Stories of Ejido

If you did not arrive here from the Political Primer you might want to go there and read about what the Ejido is (about half way down that page).

An ejido real estate story

If buying land make sure it is not in the Ejido. If it is Ejido land the seller does not own it and he is only transferring his ancestral right to the land to you. The ejiditarios control the land and they can charge you whatever they decide when your application to change the name on the land comes to them. A friend of mine “bought” a very nice piece of land very reasonably priced. When it came time to register the transaction at the ejido office each of the ejiditarios thought they should be paid for their approval of the transaction. This amounted to about US$32,000. The land is still in limbo because my friend refuses to pay. Various people have advised me that the ejiditarios do not have that power but the truth is that the transaction is in limbo. My friend is not a Mexican citizen but they were trying to transfer it to his wife who is. Just imagine the problem a non national might have.

A kindergarten ejido story:

I was working with a local school teacher who taught 17 kindergarten children out of a 4 meter by 7 meter rented house.  She had petitioned the ejido to give her land to build a new kindergarten and after 2 years of constant pressure from her and the parents they relented and gave her 998 square meters.  They actually allocated it to SEP (Secretaría de Educación Pública).   I am told that this would have to have been approved by the ejidotarios at a general meeting but the document carried an impressive set of stamps and signatures so that must have already happened.

SEP has a rule that a kinder requires 1200 square meters but we figured they might make an exception if we could show that substantial funding had been raised and the community was working hard on the project.  So we went to stake out the land with the community plan and the entitling document from the ejido in hand.  What we found was a vacant lot overgrown with weeds.  As we located the property on the map there emerged a number of problems.  The land was designated as green zone but that did not seem to worry anyone since the primary school across the street was also built on a green zone.  It was puzzling that although the ejido document showed 4 side measurements the property obviously was a triangle.  We staked what we could make sense of and discovered that a 300 square meter strip of land that was to be a drainage canal had been included.  Not really a problem since we can build on top of a canal.  However the land for the canal had been taken from the road allowance which was a problem because road allowances have already left the ownership of the ejido and been ceded to the municipalities obras publicas (public works) so their approval would have to be obtained.  On further inspection and by some tricky measuring we located a street shown on the plan which had not yet been built.  That robbed another 200 or so square meters leaving about 500 square meters which is clearly insufficient for a preschool.  Back to the ejido offices.

The Ejido said the plan we were working from was not correct but we could locate no other plan.  The SEP architect and legal beagle visited to view the site and discuss the problems.  They decided that although the land given by the Ejido clearly included property and access to property which had been given by them to other owners SEP would be able to make good their claim to the property if anyone brought forward a challenge.  They basically said the document from the Ejido had sufficient legal status for them to claim and use the land specified in it.

The same day they had visited another similar project with similar problems.  When discussing how to proceed on that project locals made it clear that overlapping claims were common and suggested the best way to clear up matters was to put a fence around the property with a sign on it saying that it is to be a school.  The advice was to make clear your claim and then deal with any challenges as they arise.

Neither of the properties has been fenced so the story will continue later.

It is now later (June 2010). Update: The first property discussed (La Patria) was never challenged by any other owners but the other (Las Cabras) was hotly contested by another owner.

The kindergarten eventually prevailed but the process did cause almost a one year delay. The other owner lost his total investment in the property which I would estimate at about 30,000 pesos worth of construction plus whatever he paid for the land. He was a Mexican. When the other owner threatened to sue the ejido an ejido official said they had a number of law suits, what was one more.