“Don’t touch ejido land with a ten-foot barge pole,” a savvy Chapala realtor once told a client who expressed interest in purchasing some cooperative farm (ejido) land in the area with a fabulous view of the lake. “You never know what problems are going to surface later.”
Such advice is often heeded but some foreigners, especially at the coast, can become deaf to such warnings after seeing fabulous pieces of land being traded at what seem like reasonable prices.
Foreigners buying land in Tenacatita were scammed, developer contends
Many foreigners who bought ejido land adjoining the beach at Tenacatita believed the lots to be properly titled. A well-known local notary apparently also thought so, as did many realtors, who vigorously advertised the lots in the area and on the internet.
As we have seen in the past four weeks, the history of the land was tenebrous, to say the least. The Guadalajara developer who claims to own the land has ruthlessly taken possession and from the looks of it, he ain’t going to budge an inch.
Andres Villalobos is a successful, single-minded, if rather abrasive, entrepreneur, whose desire to build a luxury tourist resort alongside Tenacatita’s spectacular beach dates back several decades, when he first entered litigation with the ejido over ownership of the valuable land in question. The legal machinations of this particular case are almost too complex to follow but if possession really is nine-tenths of the law then Villalobos will be virtually impossible to remove. And even if judges do rule that the foreigners’ plots of land are rightfully theirs, who could they count on to evict the real-estate baron’s guaruas (guards) with the same show of strength displayed by state police on August 4. Certainly not the current state government. The federal police or the Army? Don’t bet the farm on it.
Much might depend on which party is in power at the time. With the backing of the “business-friendly” National Action Party (PAN) state government, and the looming prospect of defeat in two years’ time by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) – a party whose tentacles stretch deep into the campesino movement and one that is less likely to be so sympathetic to his cause – Villalobos maybe felt that “getting the squatters out” had to be “now or never” and garnered all his considerable political clout to get it done as soon as the final ruling in the case was handed down. Whether he can get the right permits quickly enough to start building his dream vacation resort is another matter entirely.
While many people were outraged at the apparent callousness of the eviction of families that had lived in the beachfront area for decades, the reality is that Villalabos simply regards these people, whom he says have encroached onto his land like ants over the years, as corrupt “delinquents,” spurred on by “agitators” – a handily ambiguous word that some conservatives love to use to describe their ideological opposites. Neither is he particularly sympathetic to their financial situation. For Villalobos, upholding the law is paramount: the (80 hectares) is mine, they were on it illegally, they must be removed. End of story.
For “innocent” foreigners caught up in the chaos and stuck with titles that may or may not be valid, the panorama is particularly bleak. Their choices are few. Villalobos this week offered to pay their legal costs if they file criminal complaints against those he says “cheated” them. But that’s no skin off his nose. By going down that route, it means the foreigners won’t be suing him and he won’t have to delve into his pockets to fight those cases. And can the foreign victims be sure Villalobos will go after these “cheats” with any real conviction now he has possession of the land and an army of guards to keep all and sundry out? In the event that a judge eventually – perhaps years down the line – makes a ruling in their favor, will they get any of their money back and if they do, how much might Villalobos take out as a “commission”?
Yes, life really can suck sometimes.
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