# Renting from Owners



## surfrider (Oct 4, 2011)

:scared::scared:This has been my personal experience. I rented a house in San Cristobal with no rental contract. Should also add here that I am knowledgeable in Real Estate Law. I suggested I write a contract and owner said no reason to. I let it go.
Rented a house in Chapala area - no contract. Wrote contract and owner was in the states so I sent him the contract and he did not even care to sign it and send it back. lived there for about one year. 
Rented a house in an area by Patzcuaro again no contract and again suggested I write one up for the owner. No. Owner helped move us in - owner gave me the keys Then owners wife went nuts and wanted a contract and first and last and it was just horrible. We had to leave there within hours pack up everything and find another place. What a mess.
Found another place but owner is not in town and her sister rented to us - no contract. Again owner will come later with contract.
RECOMMENDATION. Rent from a real estate office with a rental division and have a contract before you move in. This really is real estate law and P.S. there is a real good reason for the law. With rents - real estate is no different in Mexico than in the states. Nothing is valid unless it is in writing.


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## edgeee (Jun 21, 2012)

Thank you.
I am a trusting sort and it has cost me more than once.
We would all be better off if we remembered that courts do not recognize a hand shake.
Especially for new-comers, GET IT IN WRITING.
If you don't, it didn't exist.
Harsh but true.


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## FHBOY (Jun 15, 2010)

RECOMMENDATION. Rent from a real estate office with a rental division and have a contract before you move in. This really is real estate law and P.S. there is a real good reason for the law. With rents - real estate is no different in Mexico than in the states. Nothing is valid unless it is in writing.[/QUOTE]

We are precisely doing that in Ajijic, [lease through an agent] but I also read that contracts in English that are not translated and signed before a notario are basically useless (someone please verify). 

I suppose it is again a moral decision - does one make a contract with the intent to break it, or does one believe that his/her signature and promises made (even in a contract) are sacred and to deliberately make them without intent to fulfill them is morally questionable at the very least?


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

No need for a real estate office but a contract yes. My landlords have always wanted one to itemize what's in the house and for their own legal protection. You can get generic rental agreements at any papeleria


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## mickisue1 (Mar 10, 2012)

Surf Ruder: your experience is 3:1 in favor of no contract. Your history shows that one of four of the places you rented, you had an issue with not having a contract.

What do you think might have happened, even with a contract, if the wife had been unhappy with the terms? Just a guess, but I imagine that you still might have been out on the street, and unless you are fluent in both Spanish and legalese, with no recourse.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

I've been renting my apartment in Mexico City since 2007 from one of my oldest and best friends, and he always has me sign a yearly contract. Of course, I should mention that though by now he is a naturalized Mexican citizen, he was born in Germany and grew up in the States, so that may have something to do with his insistence on dotting the i's and crossing the t's!


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## circle110 (Jul 20, 2009)

We would never consider renting using a real estate service. You are guaranteed to pay substantially more and are not any better protected since real estate agencies have no regulating body in Mexico. A realtor could easily be as shifty as any individual landlord, possibly much more so. 

Now, there are certainly legitimate real estate operations in Mexico so if you research and find a good one you will be fine as far honesty and fairness goes, but you'll still pay quite a bit more.

We have only rented directly form owners and have always had a signed contract. Each time the landlord has had their contract and we have asked for minor modifications and they have always agreed to make the modifications since what we asked was reasonable. 

Our vote: Contract, yes -- real estate agency, no.


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## edgeee (Jun 21, 2012)

This whole thing makes my head spin.
I'm glad i'm just going to be a 'tourist' for the rest of my life.
At least i won't be sued to death.
And if i'm lucky i'll be the gringa who slowly faded away.
But first i have to figure out how to get to Mexico.
Does anyone know how to get rid of everything related to the USA?


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

edgeee said:


> Does anyone know how to get rid of everything related to the USA?


Hah! These days, with the internet connecting everyone and every place on the planet, there's no way to get away from the USA, or anywhere else in the world with which you have connections of some sort, unless you live somewhere far away from "civilization".


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## tepetapan (Sep 30, 2010)

I have 7 units I have been renting here in Mexico for the last 6 or 7 years. Some renters are long term retirees and some are winter / monthly renters. I almost never offer a contract, it is month to month and a handshake is fine with me. 
I am on the property 12 hours a day, 7 days a week normally and see most everyone daily. If I do not see someone for a couple days I will check on them since everyone is pretty much retirees and things happen sometime. That is part of the business, making sure everyone is OK.
A few people have asked for a contract and I always say OK, I´ll get one and we will fill it out if that is what you want. In all but one case they decided that if I did not want one then they didn´t either. Ahhh but the one guy, who rented for a year sight unseen demanded I fax a contract to him and the whole deal. He came down, spent less than a week and left. It was nothing but a (tax) scam since he posted on his Professional Consultant Webpage he had an office in 4 countries, one of which was in Catemaco, Veracruz,. I was going to turn him into the IRS but, being in Mexico, that was not an option...you have to go in person to an office. 
I lost my butt on that deal and there is nothing I could do since he fled back to Texas and any costs to pursue him would have just added to what I had lost.


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## edgeee (Jun 21, 2012)

tepetapan said:


> I have 7 units I have been renting here in Mexico for the last 6 or 7 years. Some renters are long term retirees and some are winter / monthly renters. I almost never offer a contract, it is month to month and a handshake is fine with me.
> I am on the property 12 hours a day, 7 days a week normally and see most everyone daily. If I do not see someone for a couple days I will check on them since everyone is pretty much retirees and things happen sometime. That is part of the business, making sure everyone is OK.
> A few people have asked for a contract and I always say OK, I´ll get one and we will fill it out if that is what you want. In all but one case they decided that if I did not want one then they didn´t either. Ahhh but the one guy, who rented for a year sight unseen demanded I fax a contract to him and the whole deal. He came down, spent less than a week and left. It was nothing but a (tax) scam since he posted on his Professional Consultant Webpage he had an office in 4 countries, one of which was in Catemaco, Veracruz,. I was going to turn him into the IRS but, being in Mexico, that was not an option...you have to go in person to an office.
> I lost my butt on that deal and there is nothing I could do since he fled back to Texas and any costs to pursue him would have just added to what I had lost.


Sorry to hear of your problems.
If i happen to show up in April or May, will you have a place to rent?
I'm not jerking your chain, but someone is pulling mine.
Eventually i will make it to Mexico, but it may take a while to make it happen.
Maybe someday we can help each other.
Until then, good luck.


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## tepetapan (Sep 30, 2010)

edgeee said:


> Sorry to hear of your problems.
> If i happen to show up in April or May, will you have a place to rent?
> I'm not jerking your chain, but someone is pulling mine.
> Eventually i will make it to Mexico, but it may take a while to make it happen.
> ...


 Odds are we will have a place available. Write me as you get closer to making the move or have a somewhat firm date in mind. PM is probably best.
The guy who chumped me was years ago and is water under the bridge. Life is good in Mexico.


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## goerge111 (Oct 23, 2012)

*Just an Idea*



tepetapan said:


> I have 7 units I have been renting here in Mexico for the last 6 or 7 years. Some renters are long term retirees and some are winter / monthly renters. I almost never offer a contract, it is month to month and a handshake is fine with me.
> I am on the property 12 hours a day, 7 days a week normally and see most everyone daily. If I do not see someone for a couple days I will check on them since everyone is pretty much retirees and things happen sometime. That is part of the business, making sure everyone is OK.
> A few people have asked for a contract and I always say OK, I´ll get one and we will fill it out if that is what you want. In all but one case they decided that if I did not want one then they didn´t either. Ahhh but the one guy, who rented for a year sight unseen demanded I fax a contract to him and the whole deal. He came down, spent less than a week and left. It was nothing but a (tax) scam since he posted on his Professional Consultant Webpage he had an office in 4 countries, one of which was in Catemaco, Veracruz,. I was going to turn him into the IRS but, being in Mexico, that was not an option...you have to go in person to an office.
> I lost my butt on that deal and there is nothing I could do since he fled back to Texas and any costs to pursue him would have just added to what I had lost.



Sorry for your loss. You sound like a great landlord.

Reading though the posts and seeing the problems and infinite possibilities on the part of the landlord and tenants alike it really can get complicated. I know from my own experiences renting in Mexico 1 of 3 was positive with renting large homes. 

Most rentals have or should have a rental agreement in my opinion. But at the same time when a landlord throws a rental agreement at you it is pretty much one sided and I usually end up adding points of my own and taking off some of theirs. By doing this you can at least see what kind of person you are dealing with by the reaction. The rental contracts just basically assign liability. My problem has been how much some expect. The way the legal system works it is almost not worth the bother to seek that route for time and cost when thing go bad for either.

The Idea is.

Rental Insurance. Just like a car rental insurance. Property and contents insurance is generally pretty cheap. Insurance companies are pretty thorough on paperwork and both are protected. The renter needs to be protected as well as they to have personal property that in a lot of cases runs into the thousands of dollars even for a short stay. For example in the case of a fire where would a tenant go and what would they have other than what they were carrying. 

I know that this is not feasible in all cases. As a landlord I would appreciate you opinion.


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## stilltraveling (May 7, 2012)

I have found that owners generally want a contract for their own protection. It's hard enough to evict renters in Mexico with a contract. Without one, they're at the mercy of human decency and the slow court system, both of which are always a crap shoot. However, I've also found that they are very lenient with ****** renters because we pay on time and pay every month, a concept learned in the land where getting even two weeks behind could find you locked out of your own place. It's not uncommon for people to get two or three months behind on the rent even with a contract. I know for a fact that several of my neighbors are months behind and the owner (who lives on site) doesn't seem to stress over it. Eventually aguinaldos arrive and everything gets put into order. It seems that my monthly rent payment is what they use to make repairs and improvements on the vacant models. I guess I'm the one chunk of change they can count on every month. 

You can get a standard boilerplate rental contract from any papeleria.


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## tepetapan (Sep 30, 2010)

I had a couple rental houses in Illinois using a standard lease and with renter´s insurance. The contract seems to keep honest people honest and that is about it. I had one family move out in the middle of the lease, during a weekday when I was at work. . ...Now I had to track them down, file a small claims court case and then show up at small claims court, which they did not even show up for. The judgment was that I was entitled to the balance of the lease minus the time it was rented, plus advertising costs. Meaning since it was advertised and re-rented in 2 months I was to receive 2 months rent plus the cost of the newspaper ads. Nothing about me taking 3 days off work to get all this done.
.. And it was a judgement, no one wrote a check ever. The people just ignored the court and moved on. The whole contract was worthless in the end. I mean, how much time should I waste on a deadbeat? 
. .Here in Mexico is a whole different business. First of all I deal with retirees and expats. Rents are paid on time 99% of the time, no one runs out in the middle of the night and things are good. The casitas are concrete walls, roofs and tile floors. No worries about fire unless someone is smoking in bed. Beside a bit of patching and paint the units are bulletproof. Sure the furniture gets some abuse but that is the business and you deal with it as the cost of doing business.


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## dongringo (Dec 13, 2010)

My rental experiences have been from hand shake to landlords from hell. My first attempt to rent a house locally was refused, despite offering 6 months rent in advance because I had no local references and guarantor. The second was a handshake and no first, last or deposit. I enjoyed that for 3 years until he threw me out to build a water bottling facility.

My University attending stepkids for almost 7 years occupied rental housing in Xalapa and Veracruz, Every six months, like clockwork, my Popoluca had to show up to sign a contract and provide references, to the same idiotic owners.
The guy from Tepetapan sounds like a jewel. Just don´t bet on that in Mexico.


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