Ejido, deed, and bank trust: the difference that decides your purchase

If you have been looking at houses in Melaque you will have noticed that two very similar properties can carry very different prices. Often the explanation is not in the house. It is in the land.

Deeded property

Private property with title recorded in the Public Registry. The owner appears on the register; the property can be mortgaged, inherited, and sold with no more process than the ordinary one. It is the most solid regime and, all else equal, the most expensive.

Bank trust (fideicomiso)

This is not a separate land regime. It is how a foreign national holds deeded property inside the restricted zone, the 50-kilometre coastal strip. The bank appears as titleholder and you are the beneficiary, with every right: use it, rent it, remodel it, sell it, leave it to your children.

It is set up for fifty years and is renewable. There is a setup cost and an annual administration fee. Melaque, Barra de Navidad, and Cuastecomate all sit inside the restricted zone, so any deeded purchase by a foreigner on this coast goes through one.

Ejido property

Land of communal origin. In practice it is bought and sold constantly in Melaque, and much of the town is built on it. What matters is understanding that the transaction does not produce a recorded deed: what transfers are possessory rights, with the corresponding ejido documentation.

That does not make it illegitimate, and it does not make it a bad purchase. It makes it a different purchase, with a different risk, at a price that reflects that risk. There is also a route called dominio pleno by which ejido land can be converted to private property, but it depends on the ejido assembly and it is not resolved in a week.

What we recommend

Before any deposit, ask in writing which regime the property sits under and which documents exist today. If the seller is vague about it, that is your first signal. We run that review before a single peso changes hands.