Raising the Bar for Mexican Real Estate Representation

When pur­chas­ing real estate in any part of Mex­ico, it is impor­tant for buy­ers to know their “Bill of Rights.” Most grin­gos ven­ture into the coun­try in search of a lit­tle piece of par­adise with­out fully under­stand­ing the rights that they have as for­eign­ers. They hope for processes that will give them real estate pro­tec­tions that they are used to at home, but they often find some­thing quite different.

In an effort to stan­dard­ize buyer rep­re­sen­ta­tion and dis­clo­sure by real estate agents, a new reg­istry of real estate agents has been cre­ated in Baja Cal­i­for­nia, Mex­ico, called Baja Fair Trade. The pur­pose of the reg­istry is to bet­ter serve buy­ers and to pro­mote real prop­erty rights by increas­ing trans­parency through a stan­dard­ized dis­clo­sure database.

Baja Fair Trade agents rec­og­nize the spe­cial con­cerns that buy­ers have once they visit Baja Cal­i­for­nia, with its unique processes, laws, and cul­ture. The Registry’s focus is to help them obtain the real prop­erty rights that the buy­ers came to buy in the first place. The agents com­mit to pro­mote prop­er­ties that allow com­plete funds escrow and that are con­trac­tu­ally con­tin­gent upon a clean title. They also dis­close sig­nif­i­cant, known issues that may affect prop­erty val­ues using the first such data­base in Baja Cal­i­for­nia. Reg­istry par­tic­i­pants may be mem­bers of any asso­ci­a­tion and must make spe­cific dis­clo­sures to their clients in the cur­rent absence of objec­tive fed­eral, state, local, or asso­ci­a­tion dis­clo­sure requirements.

Notably, Baja Fair Trade is the only reg­istry of real estate agents that opens itself to pub­lic and media scrutiny. As well, buy­ers who feel that one of the agents on the Reg­istry has not met the stan­dards of the pro­gram can notify the com­mit­tee via the Praise and Com­plaints tab on the home page.

Reg­istry par­tic­i­pa­tion is open to bro­kers and all of the agents under­neath them, or to indi­vid­ual agents who do not have a bro­ker spon­sor. The Reg­istry is inde­pen­dent of real estate agency or asso­ci­a­tion and pro­motes escrow, title insur­ance, debts that are man­aged as mort­gages, prop­erty inspec­tions, and pro­fes­sional clos­ing services.

Any real prop­erty shown by a Baja Fair Trade agent should meet cer­tain stan­dards. The Baja Fair Trade agent dis­closes fac­tors that may affect a buyer’s pur­chase deci­sion, such as the risks asso­ci­ated with skip­ping steps, envi­ron­men­tal haz­ards, prop­erty inva­sions, law­suits and dis­putes, and other known fac­tors that may impact prop­erty val­ues to the buyer.

Baja Fair Trade stan­dards pro­hibit cer­tain refer­rals for com­pen­sa­tion. An agent may not receive com­pen­sa­tion for refer­ring cus­tomers to an escrow agent, struc­tural pest con­trol firm, home pro­tec­tion com­pany, title insurer, escrow com­pany, or title com­pany. The rela­tion­ship of the buyer’s agent to the seller (if any) must be dis­closed along with the method and amounts of the agent’s commissions.

Sev­eral tools have been estab­lished that will allow Baja Fair Trade agents to share and exchange infor­ma­tion. Using Google Earth and Google Groups, a down­load­able dis­clo­sure form will be made avail­able to par­tic­i­pat­ing agents regard­less of their other affil­i­a­tions and will serve as a cen­tral data­base. The access to this infor­ma­tion is an invalu­able tool to the per­for­mance of proper dis­clo­sures to buyers.

Work­ing with a Baja Fair Trade agent will help pro­tect buy­ers and open doors to crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion once held in private.