Buying Land

We have been looking for land ever since coming to Petén in 2007. There are a lot of things to think about, and after almost 3 years of being here we think we know what we want. We looked at a lot of different towns here, and have decided that the best place to live the rest of our lives and raise our kids will be in San Francisco (Petén, not CA). It is 15 minutes from Santa Elena and the airport, and at a crossroad between three roads that take us to everywhere else. It is also a town not owned by certain people of ill-repute (names and details withheld to protect the innocent) and where the professionals (doctors, lawyers, teacher, engineers) who work in Santa Elena, moved to to get away from the gangs and violence. Sounds perfect right? That's what we think.

We found a nice property owned by an influential family in town. He bought a large section of land so that his brothers and sister could all build their houses together. Because of that, there is a private road that cuts through the property. The neat thing is that these other families are pretty young and have new borns as well, so our kids will be able to grow up together. The land right now is a corn field and we are buying 2000 square meters (1/2 acre) for Q50,000 ($6,250).

To get the paperwork done right we have our lawyer (a very well known lawyer) taking care of everything. To get the initial contract and send in the paperwork to get a title in our name cost us Q400 ($50). Once that is taken care of we will pay the other half of the money and the land will be deeded to us. This should be done in the next week or so.

The land is in the shape of a trapezoid with 35 meters across the front and 55 meters across the back. We have met with an architect who will draw up our house plans, give us a 3-D rendering, list of building supplies, expected cost, etc. for Q5,000 ($625), which we thought sounded very reasonable.

I'll keep you posted as things progress. I don't know what you'll be able to tell from the photos, but here's a couple anyway. In this picture the land boundary is from the dog (pretty specific right?) to the fence on the other side.

Here we are standing in the middle. The back boundary is actually 5m past the papaya trees on the right. Those are tomato and jalapeño plants. The owner is an agronomist and really likes growing things. Look at how nice the dirt looks!