LEI Mexico FAQ’s

The History of Mexican Land

Mexico is very protective of its land, and rightly so. Mexico has a long history of being dominated by foreign owners. This brief history of Mexico will show why Mexico covets one of its greatest resources: its land.

As early as the 16th century, other countries were already trying to claim Mexico’s land as their own. In 1517, Hernandez de Cordoba sailed to the Yucatan Peninsula from Spain, and laid claim to Mexican lands. Mexico did not declare its independence from Spain until over 300 years later in 1822. Although they had independence, most Mexico land was still owned by the Mexican upper class, wealthy foreigners, or the Church.

After the Mexican Revolution, a new Federal Constitution was written in 1917. This new constitution regulated foreign ownership and ownership of lands by the Catholic Church. Article 27 of the constitution restricts foreigners from owning land within a “restricted zone” of 60 miles from the Mexican border or 30 miles from any Mexican coastline.

In the 1930’s, the Mexican people finally started to see their land being returned to them. Large property holdings were disassembled and redistributed in the form of cooperative farms or “Ejidos.” The people were given ownership of the Ejidos, and allowed to profit from farming and cultivating them. However, the government still owned the Ejidos.

Though the people were allowed to farm the properties and profit from their work, it was not until 1992 that they were allowed to sell the properties. The 1992 Agrarian Law recognized property rights within the Ejido and allowed for the owner of record to sell or lease the property to a non-Ejido member. The property can be removed from Federal Control and placed in the public land registry allowing it to be sold or leased. Today, thousands of acres are being removed on a daily basis from the Ejidos, added to the public lands and being sold or leased. There are well over 50 million acres of land that will go through this process to be either leased or sold over the coming years.