This story got a lot of attention a few years ago:
- Americans Face Eviction From Baja Resort Homes; 150 homeowners, many of them California retirees, are caught up in a complex land grant dispute -
September 3, 1999 - "In a hard-luck case that illustrates the perils of owning Mexican real estate, about 150 Baja California homeowners, most of them U.S. citizens from Southern California, face mass eviction on Oct. 11 from a picturesque beachfront development just south of here, homes in which many have invested their life savings.
The looming evictions at the surf-side community known as Punta Banda, 85 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border, provide a wrenching example of how life in Mexico can turn risky or even tragic. U.S. tourists are increasingly caught up in a wave of carjackings and kidnappings sweeping Mexico, and just last month three U.S. residents in Baja California were slain in separate robbery incidents.
The pending loss of the Punta Banda homes, ranging in value from $50,000 to upward of $1 million each, is a cautionary tale for Americans who are thinking about buying permanent or vacation residences in Mexico.
It should also cause the estimated 63,000 Americans who already own property in Baja California to reflect on how ownership can be like the shifting white sands of the beaches here, and how powerless U.S. authorities are to intervene when disputes arise.
So, if the 150 Punta Banda homeowners are evicted from their homes next month, they would not be the first Americans to lose their shirts in Mexico.
But the scheduled action could rank as Mexico's largest single eviction of U.S. homeowners on record, with about $25 million worth of property involved.
It certainly would stand as one of the most heart-rending, since many of those facing eviction are elderly retirees with no other place to call home.
"We wouldn't have enough to buy another house if we lose this," said Alejandro Sanchez, 67, a retired Yuma, Ariz., bank executive who lives at Punta Banda full time. He was one of 40 homeowners who attended a meeting with an attorney at the development Wednesday to discuss their options. "We put most of our money into this."
"To have us sitting here with our stomachs in a knot, not knowing what will happen next, it's so mentally confusing that people, myself included, are walking around in a daze," said Grant Hoel, 78, a San Juan Capistrano retiree who has owned a house here since 1996.
"I feel terrible, haven't slept for weeks now, worried about this whole situation," said Marcel Boussala, 72, a retired real estate developer from Los Angeles who stands to lose the $600,000 he has invested in a home and three lots. "There are so many people who have nothing except these homes."
Like many of Punta Banda's residents, Joe Maruca, superintendent of the Imperial Unified School District in El Centro, never thought it would come to this.
He will retire from his post this month and was planning to spend his golden years at the Mexican beach house, for which he paid $80,000 cash in 1996. Now, he says, he's "sitting here holding the bag."
Same as if X steals my car, changes the title and leases it to Y. Y may have fixed the car, but it's my car, still and I can get it back under the law.