I'd love to hear from anyone who has successfully obtained a concession for the beach adjacent to their property, or who is currently going through
the application process.
Did you hire a specialist or lawyer to help you through the paperwork, and just how much trouble did you have, how long did it take, and what were/are
the costs?
I understand it's not supposed to be a difficult process, but I know how that can be a matter of perception.
Anyone?oladulce - 12-9-2005 at 08:59 PM
Since you haven't gotten any responses yet BajaDave, I'll share our experience so far, even though we don't have the concession in our hot little
hands yet.
1. I'd highly recommend you use someone who's familiar with the federal zone concession application process.The application has to go through the
state office before it goes to Mexico City and getting the state guys to take action is a feat in itself.
2. We submitted our application along with a group of neighboring property owners. We used a Mexican attorney that had been invloved with purchase of
our lots, so he was familiar to everyone. His office is in La Paz so he's been able to frequent the SEMARNAT office.
3.Another big hurdle is the Mexico city office of SEMARNAT. Everyone we spoke with says the only way to get the paperwork thru the mire is to have
your representative hand deliver it from the state office to the federal office. Otherwise it will never leave the local office, or get lost in the
Mexico City office. This adds an extra expense for his time and travel, but sounds like it's worth it.
4. A recent survey of the FZ is required and we saved a little money because the guys were able to do all of our surveys in one trip. We're 6 hours
from La Paz which usually adds a lot of $$ to government stuff because of their travel required.
5. If you have a fideicomiso, your bank is involved in the application too. The bank's name is actually on the concession, with you as the
beneficiary.
If an attorney will be submitting your application for you, he will need a Power of Attorney from your bank which gives him permission to file on your
behalf.
Here's the steps involved:
-Our personal Mexican attorney wrote a request (in Spanish)
asking the bank to draft a POA for the group's attorney to file the concession application.
- We signed the document and followed the Apostille process for our signatures to be legal since we signed outside of Mexico, then DHL'd the package
to the bank. If you can sign the POA request in person, you can skip this step.
- We paid the bank $540 dollars for their "service" and they drew up a POA.
-The attorney submitted the application to the local SEMARNAT office, along with the POA from the bank, and a complete copy of our fideicomiso.
Timeline of our application:
-Jan 05 federal zone survey was done.
-Feb o5 documents were submitted to the attorney to start the application.
-Dec. 05 attorney reports he got the applications out of the La Paz SEMARNAT office and has been to Mexico City. We received a receipt that
indicates our application was received in DF.
- It's estimated to be another 6 months or so before the concession is complete.
We got 2 other estimates from attorneys for the cost of filing the application, prior to going with the group. Both estimates were $5000- 7000 dollars
and both included the trip to Mexico City. We will be paying less for the service because of the "group rate".
There are different types of concessions depending on what you plan to do with the FZ. We are applying for an "Ornato" or "Protecci?n" status, which
does not allow any permanent structures be built, commercial activity etc. Once approved, it's good for 15 years and the annual fee is $200-400
dollars .
Our group included at least 10 FZ applications and included both fideis and corporations. The large number of simultaneous applications seems to have
helped the cost, but I'm not sure if it hindered the speed of the process for us. We had been given a time estimate by others of about 1 year. Looks
like ours may be 1 1/2 yrs and possible more, but we're not really in a big hurry anyway, and there's no way we could have done this ourselves so
we're happy with the service.
Is this more than you really wanted to know? ! Hope it helps.
[Edited on 12-10-2005 by oladulce]BajaDave - 12-13-2005 at 02:47 AM
Quote:
Is this more than you really wanted to know? ! Hope it helps.
Thanks Oladulce, I can never get enough information about this sort of thing, and the information is very helpful. Please keep me posted with any
updates.
Was the survey just to delineate the boundary of the FZ, or something more, like show the proximity of nearby dwellings or other buildings?
Thanks and good luck!oladulce - 12-13-2005 at 06:31 PM
In this survey they just marked the boundary of the federal zone adjacent to our property. I'm not sure if a more extensive type of survey is
required if you're applying for a concession that would allow you to build on, or "exploit" the federal zone itself.
