Nayarit Ejido- Cultural Traditions Tara A. Spears
This week in February celebrated not only Carnival but the anniversary of the La Penita ejido system. Ejido is a quintessentially Mexican real estate principal that you might need to understand as you consider buying property in Mexico. Even if you’re not interested in property buying, understanding the history of ejido gives a good insight into Mexican culture.
Although the ejido has roots in practices dating back to the Aztecs, it’s a relatively young real estate institution in modern Mexico. After centuries under the encomienda system, almost all the farmland in Mexico was concentrated in the hands of a small population of elites. 95% of Mexicans could not own land and these workers were known as peons.
By the time of the Mexican revolution of 1917 (-you know that event is strongly celebrated over a century later!) many of these large plots were reclaimed by the government and turned into ejidos–communal land–so that Mexican citizens would have access to agricultural resources .It is Mexican federal law that all Mexicans are entitled to have land. Presently ejidos and the farming communities that manage them comprise over 40% of Mexico’s total land area. Foreigners cannot technically hold title over ejido land–but that doesn’t mean they can’t purchase and live on it.
Ejido land holdings are extensive and varied. All the land is governed by the community who are voted in and have a set term in office. In La Penita the office is located on the one way street behind the post office. There are three different types of parcels within the ejido system: land for community development, common land, and individually-possessed parcels. Community development land is essentially untouchable, while common land can be converted into individual parcels designed for families to live on. Under certain circumstances, these residential parcels, or solares. It can be lengthy, expensive, and unpredictable, but as of 1992, there is a process for turning communal land into a privately-owned parcel. The Programa para Cesion de Derechos Ejidales, or PROCEDE, offers a path for ejido lands to become “regularized” and thus available for private ownership.
Living on these parcels requires that you purchase the residence on agrarian terms. Agrarian refers to a more rural system of property management that’s administered separately from the conventional forms of property ownership run by the Mexican government. Under agrarian terms, you purchase the right to possess the property, but this possession comes with a few interesting caveats.
The decision to regularize the land involves the entire ejido. 2/3 of the community must vote to approve privatization. Even if the vote passes, should someone come forward with a valid communal claim to the land after the fact, there could be an expensive and lengthy legal battle. That’s why it’s necessary to hire a lawyer to conduct extensive due diligence to determine any complicating ancestral claims and to handle any other issues. The inherent risks and expenses are often too much for single-family home buyers, which is why many privatizations of ejido lands are undertaken by well-resourced large developers.
As a buyer or seller, you may need to attend (or enlist a representative to attend) a periodically-held community assembly to present your plan for land transfer. As long as there are no complications with community approval, you can move forward with the transfer of possession. But don’t expect to receive a deed transferring title to your name–you’re not the owner. And your purchase will not be documented in the national property registry. Instead you’ll receive a Cesion de Derechos (Transfer of Rights) and a Constancia de Posesion (Record of Possession) to document your right to possess and use the property. The former catalogs the yield of possession of the land, while the latter documents your gaining of rights to use the property.
To the hard working Mexicans that were prevented from owning the land they toiled on for generations, this right to have property is very important and worth celebrating each year. “There was nothing to compare with standing on a piece of land you owned free and clear. No one could push you off it, no one could take it from you, no one could tell you what to do with it,” said a local resident.