Pre-Construction, Lots and Gated Communities in San Miguel de Allende : What to Check Before You Pay

Before you pay anything for a lot, a pre-construction house or a unit in a gated development in San Miguel de Allende, get four things in writing: the permiso de venta for that stage of the development, a current lien certificate on the land, proof that the development owes nothing to the water utility SAPASMA or in predial, and, for land that was ever ejido, the title that took it out of the agrarian regime. The first is the one Guanajuato’s law is built around. Article 447 of the Código Territorial para el Estado y los Municipios de Guanajuato prohibits a developer from signing any act or contract that transfers a lot, house or unit without it, and Article 551 makes even a promise to sell without it an infraction. The mayor put it more bluntly in February 2026, as quoted by Periódico Correo: the permiso de venta is “the only one that counts in this municipality. They should not take the risk, and should not buy if they are not shown this permit” (our translation).

None of this is exotic. It is the file a careful Mexican buyer’s lawyer would assemble, and most of it costs a few hundred pesos. What makes it urgent here is the record set out below: a municipal warning about lots sold several times over, a social-housing project whose architect was formally charged with fraud, and developments reported in 2026 to owe the water utility millions of pesos.

A development does not change how a foreigner holds title in San Miguel. You still buy in your own name, with no fideicomiso and one SRE filing. What changes is how much of the risk sits before a notario ever sees the file.

What is a fraccionamiento, and is a gated community the same thing?

“Gated community” is not a legal category in Guanajuato. The development behind the gate is almost always one of three things, and which one decides who owns the streets, which permits must exist and whether your monthly fee is a legal obligation.

Article 2 of the Código Territorial defines a fraccionamiento as a partition of land that requires new urban roads and urbanisation works, in order to sell the resulting lots. A desarrollo en condominio is an urbanisation or building project of at least twenty-four private units with indivisible common elements. A división is a partition that creates no new roads and needs no additional infrastructure.

The fee row matters. In a condominium the assembly’s fees attach to your unit by statute. For a fraccionamiento we found no Guanajuato statute that governs a neighbours’ association the way the condominium law governs fees, so what binds you is the association’s own documents. Read them.

The división row matters for lots. Article 398 allows a division only where every resulting lot already has water, sewerage and electricity. In May 2021, Milenio reported a dispute over two large projects authorised as divisions rather than fraccionamientos, reporting that their lot buyers would therefore bear the cost of urbanisation, and quoted a lawyer for the then municipal government warning of a possible fraud against them. Whatever a brochure calls it, ask which permit the land was split under.

Minimum lot sizes depend on the type: 105 square metres for a single-family lot in a residential fraccionamiento (Article 405); outside the urban area, San Miguel’s municipal regulation sets 1,000 square metres for a campestre residencial lot, with building capped at 30 per cent of it, and 2,500 square metres for a campestre rústico lot, capped at 10 per cent. And predial treats land as vacant until at least 5 per cent of it is built on, at roughly twice the built rate, which matters if you plan to hold a large lot for years.

What is a permiso de venta?

It is the authorisation the municipality grants to sell the lots, houses, apartments or premises in a fraccionamiento or condominium development (Article 2). It is the fourth of five stages set by Article 404: a planning opinion, approval of the layout (the traza), the urbanisation or building permit, the permiso de venta, and finally the municipality’s formal receipt of the finished streets and networks.

Three features make it useful to a buyer.

• It comes after the works start. Article 430 lets a developer apply only once urbanisation or building has begun, and only by filing a lien certificate, a certified copy of the deed donating the streets and public areas, proof that taxes and fees are paid, and a guarantee covering the unfinished works.
• It is public. Article 432 requires it to set out the developer’s obligations, to be registered at the Registro Público de la Propiedad and to be published once in the state’s Periódico Oficial and a local newspaper. For a condominium, the deed constituting the regime must be registered too.
• It can be suspended. Works must be finished within two years of the urbanisation permit, with extensions (Article 427). If they are not, Article 453 obliges the municipality to suspend the permiso de venta and claim the guarantee.

In San Miguel, Articles 436 to 438 of the municipal regulation give the permit to the Dirección de Desarrollo Urbano y Ordenamiento Territorial, or to the Dirección de Centro Histórico y Patrimonio in the historic zone, with the agreement of the municipal Secretaría de Gobierno y Ayuntamiento. Press reports show the council voting on them in session: La Santa Vid in December 2023, and a new stage of the La Esmeralda social-housing development in June 2026, approved nine votes to three together with land-use changes for two new residential fraccionamientos. The fee is MXN 1,273.42 (2026 revenue law, Article 26).

Selling without one is expensive for the seller. Any act in breach of the Código Territorial is null (Article 549), and the registry must refuse to record the deed (Article 394). Advertising lots, promising to sell them or selling them without the permit are infractions (Article 551, fractions X and XI), punishable by closure and fines of 50 to 10,000 daily UMA (Article 557), MXN 5,865.50 to MXN 1,173,100 at the 2026 value of MXN 117.31, and notaries who take part are jointly liable (Article 550). Article 262 of the Guanajuato Penal Code, as reformed in April 2023, adds three to nine years in prison for whoever sells or commits to sell property in lots without the prior permit, or without meeting its requirements.

Notice who all of this punishes: the seller. None of it gives you your money back.

One threshold changes the file. The permiso de venta belongs to the Código Territorial’s condominium track, which starts at twenty-four units. For a smaller building the protection is the condominium law, whose Article 7 requires the deed constituting the regime to include the authorities’ approval of the plans. Ask Desarrollo Urbano which track your project was authorised under.

How do you verify a permiso de venta in San Miguel de Allende?

The municipality’s own advice, in its 2023 warning, is to ask the Dirección de Desarrollo Urbano y Ordenamiento Territorial, in the administrative building at Boulevard de la Conspiración 130, whether the property is fit to buy and regularised. Do that with paper in hand.

1. Get a copy of the permit, with its date, the stage and the lots or units it covers, and the date of the council session that approved it.
2. Confirm it at Desarrollo Urbano, or at Centro Histórico y Patrimonio in the historic zone, and ask whether it is current or suspended.
3. Match it to your lot. Guarantees run stage by stage (Article 431) and permits are granted by stage, as the La Esmeralda approval shows; a permit for stage one does not cover a lot in stage three.
4. Find its publication in the Periódico Oficial, whose website has a search of published documents.
5. Pull the lien certificate on the parent property, MXN 470 in person or MXN 424 online under the 2026 state revenue law. It should show the permit’s registration and any mortgage.
6. Look for the notice on site that Article 446 fraction X obliges the developer to post, stating the development’s characteristics and authorisations.
7. Check the municipal list of developments it calls “no regulados”, reproduced below.

A permit on file is necessary. It is not sufficient. In May 2023 the municipality itself said the Ciudades UNESCO social-housing project had begun in 2021 with a permit to sell obtained before its layout and urbanisation permits, and announced its reactivation with everything in order. Nine months later the municipal housing institute said the person responsible for the project had mortgaged the land, and in March 2025 the project’s architect was formally charged with fraud. A permit tells you the municipality authorised sales. It does not tell you the developer will finish.

Is it safe to buy pre-construction in Mexico?

Mexico regulates pre-construction sales more tightly than most buyers realise. Whether a given purchase is safe depends on whether the developer complies, which is what you are checking.

Federal consumer law applies whenever a developer, builder or promoter sells homes to the public, and their contracts must be registered with PROFECO (Ley Federal de Protección al Consumidor, Article 73). In a pre-sale they must show you the complete construction project, the model and any show home, proof of ownership, any liens (which must be cancelled when the escritura is signed), the permits, the plans, the conditions for cancelling and any mortgage or trust guarantee (Article 73 Bis). The contract must be in Spanish, state amounts in pesos, fix a delivery date and make penalties reciprocal (73 Ter). Warranties run at least five years for structure, three for waterproofing and one for the rest (73 Quáter). No payment may be taken before the contract is in writing, other than investigation costs (Article 75).

NOM-247-SE-2021, in force since 18 September 2022, applies to these sellers’ promise, pre-sale, sale and land-sale contracts. It requires a receipt for any advance payment and an explanation, before it is paid, of how to claim it back. Every contract must give you the right to cancel within five business days of signing, with a refund within five to fifteen business days, less documented operating costs if the contract provides for them, and must print its PROFECO registration number and date. A contract to sell a lot must attach the land-use licence, include a services feasibility study and state that the land is not ejido or communal land and can be deeded immediately.

You can check two things yourself. PROFECO’s Registro Público de Contratos de Adhesión can be searched by developer name or registration number, to confirm that the contract in front of you is the registered one. Its Buró Comercial lists concluded complaints against providers from January 2019 to August 2026, excluding complaints still in process, so a clean record means less than a bad one.

Two limits. Consumer law is aimed at developers, builders and promoters selling to the public; a private owner’s resale falls outside it. And it is enforced after the fact, through PROFECO or the courts: in February 2026 the mayor said that buyers in cases such as Ciudades UNESCO and Artesanto were still trying to recover their money. Note too that Article 452 of the Código Territorial lets the municipality license a house in a horizontal development before the streets and services are finished, on condition that no one occupies it until they are. A finished house in an unfinished fraccionamiento may not be one you can move into.

What does a contrato privado or promesa de compraventa give you?

Less than most buyers assume, as our step-by-step guide to the purchase explains for resales. Article 1815 of the Guanajuato Civil Code requires every sale of real property to be recorded in an escritura pública; Article 1816 gives it no effect against third parties until registered; Article 2497 limits unregistered documents to those who signed them.

A promise of sale, under Articles 1735 to 1740, must be in writing and fix the period for signing the definitive contract, and it creates only an obligation to sign that contract. If the seller refuses, a judge can sign in their place, unless the property has meanwhile passed for value to a buyer in good faith, in which case the promise is left without effect and the seller owes damages. The second paragraph of Article 1740 is blunter: the promise does not transfer ownership, and if the seller disposes of the property, that disposal is not invalid because your promise exists.

That is the legal mechanism behind the municipality’s 2023 warning that the same lot is “recurrently” sold to several customers, none of whom can prove ownership, and that buyers of irregular lots receive a constancia de posesión, a certificate of possession, or at best a private contract describing the whole parent parcel rather than their lot. A constancia de posesión is not title.

One protective step exists: Article 2516 of the Civil Code allows a preventive notice at the registry, valid for ninety business days, for a private document whose signatures a notary or judge has verified. Whether your contract qualifies is a question for your own lawyer.

Escrow, deposits and staged payments

We found no Mexican statute that requires pre-sale payments to be held in escrow. What the law provides is narrower.

The developer’s guarantee protects the streets, not your deposit. Article 446 fraction V requires a guarantee to the municipality, by bond, pledge or mortgage, for completing the urbanisation works, and Article 454 has the treasury claim it and finish them if the developer defaults. That helps if you own a lot whose water mains were never laid. It refunds nothing to a buyer whose house was never built.

A trust protects only on its terms. A fideicomiso transfers property to a fiduciary institution for a stated purpose (Ley General de Títulos y Operaciones de Crédito, Article 381), and only the regulated financial institutions listed in Article 395, from banks, insurers and bonding companies to registered multi-purpose lenders and credit unions, may act as trustee of a guarantee trust. This is not the coastal restricted-zone trust. According to Telediario’s account of the Ciudades UNESCO case, the land sat in a development trust from 2019, and in November 2020 the same 50 hectares were pledged as mortgage collateral for a MXN 78 million credit, about 30 million of it drawn and overdue since November 2023.

Construction loans are normal; their release is the point. Article 430 fraction I allows a permiso de venta over mortgaged land if the loan financed the development and the lender consents, and Article 73 Bis of the consumer law requires the lien to be cancelled when your escritura is signed. In May 2024, adn40 reported that buyers in the El Deseo development said, through their lawyers, that more than 20 of the 90 homes built, paid in full and some already deeded, were still recorded as mortgaged to the developer’s bank. Before the final payment, get the lender’s written release of your unit.

Staged payments. This is our judgement, not a rule of law: tie each payment to something a third party can confirm, such as the permit for your stage, your lot’s own cadastral key (which Article 423 lets the developer request once the urbanisation permit is issued), the registered condominium deed, the lender’s release and, finally, the escritura. Money paid ahead of those is paid on the developer’s word. How large deposits usually are here, and who holds them, is something no published source states.

The condominium regime and the reglamento

In a condominium, what you buy is defined by the deed constituting the regime, executed before a notary and registered (Ley de Propiedad en Condominio, Article 4), and by the reglamento interno.

Article 7 requires the deed to contain the authorities’ permits or, for a building not yet finished, their approval of the plans; each unit and its indiviso, the percentage of the common property attached to it; the common areas; and the reglamento, which the notary must check. Changing either later takes 75 per cent of the votes of all owners (Article 9). If the regime does not yet exist when you pay, the reglamento you are shown is a draft, and the version recorded is the one you will live under.

Article 51 covers how fees are set. Since a November 2022 reform, its fraction XXI lets the reglamento adjust fees for owners whose activities make greater use of the common areas, naming the short-term rentals regulated by Guanajuato’s platform lodging law. If you plan to rent the unit on Airbnb, read that clause first.

Article 62 is the one to act on. The seller must hand you the administrator’s certificate that no fees are owed; without it, you become jointly liable for the unit’s unpaid fees. Article 10 requires the notary to attach the reglamento and that certificate to your deed.

Ejido land and dominio pleno

The municipality’s 2023 warning says the irregular lots it sees come “from the social sector (ejido) or from private property”, sold as “rustic lots” of raw land far from services, with no approved layout and no individual deed, and that regularising their land use typically takes one to three years.

The Ley Agraria is strict. Land set aside for the ejido’s settlement cannot be sold and any act to sell it is void (Article 64), except the house plots (solares) of its urban zone, which are owned outright and whose titles are registered (Articles 68 and 69). Common-use land cannot be sold (Article 74). Parcel rights can pass only to other ejidatarios or avecindados, recognised residents of the same ejido (Article 80), so an outsider, Mexican or foreign, cannot validly buy them.

A parcel becomes ordinary private property only through dominio pleno: the assembly authorises it (Article 81), the Registro Agrario Nacional removes the parcel from its register and issues a title, which is registered at the Registro Público de la Propiedad, and the land passes to ordinary civil law (Article 82). The first sale then carries a thirty-day right of first refusal for, in order, the seller’s family, anyone who has worked the parcel for over a year, the ejidatarios, the residents and the ejido; without that notice the sale can be annulled (Article 84). State and municipal governments also have a preference right over ejido land sold in areas reserved for urban growth (Article 89).

For any lot with an ejido history, ask for the RAN title and its registration, evidence that the right of first refusal was notified, and the municipal land-use permit, because Article 87 subjects the incorporation of ejido land into urban development to the planning laws and plans. The RAN’s PHINA register of agrarian communities is free to consult. A developer’s contract to sell you a lot must state that it is not ejido land (NOM-247, numeral 6.4).

One figure we cannot reconcile: the municipality’s 2023 warning cites a legal minimum of 1,200 square metres for each lot sold for housing. We could not find it in the Código Territorial or the municipal regulation, which set the minimums given above. Ask Desarrollo Urbano which applies to your land.

Water, SAPASMA and predial debts on the development

The federal water authority records an aquifer in deficit under San Miguel, with no volume left for new concessions, so a development’s water position is the first thing to check and the easiest to misread.

How a development ends up owing the utility. Until the municipality formally receives the urbanisation works, the developer operates and maintains them (Código Territorial, Article 448), and the utility takes over the networks only once that handover is complete (Article 458). Since 2019, Article 318 has required each home in a condominium or private street on a shared supply to have its own meter plus a master meter, with the difference charged to the developer until the handover. Every resident’s own bill can be paid while the development owes millions.

What 2026 has shown. On 25 June the mayor acknowledged, as reported by Periódico Correo, that several fraccionamientos owed large sums for water and predial, some, he said, because past administrations had tolerated the debts in exchange for favours, and promised to publish the list; Correo noted that requests for the information had been refused for more than a year. On 4 August he disclosed the first: Tierradentro, which he said owed SAPASMA more than MXN 8 million, a figure El Sol del Bajío also reported. Correo also reported that residents of Antigua Residencial had complained that its developer owed SAPASMA more than MXN 11 million and that the residents’ board was asking residents to pay it. As of 24 September 2026 we had found no complete published list.

Who pays. Predial follows the property: the Treasury collects it by a real action against the property itself (Ley Hacendaria Municipal, Article 30), the acquirer is jointly liable for taxes deriving from it (Article 12 fraction IX), and a notary who authorises a deed without checking that taxes are current commits an infraction (Article 331). Water is charged to whoever receives the service (Article 171), and we found no provision that passes a developer’s bulk debt to buyers. The Antigua Residencial report shows how the pressure can reach residents anyway.

What to ask for, with the 2026 fees:

• SAPASMA’s certificate of no debt on your account, MXN 45.13, and written confirmation of whether the development’s networks have been received (revenue law, Article 33).
• The Treasury’s certificate of no tax debt, MXN 217.64 (Article 31).
• For an unbuilt lot, SAPASMA’s carta de factibilidad, MXN 217.76 per lot, valid six months, whose renewal the law says “will not necessarily be positive”, depending on water availability (Article 33).
• For a development on its own well, the CONAGUA concession title, which you can check in the public REPDA register.

Wastewater is the other half. In April 2025, deputies in the state congress asked the municipality to report which developments lacked treatment plants, noting that municipal regulation makes them mandatory; the request went to committee. San Miguel’s regulation requires campestre developments to have one, shared or per lot (Article 365). Ask whether it exists, who runs it and who pays.

The warnings and the named cases, 2023 to 2026

What follows reports only what the cited sources say, and attributes each allegation. Being named by a mayor, in a newspaper or on a municipal list is not a finding by a court, and a vinculación a proceso, the judicial order that formally opens criminal proceedings against someone, is not a conviction.

The municipal list. The municipality’s website carries a page headed “Fraccionamientos no regulados”. It defines nothing, gives no reason for any entry and dates none of them; the site’s metadata shows it created on 14 August 2024 and last modified on 10 July 2026. Its numbering runs to 44 but omits 2, 5 and 15. As displayed on 24 September 2026, the names are, verbatim: The Vine o Hacienda Begoña; La Luminaria; Aldean; Garambullos; Xotol; Casco de Landeta; La Nueva Escondida; San Sebastian; La Joyita; Punta del Cielo; Luna Azul; Arroyo San Miguel; La Cantera; Brisas de Allende; Cumbres San Jose; Cumbres San Miguel; Cumbres San Agustin; Villas Los Cipresses; Antigua Residencial I; Villas de la Hacienda; La Pilarica; Residencias La Estacion; Clevia; Hotel y Villas San Miguel de Allende; Real de Vista Hermosa; Badesa; Las Nubes; La Rinconada y el Coecillo; Villas de Tamoan Zen; Ex Hacienda de la Canal; Antigua Residencial II San Nicolas; Puerta de Allende; Condominio Residencial Barroco Predio Rustico Mesa del Malanquin; Los Portales de San Miguel La Presita de Guadalupe; Hotel y Residencias DC Distrito Corazon Residencias; VIU San Miguel; Sahai Terrazas ó Resinto; El Milagro; Escondida II; 108; San Francisco.

The list tells you the municipality has flagged a name. It does not tell you what is wrong, whether it has been fixed, or whether it applies to every stage. If yours is on it, ask Desarrollo Urbano why, in writing.

A checklist before you pay anything

1. Establish what the development legally is: fraccionamiento, condominium or división.
2. Get the permiso de venta for your stage, confirm it at Desarrollo Urbano and find its publication.
3. Have your lawyer pull the lien certificate on the parent property and identify every mortgage.
4. Get the lender’s consent to the sales and, before the final payment, its release of your unit.
5. Check the contract against PROFECO’s register and the developer against the Buró Comercial.
6. Read the contract for the five-business-day cancellation right, the delivery date, reciprocal penalties and the refund mechanism.
7. For a condominium, get the regime deed or its draft and the reglamento, and read the fee and rental clauses.
8. Ask whether the streets and networks have been received, and get SAPASMA’s and the Treasury’s no-debt certificates.
9. For a lot, get the land-use permit and a carta de factibilidad, or the CONAGUA title for a private well.
10. For former ejido land, get the RAN title, its registration and proof that the right of first refusal was notified.
11. Check the municipal “no regulados” list.
12. Retain a lawyer whose duty runs to you. The notario is impartial by law, and the salesperson is paid by the developer.

Then budget for the closing itself, which in San Miguel is dominated by the municipal acquisition tax.

Which documents to request, and who issues each

What we could not source, and will not invent

• A complete list of developments that owe water or predial. Promised in June 2026; as of 24 September we had found one disclosure.
• What “no regulado” means on the municipal list, or why any development appears on it.
• The present legal status of the named cases, and how much buyers have recovered.
• Artesanto, beyond the mayor’s words. Two English-language reports from 2021 describing buyers’ lawsuits could not be retrieved when we checked, so we do not repeat them.
• How common escrow or trust arrangements are in San Miguel developments, and what deposit is typical.
• How much of the municipality is ejido land. The RAN’s PHINA register refused our automated request.
• The source of the 1,200 square-metre minimum in the municipality’s 2023 warning.
• Whether SAPASMA refuses to connect or transfer accounts in developments with a bulk debt. We found no published policy.
• Any count of buyers who have lost money, beyond the 225 families the municipality gives for Ciudades UNESCO.

The standing position

This is published research, not legal advice. Every rule above is cited to the article that states it and every case to the source that reported it, so that you can check both.

The notario is the legal authority on your transaction and is impartial by law. An independent lawyer you retain is the only person in a San Miguel purchase whose duty runs to you alone, and on a pre-construction purchase you need one before you pay anything, not before you sign the escritura.

Invest In San Miguel sells nothing, lists nothing and earns no commission, from developers or anyone else. That is why this page can name developments, and say what we could not find about them.