stuck withsomething they didn't really
want.
They just keep paying andpaying.
Yeah.
They didn't even know about it.
And now they have this.
So most of the of the clients wehave are actually not happy with
(10:59):
their timeshares.
Most of them are trying tocancel, but it's very difficult
to cancel.
Mm-hmm.
You call the resort and theresort, the resort is not gonna
cancel.
They're like, no, no, no.
You signed a contract.
You know?
And the contract.
Um, valid for two or threeyears.
You can't even cancel beforethat.
Okay?
That's what they're gonna tellyou.
So if you contact us by then, wecan help you cancel, but it's
(11:20):
gonna be very difficult that weget your money back, okay?
Mm-hmm.
Some cases we've managed to getthe money back, but normally
it's just cancellation and yougotta lose whatever down payment
you put into it.
Um, some people, however, don'tcontact an attorney and don't
cancel it.
Just go on with their timeshare,however they can.
After maybe several years havepassed miraculously, they get a
(11:42):
call from someone or an email orwhatever saying, we wanna buy
your timeshare.
So at this point, they've beentrying to cancel forever.
They're desperate.
They're like, they're like, I'm,I'm desperate.
I mean, wow.
Just out of the blue someone.
And how do you think thesepeople have even got their
information?
You're sharing a coupletheories.
Yeah.
Before, well, that's the thing.
I mean, my theory is that eventhese big resorts, and I'm not
gonna say names because, uh.
(12:04):
But even these big resorts aregiving out a list to the or, or
someone you know is niche withinthe resort.
And we're not gonna say thewhole resort is giving out a
list to these scammers, um, sothat they can contact everyone
and they contact them throughcall centers.
They have actual call centerswhere they're calling all these
people.
(12:24):
So they're not just calling you,they're calling everybody who
has.
Purchased a timeshare, you know,so there's some public record of
it, or it's being sold, orthere's some weird way that they
acquire that information.
I think they're like sellingpublic records or whatever.
Of course, if you call theresort, they're gonna tell you,
no, we're not doing it.
But they are also gonna say, wedon't advise you to resell your
(12:45):
timeshare.
Like there's not a market forreselling.
Timeshare.
Yeah.
Which is another thing that theykind of tend to lie to you about
when you actually buy thetimeshare or fractional
ownership.
Fractional ownership is, theycall it when they're like, oh
yeah, no, you're, you're, you'regonna get the plus or the uhhuh,
the value add as it increasesover time.
The reality of it is nobody evenwants to buy a timeshare in the
(13:06):
fir first place, let alone onthe secondhand market.
Exactly.
Because you don't have thatsales office, the boiler room
there where you, what are yougonna do?
Hire, hire the guy to shout it.
Tourists at the Cancun Airport.
Exactly.
So there's no market for, for,uh, timeshare.
So really you can't sell it.
And of course the resort is notgonna buy it back from you
(13:26):
because why would they, they cansell, you know.
Uh, a unit as many times as theywant.
It reminds me a little offractional reserve banking, but
Exactly.
We won't get, we won't get toointo that.
We're not gonna get into that,but Exactly.
So, so at this point, you know,they're desperate.
Someone contacts them, it seemslike they have the right
credentials because they have awebpage, because they have
(13:46):
everything they're saying, theycall them and Yeah, they answer
of course, because it's a numberthey put in there.
And so if they start to get, if,if they take the bite.
Um, then they're gonna realizethat these people are gonna tell
them, okay.
'cause it's always the sameprocess.
Like maybe the company is calleddifferent.
Sometimes, like I said, theytell them, they say they're a
(14:07):
broker.
Sometimes they're a real estateagents, sometimes they're
attorneys.
But the process is exactly thesame.
Um, and so the, sometimesthey're, they say they're trust
companies, stuff like that.
So they start telling them,look, we're gonna offer you this
much.
And sometimes the amount is a.
A large amount of money.
Like it doesn't even make sensethat they're offering so much
(14:29):
money for a timeshare.
Okay.
Um, guys, when it sounds toogood to be true, it probably is.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So, um, so they're offeringthis, you know, this large sum
of money and then they startsending you a bank account where
they say, look, we have a truston your name.
(14:51):
Uh, with this amount of money,and let's say it can be half a
million dollars, quarter amillion, whatever, it's right
there.
It's ready for you to take it,but you just need to fill out
these forms, which are for sets.
That is like I, our IRS inMexico, you know, for taxing
purposes.
And that's it.
So you fill out the forms, whichare fake, you know, like text
(15:13):
doesn't text.
I mean, SAT doesn't text onthese.
They don't even exist.
You can't even resell timeshare,let alone, you know, tax it.
So, um, so you fill out theforms and they're like, yeah,
but there's a cost because yougotta pay the taxes and the
taxes.
Sometimes they start off with,well, you know, it's, um, 1200,
(15:35):
20, 200, or whatever number.
Mm-hmm.
So people actually buy into thatbecause it, you know what it
reminds me of this is likethose, those, uh.
Nigerian scammers where theysay, you know what?
You have this inheritance of 5million US dollars that.
Came to you from your, yourgreat Uncle Ben.
Right.
And then you get a check and,and then, oh, you know, it looks
(15:55):
like we, we overpaid you alittle bit, so you're gonna have
to send us$15,000 back byWestern Union or, or, uh, what
do they call it?
Like Walmart gift cards?
Yeah.
Before your check the checkclears or, or when it clears,
but it's not actually cleared,then they pulled back because
it's not a legitimate account.
Exactly.
That's it.
That's that type of scam.
Very, yeah.
And a lot of people fall for it,especially elderly people.
(16:16):
Right.
And so they fall for it.
They send whatever amount, butthen they are requiring more and
more.
And at that point, pe somepeople realize, okay, this might
be a scam.
I should talk to an attorney.
They already send them whateverthe amount is.
A hundred thousand dollars.
A hundred thousand.
Yeah.
We've had, goodness people sendlike quarter of a million.
(16:38):
Half a million.
I mean, you don't even believeit.
How much was the property hasnot even worth that much.
I don't understand.
Oh my goodness.
So, yeah.
But, but this is true.
And so once they realize, okay,I've sent a lot of money over
time and this is probably ascam, well, they contact us and
then, you know, they want us tokind of investigate and we can
(16:58):
do that.
But we know now as the factthat, you know, you, you can't
get that money back.
That money is, you know,there's.
Everything, this scamming thingis a big, you know, organized
thing and, um, you can't get themoney back.
So now you're looking at, okay,I lost all this money, I'm not
gonna get it back.
You still have your timesharethough.
(17:19):
'cause they don't take that,they're not even interested in
the timeshare.
Mm-hmm.
But that's, um, and then theystart threatened with, okay, you
know what, we're gonna, uh,we're gonna send this to
litigation, and they startsending letters and all that
stuff.
Wow.
And now you realize.
Then I gotta keep paying thembecause it's litigation.
But it's not, they're not evengonna go to litigation scammers
(17:40):
or the timeshare people, thescammers.
Ah, okay.
Yeah.
So, because I know the timesharepeople don't like it if you stop
paying them either.
No.
So you gotta continue to paywith your timeshare, because
then when you call the timesharecompany, they realize it's under
your name and you gotta keeppaying for that, so.
Mm-hmm.
So that's gonna be, you know,that whole thing.
What's, what's the main lessonin all that other than don't buy
(18:01):
timeshares to begin with anddefinitely don't accept random
calls from people who are tryingto supposedly buy it then asking
you for money.
Right?
Yeah.
So the main lesson I think is ifyou already, uh, bought a
timeshare and you're trying to,you know, sell it, no matter how
desperate you are, I thinkalways contact an attorney or
(18:22):
someone.
Who specialize in this in thecountry that I'm sure is right.
Yeah.
In Mexico, because I mean,someone who specializes in this
in Mexico.
'cause otherwise you're notgonna know what to do and you're
gonna fall into this trap andjust continue, you know, with
that.
So, okay.
Yeah.
So what else, um, what else haveyou seen other types of scams?
(18:42):
I know you mentioned there's alot of, there's a lot of issues
here with title of properties,like who actually owns a
property.
So why is that, first of all,why, why is that a common
problem in Mexico?
Because, I mean, getting a titleis actually a very complex
process and I, I would say, youknow, getting a deed to your
property is even more of acomplex process than it is in
(19:04):
the United States because I, asyou've seen here, you gotta go
through a notary public, whichis not the same thing as in the
states or in Canada or whatever.
I mean, the notary public herereally has public faith, has to
have been an attorney or, orstudied law or whatever.
Then it's like public officeand, and they regulate
(19:25):
everything related to land.
So any transaction related toland has to go through a notary
public.
Mm-hmm.
But there's people that eventhough, like they issue a deed
that says, okay, this person isentitled to the property.
But what people take advantages,a, a advantage of is they'll
just take any property and say,oh, this is my property.
(19:46):
I'm gonna sell it to you.
Well, uh, whoa, whoa.
What do you mean?
So don't have, how, how wouldsomebody, they don't, how, how
would someone do that?
Because that's like a type ofscam.
They're not gonna be able to goforward with that.
But if you fall for it, thenthey'll take some money from
you, you know?
Mm-hmm.
Because like, let's say I say,okay, yeah, I have this law
that's my property, and, and youas a foreigner probably don't
(20:07):
know what to check for.
You're not gonna request a deed,you're not gonna request a title
search because you don't know.
So they just give you acontract, you know, saying the
property is theirs and it's.
These many square meters andblah, blah, blah.
And this is the, uh, the price.
And if you fall for it, becauseI've had clients that have that
this has happened to them.
Mm-hmm.
So they sign the contract, theyrequest a down payment, you give
(20:30):
them a down payment, and as thetransaction moves forward, you
know, maybe, maybe at that pointyou say, okay, I should request
more paperwork, you know?
Mm-hmm.
But when you do, uh, there's nomore paperwork or you can't find
them anymore, you can't get intouch with'em anymore.
So that's like a.
Big problem.
I wouldn't say this happens inthe majority of the cases, but
we've seen cases like this.
(20:51):
So I think your, the main thinghere would be if you wanna buy
property, okay.
You first gotta get with a, um,a real estate agent.
That shows you which property isavailable and all that.
Not just someone, you know,your, like we say here, your RE
that says, oh, uh, yeah, look, Ihave someone who I know that's
(21:12):
selling their product.
My cousin's nephew sellsExactly.
Or whatever sells real estate.
And Guadalajara, they call himNo.
And even not real estate,they're like, they're selling
their land.
Yeah.
And so you're just talking tothis random person, you don't
even know if it's his land ornot.
Mm-hmm.
So the first thing would be.
Okay, that you're actuallyworking with a, with a licensed
(21:32):
real estate agent because realestate agents here are licensed
too.
And, uh, and that you're alsoworking with an attorney because
it's not so simple to buyproperty in Mexico as sometimes
it would be in the States, forexample.
So you gotta see, um, becausethat, that would be another type
of scam, you know, and thenmaybe we can go into, you know,
(21:54):
what you need to actually buy orinvest.
Absolutely.
So.
What are the things thatsomebody should check or, or
have their attorney or a notaryor someone start to check when
they are looking at buyingproperty?
Um, obviously not timeshares.
We know that's probably not theYeah, that's, but if they're
like, Hey, I, you know, there'sthis condo right here, there's a
house.
Down, down by the lake overthere, I'm interested in Right.
(22:17):
FTO is selling it.
Uh, yeah.
How do I know if, if FTO reallyowns the property Right?
Or if he totally doesn't.
So that's why you need anattorney.
I would say so that they're intouch with a real estate agent
and'cause sometimes, you know,there's two parties, right?
The party that's, uh, sellingand the party that's buying.
The problem with a real estateagent is that sometimes they're
(22:37):
representing both.
So you might have a conflict ofinterest there, right?
Yeah.
So yeah, I mean, they're bigtime.
They're gonna wanna sell at allcosts and they're gonna want you
to buy that property.
So if you're the buyer,especially, I would say you need
to get an attorney thatrepresents your interest.
Okay.
And that can talk to the realestate agent and sometimes to
(22:58):
the agency that agent is workingwith, and make sure everything
is right.
Mm-hmm.
So things we look out for are,for example.
Before even signing anything.
Of course you make the offer andwe supervise the terms of the
offer.
Okay?
That the offer is within the,uh, you know, within the market
standards, that it's areasonable offer and all that
(23:20):
kind of stuff.
But also once you make theoffer, and again, you know, we
request all the paperwork.
So you request a deed and weread through the deed and verify
that everything's correctbecause.
Deeds in Mexico can be 50 pages.
Two, I mean, you know, or yeah,or more, or 20 pages or
whatever.
It's not as simple.
It's not as simple.
And you gotta know what you'relooking for within the deed to
(23:42):
know that that deed, you know,or that person or that company,
is entitled to sell thatproperty.
And that property has beenproperly registered within the
public registry.
So that's the other thing we do.
We do a search within the, the,the public registry, uh, of
property.
And we look, uh, there's anothersearch that we do.
(24:03):
So to look that there are not noliens and encumbrances and that,
uh, the title is clear.
Okay.
So those are like the basicthings you gotta look out for.
Mm-hmm.
Um, once we have that, of coursethere's more things, you know,
we, we go through just to seethat the property is okay.
Um.
That the, and then you also workwith a notary to see that
(24:25):
everything is done properly,that the transaction is done
according tostan, Mexicanstandards, Mexican law and
everything.
And if you're buying property,uh, within a hundred meters of
the border, or 15 meters of um,of the coastline, then you gotta
buy either through a trustkilometers.
Kilometers.
(24:45):
Ah, okay.
Yeah, sorry.
Everything is in kilometers inMexico, right?
Got it.
Yeah.
So, uh, so a hundred kilometersof the, all the Mexican border
of the us the border.
And then, and then it's 50kilometers from the coastline.
Right?
From the coastline.
And I think that also includeslike ES and other areas, 50 50.
Does it include lakes as well?
It doesn't include lakes.
Okay.
So if you want to buy here inLake Chapala, you wouldn't need,
(25:07):
which is where we are.
Yeah.
Uh, you wouldn't need a trust,but normally you need either a
trust, which we call.
And that's with a Mexican bank,or you need to establish a
Mexican company.
Mm-hmm.
So we help them in that processalso, and we help them.
We also work with the bankbecause that's another party
coming into play.
(25:27):
Yeah.
So, so you're working with thereal estate agent, the real
estate company, uh, the bank andthe notary basically, and the
attorney.
That's a lot of cooks in thekitchen, right?
Yeah.
Right.
So you gotta, you gotta, if youtry to do this, all this by
yourself.
It's gonna be a nightmare.
Yeah.
And, um, most guaranteed it'sgonna go wrong somewhere.
(25:48):
What are some of the, thecraziest like, horror stories
that you've heard of when itcame to people attempting this
by themselves?
Whether they decided to workwith you after, or you just, you
know, heard about the, theissue.
I mean, what are some of thethings that actually, not just
what could happen, but what haveyou seen actually happen?
So, um, like I said, we had thislady trying to buy property in
(26:09):
and she thought she actuallybought it.
She's, uh.
She gave out a lot of moneybecause she had a contract and
then after a while that shewasn't able to get the property
or she found out, you know,someone claiming that, no, that
was their property.
Then she comes to us because wehadn't been in this, in this
thing.
Like, and unfortunately, peoplesometimes contact you when it's
(26:31):
too late.
Hmm.
And when the problem is alreadythere.
Right.
So she contacts us and she'slike, you know what?
I don't know what's going on.
And we're like, how did you buythis property?
And that's the kind of thing I'mtelling you, like she just.
Bought it from someone who said,owned the property.
And we go into looking into allthe registry and everything, and
it turns out the property wasnot even, was not even theirs.
(26:52):
So now we get into a hugejudicial fight.
Mm-hmm.
Which you don't wanna get intothe, you know, Mexican legal
system.
And it's a lot harder to winlawsuits here, isn't it?
Like the legal system is notstructured in the way, it's not
very structured in the US Right.
And you know, once you have togo that avenue, it's.
Not good.
You know, that can take a lot ofyears.
And FTOs already long goneExactly.
(27:14):
To another state.
Exactly.
And you, I think finally we,well we had to bring a lot of
people in for that.
Like not just us, but another,um, accountant and, and a lot of
specialists, you know, to kindof put this together.
It sounds like it gets a lotmore expensive when they don't
call you.
From the beginning when theydon't work with you with it in
the beginning.
(27:34):
Yeah.
And have, okay.
Exactly.
Why, why do you think that is?
Like why do people do that andtry to figure it out all on
their own?
Because if you guys are watchingthis, I mean, our audience is,
is very.
Intelligent and they like tomake the right decisions and be
very calculated, and they'revery analytical, as am I where I
wanna have all of the rightinformation and do things the
right way.
Um, so if you're watching thisand you've gotten this far in
(27:56):
the video, chances are you're,you're definitely like, oh, I
wanna do things right.
I want to get the right kind ofsupport and guidance.
But let's say that, you know,for people not on our channel,
right, for, for the average,average person, you know, person
maybe that might not be watchingthis even, like, what, what is
it that makes them not.
Seek out the help of, of aprofessional in immigration or
an attorney or, or, or afacilitator to help with all
(28:17):
these different issues with,with real estate?
Like why do they try to avoidthat?
Yeah.
By themselves.
I think it's for maybe two orthree different reasons.
The first one is.
Ignorance.
It's not that they're ignorantpeople, but it's that they're
ignorant of the Mexican system.
So they try to think, I mean, ifI'm thinking like an American or
a Canadian, I think, okay, thiscan go smoothly and you know, I
(28:40):
believe what you're telling meis true and we can do this
transaction and we can just signand that's it.
So that's, they think that theyhave recourse.
Exactly, yeah.
And that they have legalrecourse or other recourse, you
know, like, oh, if not, maybe Ican get my money back, but maybe
we can cancel the transaction.
So that's one, one thing, youknow, like ignorance or maybe
being too naive that everythingis gonna go out as planned, you
(29:03):
know?
Mm-hmm.
But Mexico is an entirelydifferent system.
It works very differently thanother countries.
So that's the first thing youknow, like if you're not fam,
even if you're familiar, likeeven people buying property in
Mexico should look forassistance of, you know, a real
estate agent, an attorney, anotary and everything.
So.
(29:23):
More, you know, like people thatare not familiar with the
Mexican system.
Well, I mean, that's like adouble reason to search for
help, right?
But I think that's one, onereason.
Another reason is I think they,they believe they're gonna save
some money by not con, nothiring anyone and doing it
themselves.
You know, like, uh.
Like, it's sometimes very easyto think, oh, well this seems
(29:47):
simple enough, I can do itmyself.
You know?
But it's, it's kind of likegoing to Vegas and just putting
it all on black.
Exactly.
And saying, well, you know, may,I mean, because there are some s
in which everything goes fine.
Right.
But what would you say thepercentage is of that versus
things going wrong?
I, the percentage, they don'thave the right percentage like
that.
Everything goes fine when you'renot seeking any assistance in
(30:07):
Mexico, when buying property,it's like maybe not even 20%,
you know?
Chance that things will beright.
I, I'd rather take my odds inVegas.
Yeah.
At least those are closer to 50.
Exactly.
Even if the house, I mean, ifyou're on, you know, yeah.
You're, you're, you're, you're,you're throw throwing it on red
or throwing it on black.
At least.
At least then the house haspoint, a little margin, but, but
you know, you're, you're in a,at some point, double digits.
(30:28):
That's not a good, those aren'tgood odds here.
20% on a huge transaction.
Exactly.
It, and it's not necessarilybecause you're gonna get
scammed.
It might not be a scammed, itmight be a legit transaction.
But at some point of theprocess, you're gonna get stuck
and you're not gonna be able tomove forward.
And so, and somebody else whodoes have legal representation,
if it was a legitimate deal,they're gonna end up moving
(30:50):
things forward and you're gonnalose the opportunity.
Exactly.
That's best case scenario.
Yeah.
Best case scenario.
Worst case scenario is you'reout a quarter of a million
dollars or more.
Exactly.
And uh, if you have help fromthe start, like legal help,
financial help, uh, even tax,you know, we also work with a
financial specialist.
To see your, uh, tax scheme,because now you're, you're gonna
(31:11):
be in, you know, investing inanother country.
So how that's something peopledon't think about either.
Uhhuh, how are gonna do yourtaxes and stuff.
So that's something that we alsobring into the mix, like
bringing a financial specialistto work even with a whole thing
of, okay, how much does Mexicotax me for buying property in
Mexico?
They don't even know that.
And then, you know, they'relike, oh, I thought I was
(31:33):
paying, uh, whatever.
Maybe, um.
$800,000 for this property, andit turns out it's a million
dollars.
Why is that?
Well, because he got taxed, hegot a notary excuse, he got all
this.
Mm.
And you're gonna get hit withall that at the end if you don't
have a strategy.
Yep.
Because taxes can be lowered ifyou work them from the
beginning.
So, so it sounds like, you know,even even if they were to drop
(31:55):
10, 15,$20,000 upfront, itpotentially could save them five
or 10 times.
It's gonna save them a lot asmuch of that because they're
doing the tax strategy they'redoing, and, you know, it might
even be lower depending on whatthey need, but they, they get
tax strategy for when they buytax strategy for when they sell.
You also get legal guidance likethroughout the entire process.
And this is what a lot of ourconsultations, we talk about
(32:16):
these things.
Whether it's getting yourresidency visa through income,
through savings, through buyinga property, getting that legal
assistance that you need toactually facilitate those
transactions.
For anything like that thatyou're interested in doing, we
do offer a free consultation.
If you qualify, you can just goto entrepreneur
expat.com/consult and we'll putthe link below this video and
(32:36):
you can apply for that.
Talk to myself, our team,Monica's part of our team here,
and she, she and, and herinternal team support us with a
lot of these things for our ownprojects as well as a lot of
our, our different clients.
Um, what else have, have youbeen seeing in terms of.
In terms of scams, anything elseyou can think of that's really
prevalent?
Yes.
There's another type of scamsor, or they're not scams all the
(32:59):
time, but something I kinda tellclients to either avoid or be
very cautious with is buying onpresale.
Mm-hmm.
Buying on presale means there'snot a development yet.
There's nothing built andthey're just showing you, this
is what, what we're gonna build,but we need you to pay up front.
So, so basically financingtheir, their construction with
(33:21):
your money.
That's what they're doing.
Like they're getting a lot ofpeople like you involved and
then they get all money fromeveryone and then that's how
they start building.
Sometimes they don't even havepermits to build.
Sometimes they don't even havepermits to become like, uh,
condominium or whatever,whatever type of, um.
Residential or, or commercial orwhatever you're, you're gonna be
(33:44):
advertising and selling.
So they just sell this outright.
They do own the land.
Uh, sometimes differentcompanies, like a company will
own the land and another companyis gonna develop.
Mm-hmm.
So developers in Mexico, I mean,some of them are trustworthy, a
lot of them are not.
So the first thing is, if youwanna buy, I always recommend
(34:05):
against this, but if you wannabuy.
In this type of, of, um,scenario, I recommend that you,
that once again, you hiresomeone, you know, a legal
expert, uh, that can take youthrough this process.
And so that what we do is wekind of, um, do a, a research
(34:26):
and a due diligence on, okay,who the developer is, is he a
well-known developer in Mexicoor not?
Have they built anything else?
If so, what have they built?
Did they comply with everythingin that first thing they did?
Sometimes they have differentstages, like stage one is built,
they're building stage two.
Okay.
At least they complied withthat.
Sometimes it's like nobody knowsthese people, you know, who are
(34:47):
they?
Because you can also get to tocases where they're just
laundering money or doing, youknow, using your money for other
purposes and they're never gonnadevelop.
Now the best case, it's scenariois that they do develop.
But since they're financing fromthe people that are paying and
if they don't get enough buyers,then you're gonna be stuck and
they, until they get more money.
(35:08):
Yeah.
So they promised to, it's almostlike a pyramid scheme.
Exactly.
So they promised to geteverything done and you have
your unit or whatever, yourhouse or your apartment ready
within two years and it can take'em five years.
Mm-hmm.
It's very difficult once you getinto this, to go against them.
I mean, we've had had caseswhere they don't comply.
You can't go to court because,like you just said, the legal
(35:30):
system here does not work thatwell.
And these people or thesecompanies have a lot of power.
And so, you know, the court isnot really gonna be in your, in
your favor in these cases.
You don't have the same, youdon't really have the same kinds
of consumer protections inMexico that you do in the us Not
really.
I mean, for this type of casesit's very difficult to get
consumer protection.
(35:51):
Uh, like I said, for timeshare,sometimes you can get consumer
protection.
These cases?
No, you gotta, you gottalitigate them once you run into
this problem.
Mm.
And this is just a very generalway of, of putting it.
There's a lot of, you know,nuances that go into buying in
presale, and if someone isreally hell bent on buying
(36:13):
something pre-sale.
Mm-hmm.
Could you break it into a coupledifferent, like, parts of the
timeline in terms of risk, like.
Hey, they don't have theproperty yet, and it's just an
idea and they're selling itversus, okay, they've got the
property, but they don't havepermits versus they actually
have permits.
Like, how, how would you breakthat in terms of what, what your
likelihood of getting an on-timedelivery?
Well, an on-time delivery isvery unlikely, even if
(36:36):
everything goes perfect.
Because if, even if everythinggoes as planned, they're always
relying, you know.
On the workers, on the buildersand everything.
So they might not show up forwork, they might, whatever.
And that is gonna delay thedeposit.
It's the manana, it's the mananathing, attitude that we have to
hear a lot of notes.
So when you're buying like that,just take into consideration
that even if everything goesperfect, it's gonna delay six
(36:59):
months to a year probably, ifeverything goes perfect.
But the, the things that can gowrong is first, like you said,
they don't have.
They don't have the money, firstof all.
Okay?
Mm-hmm.
So that's one thing.
And they need to get more money,more resources.
If they don't have a line ofcredit with a bank, or if they
don't have some kind of insur,you know, insurance and
(37:21):
assurance from a bank, then yougotta ask yourself, why, why
don't they have this?
It's like, why is their, thebank not giving them credit?
You know?
Mm-hmm.
Because they're not, they're notreliable.
They don't have anything to basetheir credit on.
Or what the issue is.
So that's, I think, another redflag if they can't get credit
from the bank, uh, because ifthey would get credit, they
(37:42):
don't have to use their money,you know, they can use that line
of credit.
Exactly.
Um, the other thing is, yeah,one this, you will, I mean, if
you're trying to buy, you willonly know once you've hired
someone that's gonna do the duediligence.
If, like, like I was saying, ifthey're reliable, if they're in
the Mexican market, if they'reknown, if uh, they have built
(38:04):
something else.
But also you gotta get into thisdue diligence of saying, okay,
do they have proper title?
Do they have all the permits?
Mm-hmm.
That you gotta look, go into.
All the registries that we havein Mexico that we know where to
look for.
But of course, the layperson isnot gonna know where to look.
No.
And they don't even have accessto it because it's not open to
(38:25):
the public.
Like you can't get public accessto some of the, of the files.
So, so do they have all thepermits or are they gonna have
all the permits?
Or are they gonna be, uh, areyou gonna hit a, a block where
it's like, no, I mean, we'regonna suspend construction or
the authority is gonna suspendconstruction.
Mm-hmm.
Because you didn't get this andthis and that.
So building and permits is like,the first thing is money, right?
(38:49):
Do they have money?
Second thing is with the banks,how is the relation, uh, of this
developer with the banks?
And I would say money andreputation first because like we
said, they have to have a goodreputation.
Mm-hmm.
And then all the permits, that'slike another stage once they're
building.
Okay.
They have the permits, but theycan still, uh.
(39:11):
Break up the contract and notdeliver everything they're
seeing in the contract.
They might deliver some things.
For example, they'll give youyour unit, but there's not a
pool.
They, they said they, they'dhave a pool, they have a
restaurant and they don't haveany of that.
Now you have to take your unitas is.
Mm.
So now that's the hope.
Yeah.
With a hope that they're gonnabuild it someday.
Gonna, yeah.
And uh, so that's another aspectof it.
(39:34):
Contract reviewing contractcompromises before you sign the
contract, because once you sign,it's too late.
Yep.
So all that type of thing is,um, is important I think with,
uh, when you're buying presaleand every one of those things
kind of increases, every one ofthose, those items that they
have kind of increases thelikelihood that you're gonna get
it.
But to your point, that's thedanger of presale.
(39:54):
You may get a, a slightly ormuch better price mm-hmm.
But you're running the risk ofyou never getting the unit at
all Exactly.
Or getting it super, super late,or not even having the amenities
that, that you were promisedthey promised.
Or the finishes or the qualityof materials and stuff like
that.
Yeah, like this condo we're atright here.
I mean, we're renting, it's apretty nice condo, but there's a
(40:14):
lot of issues like the conduitsfor wire are not the size
they're supposed to be.
You can't pass cable throughthem.
There's issues with like themembrane on the roof'cause
they're all just built quicklyand then in a lot of cases very,
very cheap.
Right, exactly.
So you never really know andthat's why sometimes it's almost
even better to to buy your ownland and build and and
supervise.
But you still need legal supportfor that.
Exactly.
And then, uh.
(40:36):
Also once you, you know, oncethey've, uh, built a little bit
and everything, you also needappraisals and that kind of
stuff, you know, for, to avoidthose kind of issues now.
Water, electricity, everythingelse, everything like that is a
pro, I mean, or can be apotential problem at some time
at some point.
Because if they don't sell alltheir units, how are they gonna
(40:57):
divide those bills?
You know, who's gonna pay forthem?
Who's gonna pay for the vacantunits?
Mm-hmm.
So now you've got this, and thenthe last part of it.
Is all the, um, regulationissues as far as what I was
saying, what type of is this is,this is gonna be a condominium
or what regime we're gonna havethis on, you know, the bylaws
and everything.
(41:17):
So that's another legal aspectwhere you have to get into it.
That's a lot to consider andthat's not anything that I would
want to have to have in my headto try to figure it all out on
my own.
Right.
So.
I encourage anybody watching whois considering investing in
Mexico, buying real estate,buying land, whatever it is, go
to that link below the video.
Go to entrepreneurexpat.com/consult, schedule a
(41:39):
consult.
Uh, you may be in touch soonwith Monica or her team, or one
of our other team members,depending on what your specific
needs are.
Thank you again, Monica, forbeing here with us today and
sharing all of your wisdom withour channel.
Thank you.
There's just, just so manygolden nuggets in that, and I
hope that it makes people thinktwice about trying to do this
entire process.
On their own.
(42:00):
As always, like this video, ithelps us out a lot and
definitely hit that subscribebutton if you're not already
subscribed, and we look forwardto seeing you on the next video
very soon.
are you interested in investingin real estate here in Mexico,
but you're afraid that you mightget scammed?
Well, in this video, I'mactually talking with Monica
Loyo, one of our trusted realestate, immigration and legal
partners.
Who has got over 20 years ofexperience in helping expats get
visas from Mexico by real estatein Mexico and make sure
everything is done above boardand safely.
(00:22):
In this video, we're gonna,we're gonna talk specifically
about what some of the commonscams are in real estate to look
out for here in Mexico, as wellas how to avoid them and making
sure that you really do your Ddue diligence, you cross your
T's, you dot your i's andeverything else.
If you've been watching ourvideos from for some time and
have not yet subscribed,definitely hit that subscribe
(00:44):
button so that you don't missany of our latest content and
give this video a thumbs upbecause it really helps us with
our mission to reach a millionexpats and aspiring entrepreneur
expats.
So welcome, Monica.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
And one other thing that I'llshare with our audience today
before we get started is that ifthey're interested in working
with our team, with your teamdirectly, uh, if they're
(01:06):
interested in having us helpthem.
With their immigration, withtheir visa process here in
Mexico, you can actually go toentrepreneur expat.com/consult
and apply for a freeconsultation.
Or we'll, we will go into yourspecific questions and help you
create an action plan on how toget started.
So Monica, thank you again forbeing here.
(01:26):
Thank you for having me, Justin.
It's a pleasure to be here withyou and, uh, and yeah, let's,
um, let's start to, to tellpeople how to avoid.
All these traps in Mexico andhow to avoid scams both in
timeshare and in other types ofinvestment.
Absolutely.
So let's jump right into whatsome of the most common things
(01:46):
that you're seeing, uh, in termsof cases that people have
brought to you.
I know we were talking aboutthis a little bit earlier.
Where somebody's like, oh, youknow what, this happened to me
and these people ran off with mymoney for this real estate deal.
And they said, you know, hey,can you, can you fix it?
Like what are some of the mostcommon things that you're seeing
that are like that?
So the most common things wherewe see scams is in timeshare.
(02:10):
Timeshare has a lot of scams,especially after people have
bought their timeshare property,which that by itself we were
saying is a bit of a scam.
But anyway, after peoplepurchase, everyone almost wants
to get rid of their timeshare.
So then they start getting, um,I don't know, by some way, they,
they start getting contacts frompeople that wanna buy their
(02:32):
time, or at least they tell themthey wanna buy their timeshares.
But that just in the.
In the majority of cases, if notall the cases are just pure
scams.
So that's where we get most ofthe scams.
There's also scams in terms of,like you were saying, you didn't
do your due diligence.
You want to buy property, uh,outright, not timeshare.
(02:52):
And, and that also sometimes is,you know, can cause conflicts if
they didn't check if thatproperty is actually owned by
the person that's selling youthe property or if, uh, if it's
not.
If it doesn't have like a doubledeed or it's been sold to two
different people, stuff likethat.
So let's break it up a littlebit into categories then.
Yeah.
So you mentioned timeshares andwhen people are reselling
(03:13):
timeshares, maybe they, theydon't even know that they wanna
resell it yet, but they're justkind of done with it for obvious
reasons.
Like didn't the thing that theysaid that timeshare was, or
fractional ownership in mostcases.
I mean, there's someopportunities in everything,
right?
Right.
But.
From a lot of what you've seen,like that it, it was just not
aligned with what they's notthought they, they were gonna
get and they were trying to getrid of it.
(03:33):
And then people actuallycontacted them outta the blue
and said, Hey, you know, we'reinterested in, in, uh, buying
your, buying your timeshare.
What, what happened then?
So the thing is, uh, these,these scammers and contact the
people are really good.
I mean, they're really good atwhat they do, which is scamming
people.
It's a whole, it's not just anindividual person.
It's a whole, you know, like,um.
(03:56):
Almost like a whole crime group,you know, that, that does these
types of scams.
And what they do is they tellyou, you know, that they know
you're selling your timeshare.
That they're either from a,they, they pose as either real
estate agents or um.
Some sort of, you know, groupthat's buying, uh, different,
(04:16):
different, uh, properties orsometimes even as attorneys
representing a certain, uh,group or whatever.
And, and their credentials seemfine because they'll give you,
you know, a webpage or somethingand you go into the webpage and
it does exist and you're like,oh yeah.
Or they're brokers and it'slike, oh yeah.
There's a company here and itsays, uh, whatever, uh,
(04:38):
brokerage company and, and thisand that.
So they're like, okay, they mustbe legit.
Which is not the case.
A website doesn't actually meanthat they're, that they're
legit.
Exactly.
And so when people fall forthis, so my first advice is if
you get a call like this orsomeone contacts you just out of
the blue email, phone call orwhatever.
(04:58):
Just be, be suspicious andcontact an attorney because
right from the start, this is ared flag.
And if you go on with a process,it gets more and more
complicated as we're gonnadiscuss.
So I would say, you know, theclients that have reached out to
us at this stage, it's very easyto avoid it.
And we give them all the properlegal advice.
Uh, if they go on with itsaying, oh, okay, this sounds
(05:19):
good, and I want to get rid ofmy timeshare, and they buy into
it, then that's where the realproblem begins, you know?
So then let's talk a little bitabout the process, where they're
buying into the timeshares.
What, what is the concept, likehigh level, how would you
describe what timeshares are?
Uhhuh and also how they'repackaged and how they're
(05:40):
presented like to people,because that's a very common
thing, and especially incountries like Mexico where
things are a little bit lessregulated.
I know that in the US, themajority of timeshares, I mean,
I wouldn't necessarily call themscams.
It's, it's a gray area, right?
Yeah.
But, but you know, I'm not gonnasay outright, they're all scams.
But it's, it's, it's certainly,there's certainly a lot of
(06:02):
things in there that don't makethem advantageous.
And I think here with lessregulation, right, it can
potentially be even worse.
Even worse.
So how are they packaged thatyou've seen and, and how, what's
actually going on under thesurface?
So, just to backtrack a littlebit, when, um.
Of course resorts are alwaystrying.
I mean, most major resorts inMexico are trying to sell
timeshares because they make alot of profit out.
(06:23):
Yeah.
Of timeshares.
Imagine instead of setting,selling one unit to one person,
you can sell that unit a hundredtimes.
Well, of course that's a betterbusiness, right?
So people, first of all, the waythey try to catch'em is right as
you get off the plane, you'regoing to a vacation in Cancun or
Los Gales or whatever.
You're a tourist and you're justhere for a vacation and they,
(06:44):
you know, snatch you with, oh,you know what, let me.
We can invite you to a free, uh,breakfast or whatever.
Just come listen to ourpresentation and that's how they
catch people.
You know, here you have twotickets or whatever, you know.
So once you go there, they'lltell you, okay, yeah, we're just
gonna give you breakfast free,breakfast free drinks.
Free drinks, it's always acatch.
(07:05):
Mm-hmm.
You know, free margaritas.
Yeah.
And, uh, get you a little,little buzzed, a little loose.
Exactly.
And once they're, you know,talking to you, they're like,
oh, come take a look at ourresort and everything.
They'll, you'll see it.
Most of them are beautiful.
I'm not gonna deny that.
And they'll have you there forhours, you know, you just wanna
get out of it.
They're telling you, you know,giving you more and more
information, you're having moredrinks.
(07:25):
And then by the time,'causethese people are good, you know.
So they're gonna sell you whatthey want.
Most of the time, they end upselling you what you know, what
they want to sell you.
Mm-hmm.
So basically, uh, what, so onceyou sign, they give you a
contract, which you don't,you're not even allowed to read
really?
Because they're like, no, justsigned here.
Sometimes they even take awayyour passport.
I don't know if you realizethis, and they're holding onto
(07:47):
your passport.
You're like, okay, I wannaleave.
Give me my passport.
Oh yeah, we're almost done.
And we'll give you your passportat the end of the presentation.
Wow.
That that's, yeah, that happens.
That's really something.
Oh my goodness.
And uh, and so let's say by theend of the presentation you're
like, okay, you know, sign here.
And some people just signedbecause they're so, you know,
they just so want to get out ofthat.
And they're like, okay, theysigned, they didn't even know
(08:09):
what they signed.
Then they give you a contract.
Oh, congrats.
You got your new time timeshare.
And, um.
Once, you know, maybe the dayafter you realize, what did I
get myself into, right?
Uh, they got your credit cardinfo and everything, so now it's
pretty hard to get out of it.
Mexico has a, just so you know,timeshare, you're not really
(08:29):
buying property.
You have no entitlement at theowner to that property or that
they told you you're gonna be anowner.
Because sometimes they tell you,no, you're gonna be an owner of
this, you know of this thing.
But it's not ownership.
You just have.
Um, couple weeks a year that youcan use.
And these are like on a verylimited basis because you have
(08:51):
to, to give you the blackoutdates.
Exactly.
A lot of blackout dates andstuff and when you try to book.
And then I've heard also.
You can't actually book, youknow, less than a certain number
of weeks in advance, but thenthey charge you to book more
than a certain number of weeksin advance.
Exactly.
So you basically end up alsohaving to pay extra to book it
in in an availability or like aRight.
An amount of time where thesystem even allows you to book
(09:13):
it at all.
You're ending, ending up payingdouble or triple.
Exactly.
And sometimes like, uh, theyalso charge you, uh, maintenance
fees or other type of fees,which were not even in the
contract.
Right.
So you end up paying more thanif you would pay.
Just a regular stay at a nicehotel or resort, you know?
And so it doesn't really giveyou any advantage.
(09:33):
Uh, most people realize thiswhen it's too late, because in
Mexico for, um, timeshare, youdo have, we do have something
called proco, which is, uh, thepro, which is basically a
consumer agency which helpsconsumers, uh, from these types
of, that have been scammed orwhatever.
(09:54):
So technically you could place,you know, um, um, you could
place a a, I guess on, on, onProco, but you only have three
to five days to do it.
So by the time the touristrealizes they sign something,
they don't even know thisbecause of course they're not
gonna tell you this, right?
(10:14):
And so they're like, wow, whatdid I get myself into?
Then they wait till they getback home.
To cancel or contact a, anattorney or something.
Well, then it's too late.
Then we can't cancel it all andall.
You can do, well, you cancancel.
I mean, I'm sorry, but you'rejust not gonna get your money
back.
Right, right.
That is what everyone isinterested about.
(10:36):
So even canceling is a longprocess with Proco.
If it's not within that timeperiod.
And, um, and so cancellationturned so difficult that most
people are like stuck withsomething they didn't really
want.
They just keep paying andpaying.
Yeah.
They didn't even know about it.
And now they have this.
So most of the of the clients wehave are actually not happy with
(10:59):
their timeshares.
Most of them are trying tocancel, but it's very difficult
to cancel.
Mm-hmm.
You call the resort and theresort, the resort is not gonna
cancel.
They're like, no, no, no.
You signed a contract.
You know?
And the contract.
Um, valid for two or threeyears.
You can't even cancel beforethat.
Okay?
That's what they're gonna tellyou.
So if you contact us by then, wecan help you cancel, but it's
(11:20):
gonna be very difficult that weget your money back, okay?
Mm-hmm.
Some cases we've managed to getthe money back, but normally
it's just cancellation and yougotta lose whatever down payment
you put into it.
Um, some people, however, don'tcontact an attorney and don't
cancel it.
Just go on with their timeshare,however they can.
After maybe several years havepassed miraculously, they get a
(11:42):
call from someone or an email orwhatever saying, we wanna buy
your timeshare.
So at this point, they've beentrying to cancel forever.
They're desperate.
They're like, they're like, I'm,I'm desperate.
I mean, wow.
Just out of the blue someone.
And how do you think thesepeople have even got their
information?
You're sharing a coupletheories.
Yeah.
Before, well, that's the thing.
I mean, my theory is that eventhese big resorts, and I'm not
gonna say names because, uh.
(12:04):
But even these big resorts aregiving out a list to the or, or
someone you know is niche withinthe resort.
And we're not gonna say thewhole resort is giving out a
list to these scammers, um, sothat they can contact everyone
and they contact them throughcall centers.
They have actual call centerswhere they're calling all these
people.
(12:24):
So they're not just calling you,they're calling everybody who
has.
Purchased a timeshare, you know,so there's some public record of
it, or it's being sold, orthere's some weird way that they
acquire that information.
I think they're like sellingpublic records or whatever.
Of course, if you call theresort, they're gonna tell you,
no, we're not doing it.
But they are also gonna say, wedon't advise you to resell your
(12:45):
timeshare.
Like there's not a market forreselling.
Timeshare.
Yeah.
Which is another thing that theykind of tend to lie to you about
when you actually buy thetimeshare or fractional
ownership.
Fractional ownership is, theycall it when they're like, oh
yeah, no, you're, you're, you'regonna get the plus or the uhhuh,
the value add as it increasesover time.
The reality of it is nobody evenwants to buy a timeshare in the
(13:06):
fir first place, let alone onthe secondhand market.
Exactly.
Because you don't have thatsales office, the boiler room
there where you, what are yougonna do?
Hire, hire the guy to shout it.
Tourists at the Cancun Airport.
Exactly.
So there's no market for, for,uh, timeshare.
So really you can't sell it.
And of course the resort is notgonna buy it back from you
(13:26):
because why would they, they cansell, you know.
Uh, a unit as many times as theywant.
It reminds me a little offractional reserve banking, but
Exactly.
We won't get, we won't get toointo that.
We're not gonna get into that,but Exactly.
So, so at this point, you know,they're desperate.
Someone contacts them, it seemslike they have the right
credentials because they have awebpage, because they have
(13:46):
everything they're saying, theycall them and Yeah, they answer
of course, because it's a numberthey put in there.
And so if they start to get, if,if they take the bite.
Um, then they're gonna realizethat these people are gonna tell
them, okay.
'cause it's always the sameprocess.
Like maybe the company is calleddifferent.
Sometimes, like I said, theytell them, they say they're a
(14:07):
broker.
Sometimes they're a real estateagents, sometimes they're
attorneys.
But the process is exactly thesame.
Um, and so the, sometimesthey're, they say they're trust
companies, stuff like that.
So they start telling them,look, we're gonna offer you this
much.
And sometimes the amount is a.
A large amount of money.
Like it doesn't even make sensethat they're offering so much
(14:29):
money for a timeshare.
Okay.
Um, guys, when it sounds toogood to be true, it probably is.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So, um, so they're offeringthis, you know, this large sum
of money and then they startsending you a bank account where
they say, look, we have a truston your name.
(14:51):
Uh, with this amount of money,and let's say it can be half a
million dollars, quarter amillion, whatever, it's right
there.
It's ready for you to take it,but you just need to fill out
these forms, which are for sets.
That is like I, our IRS inMexico, you know, for taxing
purposes.
And that's it.
So you fill out the forms, whichare fake, you know, like text
(15:13):
doesn't text.
I mean, SAT doesn't text onthese.
They don't even exist.
You can't even resell timeshare,let alone, you know, tax it.
So, um, so you fill out theforms and they're like, yeah,
but there's a cost because yougotta pay the taxes and the
taxes.
Sometimes they start off with,well, you know, it's, um, 1200,
(15:35):
20, 200, or whatever number.
Mm-hmm.
So people actually buy into thatbecause it, you know what it
reminds me of this is likethose, those, uh.
Nigerian scammers where theysay, you know what?
You have this inheritance of 5million US dollars that.
Came to you from your, yourgreat Uncle Ben.
Right.
And then you get a check and,and then, oh, you know, it looks
(15:55):
like we, we overpaid you alittle bit, so you're gonna have
to send us$15,000 back byWestern Union or, or, uh, what
do they call it?
Like Walmart gift cards?
Yeah.
Before your check the checkclears or, or when it clears,
but it's not actually cleared,then they pulled back because
it's not a legitimate account.
Exactly.
That's it.
That's that type of scam.
Very, yeah.
And a lot of people fall for it,especially elderly people.
(16:16):
Right.
And so they fall for it.
They send whatever amount, butthen they are requiring more and
more.
And at that point, pe somepeople realize, okay, this might
be a scam.
I should talk to an attorney.
They already send them whateverthe amount is.
A hundred thousand dollars.
A hundred thousand.
Yeah.
We've had, goodness people sendlike quarter of a million.
(16:38):
Half a million.
I mean, you don't even believeit.
How much was the property hasnot even worth that much.
I don't understand.
Oh my goodness.
So, yeah.
But, but this is true.
And so once they realize, okay,I've sent a lot of money over
time and this is probably ascam, well, they contact us and
then, you know, they want us tokind of investigate and we can
(16:58):
do that.
But we know now as the factthat, you know, you, you can't
get that money back.
That money is, you know,there's.
Everything, this scamming thingis a big, you know, organized
thing and, um, you can't get themoney back.
So now you're looking at, okay,I lost all this money, I'm not
gonna get it back.
You still have your timesharethough.
(17:19):
'cause they don't take that,they're not even interested in
the timeshare.
Mm-hmm.
But that's, um, and then theystart threatened with, okay, you
know what, we're gonna, uh,we're gonna send this to
litigation, and they startsending letters and all that
stuff.
Wow.
And now you realize.
Then I gotta keep paying thembecause it's litigation.
But it's not, they're not evengonna go to litigation scammers
(17:40):
or the timeshare people, thescammers.
Ah, okay.
Yeah.
So, because I know the timesharepeople don't like it if you stop
paying them either.
No.
So you gotta continue to paywith your timeshare, because
then when you call the timesharecompany, they realize it's under
your name and you gotta keeppaying for that, so.
Mm-hmm.
So that's gonna be, you know,that whole thing.
What's, what's the main lessonin all that other than don't buy
(18:01):
timeshares to begin with anddefinitely don't accept random
calls from people who are tryingto supposedly buy it then asking
you for money.
Right?
Yeah.
So the main lesson I think is ifyou already, uh, bought a
timeshare and you're trying to,you know, sell it, no matter how
desperate you are, I thinkalways contact an attorney or
(18:22):
someone.
Who specialize in this in thecountry that I'm sure is right.
Yeah.
In Mexico, because I mean,someone who specializes in this
in Mexico.
'cause otherwise you're notgonna know what to do and you're
gonna fall into this trap andjust continue, you know, with
that.
So, okay.
Yeah.
So what else, um, what else haveyou seen other types of scams?
(18:42):
I know you mentioned there's alot of, there's a lot of issues
here with title of properties,like who actually owns a
property.
So why is that, first of all,why, why is that a common
problem in Mexico?
Because, I mean, getting a titleis actually a very complex
process and I, I would say, youknow, getting a deed to your
property is even more of acomplex process than it is in
(19:04):
the United States because I, asyou've seen here, you gotta go
through a notary public, whichis not the same thing as in the
states or in Canada or whatever.
I mean, the notary public herereally has public faith, has to
have been an attorney or, orstudied law or whatever.
Then it's like public officeand, and they regulate
(19:25):
everything related to land.
So any transaction related toland has to go through a notary
public.
Mm-hmm.
But there's people that eventhough, like they issue a deed
that says, okay, this person isentitled to the property.
But what people take advantages,a, a advantage of is they'll
just take any property and say,oh, this is my property.
(19:46):
I'm gonna sell it to you.
Well, uh, whoa, whoa.
What do you mean?
So don't have, how, how wouldsomebody, they don't, how, how
would someone do that?
Because that's like a type ofscam.
They're not gonna be able to goforward with that.
But if you fall for it, thenthey'll take some money from
you, you know?
Mm-hmm.
Because like, let's say I say,okay, yeah, I have this law
that's my property, and, and youas a foreigner probably don't
(20:07):
know what to check for.
You're not gonna request a deed,you're not gonna request a title
search because you don't know.
So they just give you acontract, you know, saying the
property is theirs and it's.
These many square meters andblah, blah, blah.
And this is the, uh, the price.
And if you fall for it, becauseI've had clients that have that
this has happened to them.
Mm-hmm.
So they sign the contract, theyrequest a down payment, you give
(20:30):
them a down payment, and as thetransaction moves forward, you
know, maybe, maybe at that pointyou say, okay, I should request
more paperwork, you know?
Mm-hmm.
But when you do, uh, there's nomore paperwork or you can't find
them anymore, you can't get intouch with'em anymore.
So that's like a.
Big problem.
I wouldn't say this happens inthe majority of the cases, but
we've seen cases like this.
(20:51):
So I think your, the main thinghere would be if you wanna buy
property, okay.
You first gotta get with a, um,a real estate agent.
That shows you which property isavailable and all that.
Not just someone, you know,your, like we say here, your RE
that says, oh, uh, yeah, look, Ihave someone who I know that's
(21:12):
selling their product.
My cousin's nephew sellsExactly.
Or whatever sells real estate.
And Guadalajara, they call himNo.
And even not real estate,they're like, they're selling
their land.
Yeah.
And so you're just talking tothis random person, you don't
even know if it's his land ornot.
Mm-hmm.
So the first thing would be.
Okay, that you're actuallyworking with a, with a licensed
(21:32):
real estate agent because realestate agents here are licensed
too.
And, uh, and that you're alsoworking with an attorney because
it's not so simple to buyproperty in Mexico as sometimes
it would be in the States, forexample.
So you gotta see, um, becausethat, that would be another type
of scam, you know, and thenmaybe we can go into, you know,
(21:54):
what you need to actually buy orinvest.
Absolutely.
So.
What are the things thatsomebody should check or, or
have their attorney or a notaryor someone start to check when
they are looking at buyingproperty?
Um, obviously not timeshares.
We know that's probably not theYeah, that's, but if they're
like, Hey, I, you know, there'sthis condo right here, there's a
house.
Down, down by the lake overthere, I'm interested in Right.
(22:17):
FTO is selling it.
Uh, yeah.
How do I know if, if FTO reallyowns the property Right?
Or if he totally doesn't.
So that's why you need anattorney.
I would say so that they're intouch with a real estate agent
and'cause sometimes, you know,there's two parties, right?
The party that's, uh, sellingand the party that's buying.
The problem with a real estateagent is that sometimes they're
(22:37):
representing both.
So you might have a conflict ofinterest there, right?
Yeah.
So yeah, I mean, they're bigtime.
They're gonna wanna sell at allcosts and they're gonna want you
to buy that property.
So if you're the buyer,especially, I would say you need
to get an attorney thatrepresents your interest.
Okay.
And that can talk to the realestate agent and sometimes to
(22:58):
the agency that agent is workingwith, and make sure everything
is right.
Mm-hmm.
So things we look out for are,for example.
Before even signing anything.
Of course you make the offer andwe supervise the terms of the
offer.
Okay?
That the offer is within the,uh, you know, within the market
standards, that it's areasonable offer and all that
(23:20):
kind of stuff.
But also once you make theoffer, and again, you know, we
request all the paperwork.
So you request a deed and weread through the deed and verify
that everything's correctbecause.
Deeds in Mexico can be 50 pages.
Two, I mean, you know, or yeah,or more, or 20 pages or
whatever.
It's not as simple.
It's not as simple.
And you gotta know what you'relooking for within the deed to
(23:42):
know that that deed, you know,or that person or that company,
is entitled to sell thatproperty.
And that property has beenproperly registered within the
public registry.
So that's the other thing we do.
We do a search within the, the,the public registry, uh, of
property.
And we look, uh, there's anothersearch that we do.
(24:03):
So to look that there are not noliens and encumbrances and that,
uh, the title is clear.
Okay.
So those are like the basicthings you gotta look out for.
Mm-hmm.
Um, once we have that, of coursethere's more things, you know,
we, we go through just to seethat the property is okay.
Um.
That the, and then you also workwith a notary to see that
(24:25):
everything is done properly,that the transaction is done
according tostan, Mexicanstandards, Mexican law and
everything.
And if you're buying property,uh, within a hundred meters of
the border, or 15 meters of um,of the coastline, then you gotta
buy either through a trustkilometers.
Kilometers.
(24:45):
Ah, okay.
Yeah, sorry.
Everything is in kilometers inMexico, right?
Got it.
Yeah.
So, uh, so a hundred kilometersof the, all the Mexican border
of the us the border.
And then, and then it's 50kilometers from the coastline.
Right?
From the coastline.
And I think that also includeslike ES and other areas, 50 50.
Does it include lakes as well?
It doesn't include lakes.
Okay.
So if you want to buy here inLake Chapala, you wouldn't need,
(25:07):
which is where we are.
Yeah.
Uh, you wouldn't need a trust,but normally you need either a
trust, which we call.
And that's with a Mexican bank,or you need to establish a
Mexican company.
Mm-hmm.
So we help them in that processalso, and we help them.
We also work with the bankbecause that's another party
coming into play.
(25:27):
Yeah.
So, so you're working with thereal estate agent, the real
estate company, uh, the bank andthe notary basically, and the
attorney.
That's a lot of cooks in thekitchen, right?
Yeah.
Right.
So you gotta, you gotta, if youtry to do this, all this by
yourself.
It's gonna be a nightmare.
Yeah.
And, um, most guaranteed it'sgonna go wrong somewhere.
(25:48):
What are some of the, thecraziest like, horror stories
that you've heard of when itcame to people attempting this
by themselves?
Whether they decided to workwith you after, or you just, you
know, heard about the, theissue.
I mean, what are some of thethings that actually, not just
what could happen, but what haveyou seen actually happen?
So, um, like I said, we had thislady trying to buy property in
(26:09):
and she thought she actuallybought it.
She's, uh.
She gave out a lot of moneybecause she had a contract and
then after a while that shewasn't able to get the property
or she found out, you know,someone claiming that, no, that
was their property.
Then she comes to us because wehadn't been in this, in this
thing.
Like, and unfortunately, peoplesometimes contact you when it's
(26:31):
too late.
Hmm.
And when the problem is alreadythere.
Right.
So she contacts us and she'slike, you know what?
I don't know what's going on.
And we're like, how did you buythis property?
And that's the kind of thing I'mtelling you, like she just.
Bought it from someone who said,owned the property.
And we go into looking into allthe registry and everything, and
it turns out the property wasnot even, was not even theirs.
(26:52):
So now we get into a hugejudicial fight.
Mm-hmm.
Which you don't wanna get intothe, you know, Mexican legal
system.
And it's a lot harder to winlawsuits here, isn't it?
Like the legal system is notstructured in the way, it's not
very structured in the US Right.
And you know, once you have togo that avenue, it's.
Not good.
You know, that can take a lot ofyears.
And FTOs already long goneExactly.
(27:14):
To another state.
Exactly.
And you, I think finally we,well we had to bring a lot of
people in for that.
Like not just us, but another,um, accountant and, and a lot of
specialists, you know, to kindof put this together.
It sounds like it gets a lotmore expensive when they don't
call you.
From the beginning when theydon't work with you with it in
the beginning.
(27:34):
Yeah.
And have, okay.
Exactly.
Why, why do you think that is?
Like why do people do that andtry to figure it out all on
their own?
Because if you guys are watchingthis, I mean, our audience is,
is very.
Intelligent and they like tomake the right decisions and be
very calculated, and they'revery analytical, as am I where I
wanna have all of the rightinformation and do things the
right way.
Um, so if you're watching thisand you've gotten this far in
(27:56):
the video, chances are you're,you're definitely like, oh, I
wanna do things right.
I want to get the right kind ofsupport and guidance.
But let's say that, you know,for people not on our channel,
right, for, for the average,average person, you know, person
maybe that might not be watchingthis even, like, what, what is
it that makes them not.
Seek out the help of, of aprofessional in immigration or
an attorney or, or, or afacilitator to help with all
(28:17):
these different issues with,with real estate?
Like why do they try to avoidthat?
Yeah.
By themselves.
I think it's for maybe two orthree different reasons.
The first one is.
Ignorance.
It's not that they're ignorantpeople, but it's that they're
ignorant of the Mexican system.
So they try to think, I mean, ifI'm thinking like an American or
a Canadian, I think, okay, thiscan go smoothly and you know, I
(28:40):
believe what you're telling meis true and we can do this
transaction and we can just signand that's it.
So that's, they think that theyhave recourse.
Exactly, yeah.
And that they have legalrecourse or other recourse, you
know, like, oh, if not, maybe Ican get my money back, but maybe
we can cancel the transaction.
So that's one, one thing, youknow, like ignorance or maybe
being too naive that everythingis gonna go out as planned, you
(29:03):
know?
Mm-hmm.
But Mexico is an entirelydifferent system.
It works very differently thanother countries.
So that's the first thing youknow, like if you're not fam,
even if you're familiar, likeeven people buying property in
Mexico should look forassistance of, you know, a real
estate agent, an attorney, anotary and everything.
So.
(29:23):
More, you know, like people thatare not familiar with the
Mexican system.
Well, I mean, that's like adouble reason to search for
help, right?
But I think that's one, onereason.
Another reason is I think they,they believe they're gonna save
some money by not con, nothiring anyone and doing it
themselves.
You know, like, uh.
Like, it's sometimes very easyto think, oh, well this seems
(29:47):
simple enough, I can do itmyself.
You know?
But it's, it's kind of likegoing to Vegas and just putting
it all on black.
Exactly.
And saying, well, you know, may,I mean, because there are some s
in which everything goes fine.
Right.
But what would you say thepercentage is of that versus
things going wrong?
I, the percentage, they don'thave the right percentage like
that.
Everything goes fine when you'renot seeking any assistance in
(30:07):
Mexico, when buying property,it's like maybe not even 20%,
you know?
Chance that things will beright.
I, I'd rather take my odds inVegas.
Yeah.
At least those are closer to 50.
Exactly.
Even if the house, I mean, ifyou're on, you know, yeah.
You're, you're, you're, you're,you're throw throwing it on red
or throwing it on black.
At least.
At least then the house haspoint, a little margin, but, but
you know, you're, you're in a,at some point, double digits.
(30:28):
That's not a good, those aren'tgood odds here.
20% on a huge transaction.
Exactly.
It, and it's not necessarilybecause you're gonna get
scammed.
It might not be a scammed, itmight be a legit transaction.
But at some point of theprocess, you're gonna get stuck
and you're not gonna be able tomove forward.
And so, and somebody else whodoes have legal representation,
if it was a legitimate deal,they're gonna end up moving
(30:50):
things forward and you're gonnalose the opportunity.
Exactly.
That's best case scenario.
Yeah.
Best case scenario.
Worst case scenario is you'reout a quarter of a million
dollars or more.
Exactly.
And uh, if you have help fromthe start, like legal help,
financial help, uh, even tax,you know, we also work with a
financial specialist.
To see your, uh, tax scheme,because now you're, you're gonna
(31:11):
be in, you know, investing inanother country.
So how that's something peopledon't think about either.
Uhhuh, how are gonna do yourtaxes and stuff.
So that's something that we alsobring into the mix, like
bringing a financial specialistto work even with a whole thing
of, okay, how much does Mexicotax me for buying property in
Mexico?
They don't even know that.
And then, you know, they'relike, oh, I thought I was
(31:33):
paying, uh, whatever.
Maybe, um.
$800,000 for this property, andit turns out it's a million
dollars.
Why is that?
Well, because he got taxed, hegot a notary excuse, he got all
this.
Mm.
And you're gonna get hit withall that at the end if you don't
have a strategy.
Yep.
Because taxes can be lowered ifyou work them from the
beginning.
So, so it sounds like, you know,even even if they were to drop
(31:55):
10, 15,$20,000 upfront, itpotentially could save them five
or 10 times.
It's gonna save them a lot asmuch of that because they're
doing the tax strategy they'redoing, and, you know, it might
even be lower depending on whatthey need, but they, they get
tax strategy for when they buytax strategy for when they sell.
You also get legal guidance likethroughout the entire process.
And this is what a lot of ourconsultations, we talk about
(32:16):
these things.
Whether it's getting yourresidency visa through income,
through savings, through buyinga property, getting that legal
assistance that you need toactually facilitate those
transactions.
For anything like that thatyou're interested in doing, we
do offer a free consultation.
If you qualify, you can just goto entrepreneur
expat.com/consult and we'll putthe link below this video and
(32:36):
you can apply for that.
Talk to myself, our team,Monica's part of our team here,
and she, she and, and herinternal team support us with a
lot of these things for our ownprojects as well as a lot of
our, our different clients.
Um, what else have, have youbeen seeing in terms of.
In terms of scams, anything elseyou can think of that's really
prevalent?
Yes.
There's another type of scamsor, or they're not scams all the
(32:59):
time, but something I kinda tellclients to either avoid or be
very cautious with is buying onpresale.
Mm-hmm.
Buying on presale means there'snot a development yet.
There's nothing built andthey're just showing you, this
is what, what we're gonna build,but we need you to pay up front.
So, so basically financingtheir, their construction with
(33:21):
your money.
That's what they're doing.
Like they're getting a lot ofpeople like you involved and
then they get all money fromeveryone and then that's how
they start building.
Sometimes they don't even havepermits to build.
Sometimes they don't even havepermits to become like, uh,
condominium or whatever,whatever type of, um.
Residential or, or commercial orwhatever you're, you're gonna be
(33:44):
advertising and selling.
So they just sell this outright.
They do own the land.
Uh, sometimes differentcompanies, like a company will
own the land and another companyis gonna develop.
Mm-hmm.
So developers in Mexico, I mean,some of them are trustworthy, a
lot of them are not.
So the first thing is, if youwanna buy, I always recommend
(34:05):
against this, but if you wannabuy.
In this type of, of, um,scenario, I recommend that you,
that once again, you hiresomeone, you know, a legal
expert, uh, that can take youthrough this process.
And so that what we do is wekind of, um, do a, a research
(34:26):
and a due diligence on, okay,who the developer is, is he a
well-known developer in Mexicoor not?
Have they built anything else?
If so, what have they built?
Did they comply with everythingin that first thing they did?
Sometimes they have differentstages, like stage one is built,
they're building stage two.
Okay.
At least they complied withthat.
Sometimes it's like nobody knowsthese people, you know, who are
(34:47):
they?
Because you can also get to tocases where they're just
laundering money or doing, youknow, using your money for other
purposes and they're never gonnadevelop.
Now the best case, it's scenariois that they do develop.
But since they're financing fromthe people that are paying and
if they don't get enough buyers,then you're gonna be stuck and
they, until they get more money.
(35:08):
Yeah.
So they promised to, it's almostlike a pyramid scheme.
Exactly.
So they promised to geteverything done and you have
your unit or whatever, yourhouse or your apartment ready
within two years and it can take'em five years.
Mm-hmm.
It's very difficult once you getinto this, to go against them.
I mean, we've had had caseswhere they don't comply.
You can't go to court because,like you just said, the legal
(35:30):
system here does not work thatwell.
And these people or thesecompanies have a lot of power.
And so, you know, the court isnot really gonna be in your, in
your favor in these cases.
You don't have the same, youdon't really have the same kinds
of consumer protections inMexico that you do in the us Not
really.
I mean, for this type of casesit's very difficult to get
consumer protection.
(35:51):
Uh, like I said, for timeshare,sometimes you can get consumer
protection.
These cases?
No, you gotta, you gottalitigate them once you run into
this problem.
Mm.
And this is just a very generalway of, of putting it.
There's a lot of, you know,nuances that go into buying in
presale, and if someone isreally hell bent on buying
(36:13):
something pre-sale.
Mm-hmm.
Could you break it into a coupledifferent, like, parts of the
timeline in terms of risk, like.
Hey, they don't have theproperty yet, and it's just an
idea and they're selling itversus, okay, they've got the
property, but they don't havepermits versus they actually
have permits.
Like, how, how would you breakthat in terms of what, what your
likelihood of getting an on-timedelivery?
Well, an on-time delivery isvery unlikely, even if
(36:36):
everything goes perfect.
Because if, even if everythinggoes as planned, they're always
relying, you know.
On the workers, on the buildersand everything.
So they might not show up forwork, they might, whatever.
And that is gonna delay thedeposit.
It's the manana, it's the mananathing, attitude that we have to
hear a lot of notes.
So when you're buying like that,just take into consideration
that even if everything goesperfect, it's gonna delay six
(36:59):
months to a year probably, ifeverything goes perfect.
But the, the things that can gowrong is first, like you said,
they don't have.
They don't have the money, firstof all.
Okay?
Mm-hmm.
So that's one thing.
And they need to get more money,more resources.
If they don't have a line ofcredit with a bank, or if they
don't have some kind of insur,you know, insurance and
(37:21):
assurance from a bank, then yougotta ask yourself, why, why
don't they have this?
It's like, why is their, thebank not giving them credit?
You know?
Mm-hmm.
Because they're not, they're notreliable.
They don't have anything to basetheir credit on.
Or what the issue is.
So that's, I think, another redflag if they can't get credit
from the bank, uh, because ifthey would get credit, they
(37:42):
don't have to use their money,you know, they can use that line
of credit.
Exactly.
Um, the other thing is, yeah,one this, you will, I mean, if
you're trying to buy, you willonly know once you've hired
someone that's gonna do the duediligence.
If, like, like I was saying, ifthey're reliable, if they're in
the Mexican market, if they'reknown, if uh, they have built
(38:04):
something else.
But also you gotta get into thisdue diligence of saying, okay,
do they have proper title?
Do they have all the permits?
Mm-hmm.
That you gotta look, go into.
All the registries that we havein Mexico that we know where to
look for.
But of course, the layperson isnot gonna know where to look.
No.
And they don't even have accessto it because it's not open to
(38:25):
the public.
Like you can't get public accessto some of the, of the files.
So, so do they have all thepermits or are they gonna have
all the permits?
Or are they gonna be, uh, areyou gonna hit a, a block where
it's like, no, I mean, we'regonna suspend construction or
the authority is gonna suspendconstruction.
Mm-hmm.
Because you didn't get this andthis and that.
So building and permits is like,the first thing is money, right?
(38:49):
Do they have money?
Second thing is with the banks,how is the relation, uh, of this
developer with the banks?
And I would say money andreputation first because like we
said, they have to have a goodreputation.
Mm-hmm.
And then all the permits, that'slike another stage once they're
building.
Okay.
They have the permits, but theycan still, uh.
(39:11):
Break up the contract and notdeliver everything they're
seeing in the contract.
They might deliver some things.
For example, they'll give youyour unit, but there's not a
pool.
They, they said they, they'dhave a pool, they have a
restaurant and they don't haveany of that.
Now you have to take your unitas is.
Mm.
So now that's the hope.
Yeah.
With a hope that they're gonnabuild it someday.
Gonna, yeah.
And uh, so that's another aspectof it.
(39:34):
Contract reviewing contractcompromises before you sign the
contract, because once you sign,it's too late.
Yep.
So all that type of thing is,um, is important I think with,
uh, when you're buying presaleand every one of those things
kind of increases, every one ofthose, those items that they
have kind of increases thelikelihood that you're gonna get
it.
But to your point, that's thedanger of presale.
(39:54):
You may get a, a slightly ormuch better price mm-hmm.
But you're running the risk ofyou never getting the unit at
all Exactly.
Or getting it super, super late,or not even having the amenities
that, that you were promisedthey promised.
Or the finishes or the qualityof materials and stuff like
that.
Yeah, like this condo we're atright here.
I mean, we're renting, it's apretty nice condo, but there's a
(40:14):
lot of issues like the conduitsfor wire are not the size
they're supposed to be.
You can't pass cable throughthem.
There's issues with like themembrane on the roof'cause
they're all just built quicklyand then in a lot of cases very,
very cheap.
Right, exactly.
So you never really know andthat's why sometimes it's almost
even better to to buy your ownland and build and and
supervise.
But you still need legal supportfor that.
Exactly.
And then, uh.
(40:36):
Also once you, you know, oncethey've, uh, built a little bit
and everything, you also needappraisals and that kind of
stuff, you know, for, to avoidthose kind of issues now.
Water, electricity, everythingelse, everything like that is a
pro, I mean, or can be apotential problem at some time
at some point.
Because if they don't sell alltheir units, how are they gonna
(40:57):
divide those bills?
You know, who's gonna pay forthem?
Who's gonna pay for the vacantunits?
Mm-hmm.
So now you've got this, and thenthe last part of it.
Is all the, um, regulationissues as far as what I was
saying, what type of is this is,this is gonna be a condominium
or what regime we're gonna havethis on, you know, the bylaws
and everything.
(41:17):
So that's another legal aspectwhere you have to get into it.
That's a lot to consider andthat's not anything that I would
want to have to have in my headto try to figure it all out on
my own.
Right.
So.
I encourage anybody watching whois considering investing in
Mexico, buying real estate,buying land, whatever it is, go
to that link below the video.
Go to entrepreneurexpat.com/consult, schedule a
(41:39):
consult.
Uh, you may be in touch soonwith Monica or her team, or one
of our other team members,depending on what your specific
needs are.
Thank you again, Monica, forbeing here with us today and
sharing all of your wisdom withour channel.
Thank you.
There's just, just so manygolden nuggets in that, and I
hope that it makes people thinktwice about trying to do this
entire process.
On their own.
(42:00):
As always, like this video, ithelps us out a lot and
definitely hit that subscribebutton if you're not already
subscribed, and we look forwardto seeing you on the next video
very soon.
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