How Canadians buy
in the Riviera Maya

Yes. A Canadian corporation can be the named owner inside the fideicomiso and the trust bank accepts one routinely. Whether it helps you is a different question, and it turns on whether you will use the property yourself. When a corporation owns a property its shareholder uses, the Canada Revenue Agency can treat that use as a taxable shareholder benefit, valued on what the use is worth rather than on what you paid the company. On a pure rental a corporation starts to make sense, with Mexican tax generally relieved under the Canada Mexico tax treaty, although passive rental income is caught by the foreign accrual property income rules and a foreign affiliate normally triggers a T1134 return every year. There is no principal residence exemption on a Mexican vacation property either way.

No, and this is the most common misunderstanding we hear. A foreigner on a tourist entry can buy property in Mexico, and it happens every week. What you need is a passport, funds you can trace and, inside the restricted coastal zone, a fideicomiso. No visa, no residency card and no RFC is required to purchase, although you will need an RFC if you rent the property out. In practice the order runs the other way: buy first, then apply for residency, because owning property here supports an application and an owner with a registered deed, a Mexican bank account and utilities in their name is in a much stronger position than an applicant with nothing.

Yes, and it is common. Inside the restricted coastal zone the title itself is held in a fideicomiso, a renewable bank trust, and your Canadian corporation is named in that trust as the owner of the property, with the bank on the deed only as trustee. It works, it is accepted by the banks and the notaries, and it is often the right answer for liability and estate planning. What it does not do is remove the fideicomiso or its annual fee. Outside the restricted zone a Mexican company can hold the deed directly, which is a different structure with different bookkeeping.

Clean title means the property is registered in the seller’s name at the Registro Público de la Propiedad, free of liens and encumbrances, current on property tax and water, and in the case of a condominium current on its maintenance fees with the regime properly constituted. It is verified with documents, not assurances: a certificado de libertad de gravamen, the cadastral record, a certificate of no debt from the municipality and the water utility, the condominium regime and the last three years of assembly minutes, plus a survey where the boundaries matter. Ejido land that was never regularized cannot be verified this way, and that is the single most common way foreign buyers lose money here.

Because in this market the budget does not narrow the search, it defines which towns exist for you. Two hundred thousand dollars is a good two bedroom in the right building and it is nothing at all in Mayakoba. Asking first is not a sales tactic, it is the only way to avoid showing you three weeks of properties you will not buy, and it lets us tell you honestly when the number does not match the goal so you can decide whether to adjust the number or the goal.

It depends far more on the building than on the town. A well located two bedroom with a rental program can run 55 to 70 percent annual occupancy in Playa del Carmen and Tulum, which lands most owners in the 5 to 8 percent gross range before management, fees, tax and vacancy. Net is typically 3 to 5. Two things break those numbers: buying in a building whose regime does not allow nightly rental, which is most of Cancún’s hotel zone and most consolidated residential communities, and assuming the developer’s projection is a forecast rather than a marketing document.

Over the last decade the strong corridors have averaged roughly 6 to 10 percent a year in dollar terms, with the peaks in areas that received real infrastructure rather than the ones with the most advertising. Appreciation here is driven by three things you can actually check before you buy: scarcity of buildable land inside a finished community, infrastructure that is built rather than announced, and demand that is not purely seasonal. Anything sold to you on a projection alone is a bet, not a plan.

They are called cuotas de mantenimiento and they are set by the condominium assembly under the regime, not by a management company. Expect roughly 2.50 to 4.50 US dollars per square meter per month in a full amenity building, less in a simple low rise, and nothing at all in some house neighborhoods on municipal streets. The number to ask for is not this month’s fee, it is the last three years of assembly minutes, because that shows how often extraordinary assessments have been called and whether the reserve fund actually exists.

No. Most of our clients close with a power of attorney granted before a Mexican consulate or an apostilled US power of attorney, and the notary signs on their behalf. You do need to be identifiable and compliant: passport, proof of address, RFC in some cases, and clean source of funds documentation. Being remote is normal here, being unrepresented is what causes problems.

You can bring it into the country easily. Getting it into the building is the harder part, and it is a real reason buyers change zones. Many condominium regimes in the tourist corridors either prohibit pets or cap them by weight, and a rental focused building with heavy turnover is usually the strictest. Residential communities are the opposite: houses with their own garden, pet parks and no weight limits. This one question can eliminate half a shortlist, which is exactly why we ask it before we send listings.