Uniformed soldiers showing up at exclusive eco-boutique hotels located on normally tranquil beaches and closing them sounds a bit far-fetched, but it just happened in Mexico.
Federal government officials, accompanied by the military, came to Tulum and put up closed signs on five hotels on July 20th, according to a report by the Associated Press. The hotel owners said they are angry about what is happening and the way it is being handled. They said they don’t believe soldiers have any place at the little piece of heaven they have carved out for themselves and their guests, and that they don’t even think the federal government has a valid case to begin with.
“Using the army to close down businesses is illegal,” said an outraged Roberto Palazuelos, president of the Tulum Hotel Owners Association. “I have never seen anything like it." His hotel, Diamante K, is among the businesses that suddenly find themselves in trouble.
As it stands, all the hotels are still open because they won an injunction against the order to close down.
Tulum beaches are some of the most beautiful and underdeveloped in the Yucatan region
Located just 81 miles from the resort city of Cancun, Tulum is a small town of roughly 10,000 people and has breathtaking white sandy beaches and a Mayan archeological zone.
With none of the massive, ostentatious all-inclusive hotels that are the fixtures of Cancun anywhere in sight, the Tulum beaches are some of the most beautiful and underdeveloped in the area, according to Travel Yucatan, a vacation planning information website for the Yucatan peninsula.
More importantly, the area’s Mayan ruins are located nearby, giving potential tourists one more reason to visit and bring much-needed income to the community. Local residents mostly live within the town limits of Tulum and their livelihoods are largely dependent on the tourism industry. “Boutique eco hotels are the best way to preserve Tulum and other similar destinations,” according to Save Eco Destinations, a website dedicated to these hotel's cases which is run anonymously for fear of retaliation.
The dispute
John Kendall, an American who owns Mezzanine, one of the hotels targeted for closing, said he bought his property in 2003 with clean titles. Until then, it was a backpacker establishment that had been in business for more than 10 years. Once he took over, he transformed it into a high-end eco-lodge that caters to a well heeled clientele.
Federal claims concerning the park are suspect at best
“The pretext on which the Federal Government tried to close us relates to a number of supposed environmental infractions,” Kendall said. The government is insisting that an Environmental Impact Study needed to be done before Mezzanine was remodeled, but according to Kendall, the law requiring it for work on existing properties didn’t come into effect until 2005, two years after he took over the hotel. In addition, he said he was given a permit to renovate the place by the local government. “They have no right to ask for an environmental impact study and certainly no right to close down an operating business,” he said.
The problem these hotels are facing is actually much bigger than whether or not an environmental impact assessment is needed. The Federal government claims that they were built on a national park where no type of development is allowed.
Mexico’s Federal Environmental Prosecutor, Patricio Patron, wants the buildings not just closed down, but ultimately removed from land the federal government says is protected, according to the AP. The hotels are not only too near to the historical ruins, but they are also on land reserved for protected species, Patron told the press.
The state government, on the other hand, stands by the titles it had issued to the owners of the properties affected. “Everyone has proper titles,” said Palazuelos.
The national park was decreed in 1981 but the legal process was never completed properly by the Federal Government, according to Kendall and Palazuelos. As it turned out, the State Government then titled and sold parts of the Tulum beach to different investors. “The bigger issue, which has not yet surfaced, is a fight between the Federal and the State government on whether the State illegally titled land that was protected in a national park,” Kendall said.
All this information, according to Kendall, just recently surfaced. He said he had no idea such issues existed before he bought his property.
Rumor has it that the Kor Group, a Los Angeles-based real estate investment and management company, is also mired in a similar conflict. The company has apparently paid some $50 million for the beach next to Mezzanine and has not, so far, been able to develop it. “If a giant, sophisticated investor can be fooled, what hope for the little guys like me?” Kendall said.
“If the government succeeds in closing these and other hotels in the area, it will most likely sell the land to major developers who will build large all-inclusive type hotels,” according to Save Eco Destinations.
There is a lot of speculation as to why these particular hotels are targeted to be closed down, but it seems no one outside Patron’s office believes it is for environmental reasons. Almost everyone agrees that once these hotels are gone, other investors will take over the land. Some worry it would result in the destruction of the fragile ecosystem in the area.
Real estate disputes can take years to resolve in Mexico
“In Mexico, people with connections can go a long way in violating laws,” according to Save Eco Destinations. The author said they know there are two legal sides to the issue. Whatever the final decision is, they want things to proceed lawfully and “not by sending in the army as if the hotel owners and tourists were drug traffickers.”
Resolving real estate related disputes through the Mexican court system is far from simple and could take years, according to the 2007 Investment Climate Statement by the U.S. State Department. There have apparently been a number of property dispute cases that involved foreigners in popular tourist areas, including the Yucatan.
Conflicts that are often considered civil cases in the United States can fall under criminal proceedings in Mexico, the report also warned. Foreigners who find themselves in commercial disputes should hire a knowledgeable Mexican lawyer to help them through the maze of the judicial system.
The judiciary can also be weak when it comes to handling high profile cases, according to Business Anti-Corruption Portal, which aims to help small- and medium-sized businesses avoid and fight corruption. This weakness results in a perverted justice system in which the rich and powerful can get away with violating laws by paying off officials.
For their part, both Kendall and Palazuelos hope their cases will be resolved through the Mexican courts.
In the meantime, Save Eco Destinations asks some hard questions, “Why can’t the government accept that the courts should determine who is right and who is wrong here? Who has such powerful interests that the legal system is overridden?”
The answers remain to be seen.
