The norteamericano hunger for leisure and retirement homes in Mexico is left unappeased sometimes by unappetizing, even unsavoury, fare, brokers who disappear with deposit money, homes seized, people jailed.
   Murky property records expose foreigners to complicated title disputes in courts that may not give them a fair shake, the American government cautions its citizens.
   ‘‘There is a history of problems,’’ Liza Davis of the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana comments. ‘‘We ask people to go in with their eyes open.’’
   The most widely publicized dispute in recent years occurred in 2000, the eviction of dozens of foreigners from lands south of Ensenada in Baja California.
   Mostly retired Americans, the evicted resided in homes built on ejido land, communal farmland that has been the source of complicated title struggles nationwide.
   Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that the group with whom the Ensenada aggrieved negotiated their land deals was not the rightful owner, a decision that forced some of the people involved to abandon homes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
   Doug and Dru Davis sold their San Diego home several years ago to buy a $200,000 US house on a Mexican beach, in a fishing village called La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, about 20 minutes from the famous Puerto Vallarta resort town.
   Last fall, however, workers hired by a Mexican development company began to move the beach — by dredging the bay in front of their home to reclaim land from the sea.
   Instead of watching whales pass a couple of hundred metres off their patio, the couple fear they’ll soon be looking at a marina, a hotel and residential high-rises.
   ‘‘This is sending a terrible message to investors,’’ says Doug Davis, 61. ‘‘You think you're buying oceanfront property, and then the [Mexican] government lets someone build in front of you.’’
   He says the absence of transparency stunned him when he and his neighbours began asking questions about the $50-million US project, whose Mexican developers are four well-known local businessmen.
   The 17 affected property-owners eventually engaged lawyers just to obtain basic information about building and environmental permits.
   The homeowners said the original plans called for a much smaller marina development and that officials had yet to show them permits authorizing the expansion in front of their homes.
   Dru Davis said she was taking antidepressants to cope with the stress. The couple fear that their property, which they calculate is worth more than $1 million US, could lose half its value if the development proceeds.
   About 2,200 kilometres up the coast from La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, in Baja California, Bob Torres says the $63,000 US he lost on a modified trailer home was nothing compared to being deprived of his liberty.
   The Los Angeles cinematographer and his wife were arrested, shackled and held in a Tijuana prison in March, the result of a legal dispute with the owner of a trailer park in a place called Rosarito. The park owner covets the prized oceanfront lot.
   Released on bail after three sleepless nights, they fled back to the United States with no plans to return to their favorite getaway.
   ‘‘Rosarito has a bitter taste for me now,’’ says Torres, 60. ‘‘I would not invest in Mexico again.’’
   Torres said the decision was particularly painful since he and his wife, Aide, had vacationed in Rosarito since they were children. Many of those years were spent in a seaside trailer park called La Barca, where the couple in 2002 secured a $300-US-a-month long-term lease on a lot with a spectacular view of the ocean.
   Starting with a 35-foot travel trailer, they added on little by little, eventually creating a two-storey, four-bedroom structure with a deck. Weekends and vacations were spent barbecuing with other long-time residents, mostly Americans.
   Bob Torres said things changed dramatically last year when Fidel Valdespino, son of the park’s long-time owner, took charge of a major portion of La Barca following his father’s death the year before.
   Torres said he arrived one weekend in September to find the water pipe to his lot severed.
   Others have reported their water and electricity was also cut about that time; the access to the public beach was blocked with debris; and a number of homes were burgled. An abandoned trailer sprouted English graffiti that read: ‘‘Gringos go home. This is Mexico.’’
   The word around La Barca was that Valdespino was trying to pressure the tenants to give up their bargain-priced, long-term leases to make way for a more profitable condominium development. Many fled as conditions deteriorated.
   Among the holdouts were Bob and Aide Torres. Arriving at La Barca March 18 for what they thought would be a relaxing weekend, they were arrested on allegations, by Valdespino, that they had damaged the water pipes at the trailer park. A local judge found them guilty without hearing their testimony, unusual for even Mexico's disparate legal system, according to their lawyer, Jose Heing Chig Bazua.
   The frightened pair spent three days and nights in the notorious La Mesa penitentiary in Tijuana. They were released after signing an agreement with Valdespino to remove their dwelling from La Barca within 30 days.
   Valdespino denied making the allegations against the couple, saying the agreement for them to leave was a mutual one.
   Informed that the structure was destroyed mysteriously by fire, the Torreses hired a contractor to haul it away for scrap.
   ‘‘I am not going to fight it,’’ Bob Torres said. ‘‘I fear for our lives.’’
   Los Angeles Times