Cancun, Q.R. — Another round of inspections by city officials are set to begin in search of illegal and irregular developments around the city of Cancun in the municipality of Benito Juárez.
Hugo Alday Nieto, technical secretary for Ayuntamiento de Benito Juárez, explained that they will begin a new operation similar to the one carried out last year, where thousands of irregular lots were discovered being marketed illegally since they were not included in the city’s development plan. He also noted that those lots were without access to basic public services such as water, electricity or sewer drainage.
The city’s technical secretary explained that with the reform of Article 268 of the Criminal Code of the State in September of 2019, the formation of irregular settlements through the sale of properties without authorization to divide, is considered a crime against Desarrollo Urbano.
“In this sense, we started the operations, which will be year-round with the intention of containing fraud against individuals which causes us damage in the organization of urban development and which also translates into an environmental risk because they do not have drainage in these developments,” he explained.
Alday Nieto says last year, more than 15,000 lots were closed and that this year, the number will be similar after already detecting a large number of developments that are not properly established according to the law.
He says the attraction for people toward these types of scam properties is the promise of low-cost land and monthly payment installments, however, the actual price may involve the loss of the lot that was poorly acquired. He says that they currently have eight criminal complaints filed for the crime of fraud against those selling these lots.
The areas of the municipality that are most susceptible to this type of fraud he says, are Avenida Huayacan, el ejido Alfredo V. Bonfil and the entrance of laguna Chacmuchuch, which is a protected natural area belonging to Reserva de la Biosfera del Caribe Mexicano and therefore, cannot be developed.
“They are outside the Urban Development Plan. There are no investment plans by Aguakan or CAPA, you cannot add services, because they are places without subdivisions which no notary can regularize,” said Alday Nieto.
He says to verify the legality of a lot for sale, you can go to the Directorate of Urban Development or access the page of the municipality and download the Urban Development Plan (PDU), which contains all the residential areas. If the lot or land you are looking at is offered outside these areas, it is irregular.
