Entrepreneur Expat

Avoid These Mexican Real Estate Scams

• Justin Keltner

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are you interested in investing in real estate here in Mexico, but you're afraid that you might get scammed? Well, in this video, I'm actually talking with Monica Loyo, one of our trusted real estate, immigration and legal partners. Who has got over 20 years of experience in helping expats get visas from Mexico by real estate in Mexico and make sure everything is done above board and safely. In this video, we're gonna, we're gonna talk specifically about what some of the common scams are in real estate to look out for here in Mexico, as well as how to avoid them and making sure that you really do your D due diligence, you cross your T's, you dot your i's and everything else. If you've been watching our videos from for some time and have not yet subscribed, definitely hit that subscribe button so that you don't miss any of our latest content and give this video a thumbs up because it really helps us with our mission to reach a million expats and aspiring entrepreneur expats. So welcome, Monica. Thank you so much for being here. And one other thing that I'll share with our audience today before we get started is that if they're interested in working with our team, with your team directly, uh, if they're interested in having us help them. With their immigration, with their visa process here in Mexico, you can actually go to entrepreneur expat.com/consult and apply for a free consultation. Or we'll, we will go into your specific questions and help you create an action plan on how to get started. So Monica, thank you again for being here. Thank you for having me, Justin. It's a pleasure to be here with you and, uh, and yeah, let's, um, let's start to, to tell people how to avoid. All these traps in Mexico and how to avoid scams both in timeshare and in other types of investment. Absolutely. So let's jump right into what some of the most common things that you're seeing, uh, in terms of cases that people have brought to you. I know we were talking about this a little bit earlier. Where somebody's like, oh, you know what, this happened to me and these people ran off with my money for this real estate deal. And they said, you know, hey, can you, can you fix it? Like what are some of the most common things that you're seeing that are like that? So the most common things where we see scams is in timeshare. 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 people purchase, 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 from people that wanna buy their time, or at least they tell them they wanna buy their timeshares. But that just in the. In the majority of cases, if not all the cases are just pure scams. So that's where we get most of the 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. And, and that also sometimes is, you know, can cause conflicts if they didn't check if that property is actually owned by the person that's selling you the property or if, uh, if it's not. If it doesn't have like a double deed or it's been sold to two different people, stuff like that. So let's break it up a little bit into categories then. Yeah. So you mentioned timeshares and when people are reselling timeshares, maybe they, they don't even know that they wanna resell it yet, but they're just kind of done with it for obvious reasons. Like didn't the thing that they said that timeshare was, or fractional ownership in most cases. I mean, there's some opportunities 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 not thought they, they were gonna get and they were trying to get rid of it. And then people actually contacted them outta the blue and said, Hey, you know, we're interested 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 at what they do, which is scamming people. It's a whole, it's not just an individual person. It's a whole, you know, like, um. Almost like a whole crime group, you know, that, that does these types of scams. And what they do is they tell you, 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, group that's buying, uh, different, different, uh, properties or sometimes even as attorneys representing a certain, uh, group or whatever. And, and their credentials seem fine because they'll give you, you know, a webpage or something and you go into the webpage and it does exist and you're like, oh yeah. Or they're brokers and it's like, oh yeah. There's a company here and it says, uh, whatever, uh, brokerage company and, and this and that. So they're like, okay, they must be legit. Which is not the case. A website doesn't actually mean that they're, that they're legit. Exactly. And so when people fall for this, so my first advice is if you get a call like this or someone contacts you just out of the blue email, phone call or whatever. Just be, be suspicious and contact an attorney because right from the start, this is a red flag. And if you go on with a process, it gets more and more complicated as we're gonna discuss. So I would say, you know, the clients that have reached out to us at this stage, it's very easy to avoid it. And we give them all the proper legal advice. Uh, if they go on with it saying, oh, okay, this sounds good, and I want to get rid of my timeshare, and they buy into it, then that's where the real problem begins, you know? So then let's talk a little bit about the process, where they're buying into the timeshares. What, what is the concept, like high level, how would you describe what timeshares are? Uhhuh and also how they're packaged and how they're presented like to people, because that's a very common thing, and especially in countries like Mexico where things are a little bit less regulated. I know that in the US, the majority of timeshares, I mean, I wouldn't necessarily call them scams. It's, it's a gray area, right? Yeah. But, but you know, I'm not gonna say outright, they're all scams. But it's, it's, it's certainly, there's certainly a lot of things in there that don't make them advantageous. And I think here with less regulation, right, it can potentially be even worse. Even worse. So how are they packaged that you've seen and, and how, what's actually going on under the surface? So, just to backtrack a little bit, when, um. Of course resorts are always trying. I mean, most major resorts in Mexico are trying to sell timeshares because they make a lot of profit out. Yeah. Of timeshares. Imagine instead of setting, selling one unit to one person, you can sell that unit a hundred times. Well, of course that's a better business, right? So people, first of all, the way they try to catch'em is right as you get off the plane, you're going to a vacation in Cancun or Los Gales or whatever. You're a tourist and you're just here for a vacation and they, 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 our presentation and that's how they catch people. You know, here you have two tickets or whatever, you know. So once you go there, they'll tell you, okay, yeah, we're just gonna give you breakfast free, breakfast free drinks. Free drinks, it's always a catch. 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 our resort 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 for hours, you know, you just wanna get out of it. They're telling you, you know, giving you more and more information, you're having more drinks. And then by the time,'cause these people are good, you know. So they're gonna sell you what they want. Most of the time, they end up selling you what you know, what they want to sell you. Mm-hmm. So basically, uh, what, so once you sign, they give you a contract, which you don't, you're not even allowed to read really? Because they're like, no, just signed here. Sometimes they even take away your passport. I don't know if you realize this, and they're holding onto your passport. You're like, okay, I wanna leave. Give me my passport. Oh yeah, we're almost done. And we'll give you your passport at 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 the end of the presentation you're like, okay, you know, sign here. And some people just signed because they're so, you know, they just so want to get out of that. And they're like, okay, they signed, they didn't even know what they signed. Then they give you a contract. Oh, congrats. You got your new time timeshare. And, um. Once, you know, maybe the day after you realize, what did I get myself into, right? Uh, they got your credit card info 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 buying property. You have no entitlement at the owner to that property or that they told you you're gonna be an owner. 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 you can use. And these are like on a very limited basis because you have to, to give you the blackout dates. Exactly. A lot of blackout dates and stuff and when you try to book. And then I've heard also. You can't actually book, you know, less than a certain number of weeks in advance, but then they charge you to book more than a certain number of weeks in advance. Exactly. So you basically end up also having to pay extra to book it in in an availability or like a Right. An amount of time where the system even allows you to book it at all. You're ending, ending up paying double or triple. Exactly. And sometimes like, uh, they also charge you, uh, maintenance fees or other type of fees, which were not even in the contract. Right. So you end up paying more than if you would pay. Just a regular stay at a nice hotel or resort, you know? And so it doesn't really give you any advantage. Uh, most people realize this when it's too late, because in Mexico for, um, timeshare, you do have, we do have something called proco, which is, uh, the pro, which is basically a consumer agency which helps consumers, uh, from these types of, that have been scammed or whatever. So technically you could place, you know, um, um, you could place a a, I guess on, on, on Proco, but you only have three to five days to do it. So by the time the tourist realizes they sign something, they don't even know this because of course they're not gonna tell you this, right? And so they're like, wow, what did I get myself into? Then they wait till they get back home. To cancel or contact a, an attorney or something. Well, then it's too late. Then we can't cancel it all and all. You can do, well, you can cancel. I mean, I'm sorry, but you're just not gonna get your money back. Right, right. That is what everyone is interested about. So even canceling is a long process with Proco. If it's not within that time period. And, um, and so cancellation turned so difficult that most people are like stuck with something they didn't really want. They just keep paying and paying. Yeah. They didn't even know about it. And now they have this. So most of the of the clients we have are actually not happy with their timeshares. Most of them are trying to cancel, but it's very difficult to cancel. Mm-hmm. You call the resort and the resort, 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 three years. You can't even cancel before that. Okay? That's what they're gonna tell you. So if you contact us by then, we can help you cancel, but it's gonna be very difficult that we get your money back, okay? Mm-hmm. Some cases we've managed to get the money back, but normally it's just cancellation and you gotta lose whatever down payment you put into it. Um, some people, however, don't contact an attorney and don't cancel it. Just go on with their timeshare, however they can. After maybe several years have passed miraculously, they get a call from someone or an email or whatever saying, we wanna buy your timeshare. So at this point, they've been trying 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 these people have even got their information? You're sharing a couple theories. Yeah. Before, well, that's the thing. I mean, my theory is that even these big resorts, and I'm not gonna say names because, uh. But even these big resorts are giving out a list to the or, or someone you know is niche within the resort. And we're not gonna say the whole resort is giving out a list to these scammers, um, so that they can contact everyone and they contact them through call centers. They have actual call centers where they're calling all these people. 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, or there's some weird way that they acquire that information. I think they're like selling public records or whatever. Of course, if you call the resort, they're gonna tell you, no, we're not doing it. But they are also gonna say, we don't advise you to resell your timeshare. Like there's not a market for reselling. Timeshare. Yeah. Which is another thing that they kind of tend to lie to you about when you actually buy the timeshare or fractional ownership. Fractional ownership is, they call it when they're like, oh yeah, no, you're, you're, you're gonna get the plus or the uhhuh, the value add as it increases over time. The reality of it is nobody even wants to buy a timeshare in the fir first place, let alone on the secondhand market. Exactly. Because you don't have that sales office, the boiler room there where you, what are you gonna 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 not gonna buy it back from you because why would they, they can sell, you know. Uh, a unit as many times as they want. It reminds me a little of fractional reserve banking, but Exactly. We won't get, we won't get too into that. We're not gonna get into that, but Exactly. So, so at this point, you know, they're desperate. Someone contacts them, it seems like they have the right credentials because they have a webpage, because they have everything they're saying, they call them and Yeah, they answer of course, because it's a number they put in there. And so if they start to get, if, if they take the bite. Um, then they're gonna realize that these people are gonna tell them, okay.'cause it's always the same process. Like maybe the company is called different. Sometimes, like I said, they tell them, they say they're a broker. Sometimes they're a real estate agents, sometimes they're attorneys. But the process is exactly the same. Um, and so the, sometimes they'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 sense that they're offering so much money for a timeshare. Okay. Um, guys, when it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Exactly. Yeah. So, um, so they're offering this, you know, this large sum of money and then they start sending you a bank account where they say, look, we have a trust on your name. Uh, with this amount of money, and let's say it can be half a million dollars, quarter a million, 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 in Mexico, you know, for taxing purposes. And that's it. So you fill out the forms, which are fake, you know, like text doesn't text. I mean, SAT doesn't text on these. They don't even exist. You can't even resell timeshare, let alone, you know, tax it. So, um, so you fill out the forms and they're like, yeah, but there's a cost because you gotta pay the taxes and the taxes. Sometimes they start off with, well, you know, it's, um, 1200, 20, 200, or whatever number. Mm-hmm. So people actually buy into that because it, you know what it reminds me of this is like those, those, uh. Nigerian scammers where they say, you know what? You have this inheritance of 5 million US dollars that. Came to you from your, your great Uncle Ben. Right. And then you get a check and, and then, oh, you know, it looks like we, we overpaid you a little bit, so you're gonna have to send us$15,000 back by Western Union or, or, uh, what do they call it? Like Walmart gift cards? Yeah. Before your check the check clears 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. Right. And so they fall for it. They send whatever amount, but then they are requiring more and more. And at that point, pe some people realize, okay, this might be a scam. I should talk to an attorney. They already send them whatever the amount is. A hundred thousand dollars. A hundred thousand. Yeah. We've had, goodness people send like quarter of a million. Half a million. I mean, you don't even believe it. How much was the property has not 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 a scam, well, they contact us and then, you know, they want us to kind of investigate and we can do that. But we know now as the fact that, you know, you, you can't get that money back. That money is, you know, there's. Everything, this scamming thing is a big, you know, organized thing and, um, you can't get the money back. So now you're looking at, okay, I lost all this money, I'm not gonna get it back. You still have your timeshare though.'cause they don't take that, they're not even interested in the timeshare. Mm-hmm. But that's, um, and then they start threatened with, okay, you know what, we're gonna, uh, we're gonna send this to litigation, and they start sending letters and all that stuff. Wow. And now you realize. Then I gotta keep paying them because it's litigation. But it's not, they're not even gonna go to litigation scammers or the timeshare people, the scammers. Ah, okay. Yeah. So, because I know the timeshare people don't like it if you stop paying them either. No. So you gotta continue to pay with your timeshare, because then when you call the timeshare company, they realize it's under your name and you gotta keep paying for that, so. Mm-hmm. So that's gonna be, you know, that whole thing. What's, what's the main lesson in all that other than don't buy timeshares to begin with and definitely don't accept random calls from people who are trying to supposedly buy it then asking you for money. Right? Yeah. So the main lesson I think is if you already, uh, bought a timeshare and you're trying to, you know, sell it, no matter how desperate you are, I think always contact an attorney or someone. Who specialize in this in the country that I'm sure is right. Yeah. In Mexico, because I mean, someone who specializes in this in Mexico.'cause otherwise you're not gonna know what to do and you're gonna fall into this trap and just continue, you know, with that. So, okay. Yeah. So what else, um, what else have you seen other types of scams? I know you mentioned there's a lot 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 title is actually a very complex process and I, I would say, you know, getting a deed to your property is even more of a complex process than it is in the United States because I, as you've seen here, you gotta go through a notary public, which is not the same thing as in the states or in Canada or whatever. I mean, the notary public here really has public faith, has to have been an attorney or, or studied law or whatever. Then it's like public office and, and they regulate everything related to land. So any transaction related to land has to go through a notary public. Mm-hmm. But there's people that even though, like they issue a deed that says, okay, this person is entitled 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. I'm gonna sell it to you. Well, uh, whoa, whoa. What do you mean? So don't have, how, how would somebody, they don't, how, how would someone do that? Because that's like a type of scam. They're not gonna be able to go forward with that. But if you fall for it, then they'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 you as a foreigner probably don't 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 a contract, you know, saying the property is theirs and it's. These many square meters and blah, blah, blah. And this is the, uh, the price. And if you fall for it, because I've had clients that have that this has happened to them. Mm-hmm. So they sign the contract, they request a down payment, you give them a down payment, and as the transaction moves forward, you know, maybe, maybe at that point you say, okay, I should request more paperwork, you know? Mm-hmm. But when you do, uh, there's no more paperwork or you can't find them anymore, you can't get in touch with'em anymore. So that's like a. Big problem. I wouldn't say this happens in the majority of the cases, but we've seen cases like this. So I think your, the main thing here would be if you wanna buy property, okay. You first gotta get with a, um, a real estate agent. That shows you which property is available and all that. Not just someone, you know, your, like we say here, your RE that says, oh, uh, yeah, look, I have someone who I know that's selling their product. My cousin's nephew sells Exactly. Or whatever sells real estate. And Guadalajara, they call him No. And even not real estate, they're like, they're selling their land. Yeah. And so you're just talking to this random person, you don't even know if it's his land or not. Mm-hmm. So the first thing would be. Okay, that you're actually working with a, with a licensed real estate agent because real estate agents here are licensed too. And, uh, and that you're also working with an attorney because it's not so simple to buy property in Mexico as sometimes it would be in the States, for example. So you gotta see, um, because that, that would be another type of scam, you know, and then maybe we can go into, you know, what you need to actually buy or invest. Absolutely. So. What are the things that somebody should check or, or have their attorney or a notary or someone start to check when they are looking at buying property? Um, obviously not timeshares. We know that's probably not the Yeah, that's, but if they're like, Hey, I, you know, there's this condo right here, there's a house. Down, down by the lake over there, I'm interested in Right. FTO is selling it. Uh, yeah. How do I know if, if FTO really owns the property Right? Or if he totally doesn't. So that's why you need an attorney. I would say so that they're in touch with a real estate agent and'cause sometimes, you know, there's two parties, right? The party that's, uh, selling and the party that's buying. The problem with a real estate agent is that sometimes they're representing both. So you might have a conflict of interest there, right? Yeah. So yeah, I mean, they're big time. They're gonna wanna sell at all costs 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 that represents your interest. Okay. And that can talk to the real estate agent and sometimes to the agency that agent is working with, 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 and we supervise the terms of the offer. Okay? That the offer is within the, uh, you know, within the market standards, that it's a reasonable offer and all that kind of stuff. But also once you make the offer, and again, you know, we request all the paperwork. So you request a deed and we read through the deed and verify that everything's correct because. 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're looking for within the deed to know that that deed, you know, or that person or that company, is entitled to sell that property. And that property has been properly 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 another search that we do. So to look that there are not no liens and encumbrances and that, uh, the title is clear. Okay. So those are like the basic things you gotta look out for. Mm-hmm. Um, once we have that, of course there's more things, you know, we, we go through just to see that the property is okay. Um. That the, and then you also work with a notary to see that everything is done properly, that the transaction is done according tostan, Mexican standards, 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 trust kilometers. Kilometers. Ah, okay. Yeah, sorry. Everything is in kilometers in Mexico, right? Got it. Yeah. So, uh, so a hundred kilometers of the, all the Mexican border of the us the border. And then, and then it's 50 kilometers from the coastline. Right? From the coastline. And I think that also includes like 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 in Lake Chapala, you wouldn't need, 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 process also, and we help them. We also work with the bank because that's another party coming into play. Yeah. So, so you're working with the real estate agent, the real estate company, uh, the bank and the notary basically, and the attorney. That's a lot of cooks in the kitchen, right? Yeah. Right. So you gotta, you gotta, if you try to do this, all this by yourself. It's gonna be a nightmare. Yeah. And, um, most guaranteed it's gonna go wrong somewhere. What are some of the, the craziest like, horror stories that you've heard of when it came to people attempting this by themselves? Whether they decided to work with you after, or you just, you know, heard about the, the issue. I mean, what are some of the things that actually, not just what could happen, but what have you seen actually happen? So, um, like I said, we had this lady trying to buy property in and she thought she actually bought it. She's, uh. She gave out a lot of money because she had a contract and then after a while that she wasn'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 we hadn't been in this, in this thing. Like, and unfortunately, people sometimes contact you when it's too late. Hmm. And when the problem is already there. Right. So she contacts us and she's like, you know what? I don't know what's going on. And we're like, how did you buy this property? And that's the kind of thing I'm telling you, like she just. Bought it from someone who said, owned the property. And we go into looking into all the registry and everything, and it turns out the property was not even, was not even theirs. So now we get into a huge judicial fight. Mm-hmm. Which you don't wanna get into the, you know, Mexican legal system. And it's a lot harder to win lawsuits here, isn't it? Like the legal system is not structured in the way, it's not very structured in the US Right. And you know, once you have to go that avenue, it's. Not good. You know, that can take a lot of years. And FTOs already long gone Exactly. 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 kind of put this together. It sounds like it gets a lot more expensive when they don't call you. From the beginning when they don't work with you with it in the beginning. Yeah. And have, okay. Exactly. Why, why do you think that is? Like why do people do that and try to figure it out all on their own? Because if you guys are watching this, I mean, our audience is, is very. Intelligent and they like to make the right decisions and be very calculated, and they're very analytical, as am I where I wanna have all of the right information and do things the right way. Um, so if you're watching this and you've gotten this far in the video, chances are you're, you're definitely like, oh, I wanna do things right. I want to get the right kind of support 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 watching this even, like, what, what is it that makes them not. Seek out the help of, of a professional in immigration or an attorney or, or, or a facilitator to help with all these different issues with, with real estate? Like why do they try to avoid that? Yeah. By themselves. I think it's for maybe two or three different reasons. The first one is. Ignorance. It's not that they're ignorant people, but it's that they're ignorant of the Mexican system. So they try to think, I mean, if I'm thinking like an American or a Canadian, I think, okay, this can go smoothly and you know, I believe what you're telling me is true and we can do this transaction and we can just sign and that's it. So that's, they think that they have recourse. Exactly, yeah. And that they have legal recourse or other recourse, you know, like, oh, if not, maybe I can get my money back, but maybe we can cancel the transaction. So that's one, one thing, you know, like ignorance or maybe being too naive that everything is gonna go out as planned, you know? Mm-hmm. But Mexico is an entirely different system. It works very differently than other countries. So that's the first thing you know, like if you're not fam, even if you're familiar, like even people buying property in Mexico should look for assistance of, you know, a real estate agent, an attorney, a notary and everything. So. More, you know, like people that are not familiar with the Mexican system. Well, I mean, that's like a double reason to search for help, right? But I think that's one, one reason. Another reason is I think they, they believe they're gonna save some money by not con, not hiring anyone and doing it themselves. You know, like, uh. Like, it's sometimes very easy to think, oh, well this seems simple enough, I can do it myself. You know? But it's, it's kind of like going 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 the percentage is of that versus things going wrong? I, the percentage, they don't have the right percentage like that. Everything goes fine when you're not seeking any assistance in Mexico, when buying property, it's like maybe not even 20%, you know? Chance that things will be right. I, I'd rather take my odds in Vegas. Yeah. At least those are closer to 50. Exactly. Even if the house, I mean, if you'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 has point, a little margin, but, but you know, you're, you're in a, at some point, double digits. That's not a good, those aren't good odds here. 20% on a huge transaction. Exactly. It, and it's not necessarily because you're gonna get scammed. It might not be a scammed, it might be a legit transaction. But at some point of the process, you're gonna get stuck and you're not gonna be able to move forward. And so, and somebody else who does have legal representation, if it was a legitimate deal, they're gonna end up moving things forward and you're gonna lose the opportunity. Exactly. That's best case scenario. Yeah. Best case scenario. Worst case scenario is you're out a quarter of a million dollars or more. Exactly. And uh, if you have help from the 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 be in, you know, investing in another country. So how that's something people don't think about either. Uhhuh, how are gonna do your taxes and stuff. So that's something that we also bring into the mix, like bringing a financial specialist to work even with a whole thing of, okay, how much does Mexico tax me for buying property in Mexico? They don't even know that. And then, you know, they're like, oh, I thought I was paying, uh, whatever. Maybe, um.$800,000 for this property, and it turns out it's a million dollars. Why is that? Well, because he got taxed, he got a notary excuse, he got all this. Mm. And you're gonna get hit with all that at the end if you don't have a strategy. Yep. Because taxes can be lowered if you work them from the beginning. So, so it sounds like, you know, even even if they were to drop 10, 15,$20,000 upfront, it potentially could save them five or 10 times. It's gonna save them a lot as much of that because they're doing the tax strategy they're doing, and, you know, it might even be lower depending on what they need, but they, they get tax strategy for when they buy tax strategy for when they sell. You also get legal guidance like throughout the entire process. And this is what a lot of our consultations, we talk about these things. Whether it's getting your residency visa through income, through savings, through buying a property, getting that legal assistance that you need to actually facilitate those transactions. For anything like that that you're interested in doing, we do offer a free consultation. If you qualify, you can just go to entrepreneur expat.com/consult and we'll put the link below this video and you can apply for that. Talk to myself, our team, Monica's part of our team here, and she, she and, and her internal team support us with a lot of these things for our own projects as well as a lot of our, our different clients. Um, what else have, have you been seeing in terms of. In terms of scams, anything else you can think of that's really prevalent? Yes. There's another type of scams or, or they're not scams all the time, but something I kinda tell clients to either avoid or be very cautious with is buying on presale. Mm-hmm. Buying on presale means there's not a development yet. There's nothing built and they're just showing you, this is what, what we're gonna build, but we need you to pay up front. So, so basically financing their, their construction with your money. That's what they're doing. Like they're getting a lot of people like you involved and then they get all money from everyone and then that's how they start building. Sometimes they don't even have permits to build. Sometimes they don't even have permits to become like, uh, condominium or whatever, whatever type of, um. Residential or, or commercial or whatever you're, you're gonna be advertising and selling. So they just sell this outright. They do own the land. Uh, sometimes different companies, like a company will own the land and another company is 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 you wanna buy, I always recommend against this, but if you wanna buy. In this type of, of, um, scenario, I recommend that you, that once again, you hire someone, you know, a legal expert, uh, that can take you through this process. And so that what we do is we kind of, um, do a, a research and a due diligence on, okay, who the developer is, is he a well-known developer in Mexico or not? Have they built anything else? If so, what have they built? Did they comply with everything in that first thing they did? Sometimes they have different stages, like stage one is built, they're building stage two. Okay. At least they complied with that. Sometimes it's like nobody knows these people, you know, who are they? Because you can also get to to cases where they're just laundering money or doing, you know, using your money for other purposes and they're never gonna develop. Now the best case, it's scenario is that they do develop. But since they're financing from the 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. Yeah. So they promised to, it's almost like a pyramid scheme. Exactly. So they promised to get everything done and you have your unit or whatever, your house or your apartment ready within two years and it can take'em five years. Mm-hmm. It's very difficult once you get into this, to go against them. I mean, we've had had cases where they don't comply. You can't go to court because, like you just said, the legal system here does not work that well. And these people or these companies have a lot of power. And so, you know, the court is not really gonna be in your, in your favor in these cases. You don't have the same, you don't really have the same kinds of consumer protections in Mexico that you do in the us Not really. I mean, for this type of cases it's very difficult to get consumer protection. Uh, like I said, for timeshare, sometimes you can get consumer protection. These cases? No, you gotta, you gotta litigate them once you run into this problem. Mm. And this is just a very general way of, of putting it. There's a lot of, you know, nuances that go into buying in presale, and if someone is really hell bent on buying something pre-sale. Mm-hmm. Could you break it into a couple different, like, parts of the timeline in terms of risk, like. Hey, they don't have the property yet, and it's just an idea and they're selling it versus, okay, they've got the property, but they don't have permits versus they actually have permits. Like, how, how would you break that in terms of what, what your likelihood of getting an on-time delivery? Well, an on-time delivery is very unlikely, even if everything goes perfect. Because if, even if everything goes as planned, they're always relying, you know. On the workers, on the builders and everything. So they might not show up for work, they might, whatever. And that is gonna delay the deposit. It's the manana, it's the manana thing, 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 goes perfect, it's gonna delay six months to a year probably, if everything goes perfect. But the, the things that can go wrong is first, like you said, they don't have. They don't have the money, first of 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 of credit with a bank, or if they don't have some kind of insur, you know, insurance and assurance from a bank, then you gotta ask yourself, why, why don't they have this? It's like, why is their, the bank not giving them credit? You know? Mm-hmm. Because they're not, they're not reliable. They don't have anything to base their credit on. Or what the issue is. So that's, I think, another red flag if they can't get credit from the bank, uh, because if they would get credit, they 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 will only know once you've hired someone that's gonna do the due diligence. If, like, like I was saying, if they're reliable, if they're in the Mexican market, if they're known, if uh, they have built something else. But also you gotta get into this due 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 have in Mexico that we know where to look for. But of course, the layperson is not gonna know where to look. No. And they don't even have access to it because it's not open to the public. Like you can't get public access to some of the, of the files. So, so do they have all the permits or are they gonna have all the permits? Or are they gonna be, uh, are you gonna hit a, a block where it's like, no, I mean, we're gonna suspend construction or the authority is gonna suspend construction. Mm-hmm. Because you didn't get this and this and that. So building and permits is like, the first thing is money, right? 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 and reputation first because like we said, they have to have a good reputation. Mm-hmm. And then all the permits, that's like another stage once they're building. Okay. They have the permits, but they can still, uh. Break up the contract and not deliver everything they're seeing in the contract. They might deliver some things. For example, they'll give you your unit, but there's not a pool. They, they said they, they'd have a pool, they have a restaurant and they don't have any of that. Now you have to take your unit as is. Mm. So now that's the hope. Yeah. With a hope that they're gonna build it someday. Gonna, yeah. And uh, so that's another aspect of it. Contract reviewing contract compromises 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 presale and every one of those things kind of increases, every one of those, those items that they have kind of increases the likelihood that you're gonna get it. But to your point, that's the danger of presale. You may get a, a slightly or much better price mm-hmm. But you're running the risk of you never getting the unit at all Exactly. Or getting it super, super late, or not even having the amenities that, that you were promised they promised. Or the finishes or the quality of materials and stuff like that. Yeah, like this condo we're at right here. I mean, we're renting, it's a pretty nice condo, but there's a lot of issues like the conduits for wire are not the size they're supposed to be. You can't pass cable through them. There's issues with like the membrane on the roof'cause they're all just built quickly and then in a lot of cases very, very cheap. Right, exactly. So you never really know and that's why sometimes it's almost even better to to buy your own land and build and and supervise. But you still need legal support for that. Exactly. And then, uh. Also once you, you know, once they've, uh, built a little bit and everything, you also need appraisals and that kind of stuff, you know, for, to avoid those kind of issues now. Water, electricity, everything else, everything like that is a pro, I mean, or can be a potential problem at some time at some point. Because if they don't sell all their units, how are they gonna divide those bills? You know, who's gonna pay for them? Who's gonna pay for the vacant units? Mm-hmm. So now you've got this, and then the last part of it. Is all the, um, regulation issues 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 have this on, you know, the bylaws and everything. So that's another legal aspect where you have to get into it. That's a lot to consider and that's not anything that I would want to have to have in my head to try to figure it all out on my own. Right. So. I encourage anybody watching who is considering investing in Mexico, buying real estate, buying land, whatever it is, go to that link below the video. Go to entrepreneur expat.com/consult, schedule a consult. Uh, you may be in touch soon with Monica or her team, or one of our other team members, depending on what your specific needs are. Thank you again, Monica, for being here with us today and sharing all of your wisdom with our channel. Thank you. There's just, just so many golden nuggets in that, and I hope that it makes people think twice about trying to do this entire process. On their own. As always, like this video, it helps us out a lot and definitely hit that subscribe button if you're not already subscribed, and we look forward to seeing you on the next video very soon.