TalkBaja.com » Baja Real Estate Advice / Discussion » Before you even think about buying property

A hot topic in Baja California's academic and engineering real estate circles is a dispute in the ownership chain of El Rosario (Rosarito Beach). Noted TJ columnist Gil Levanant gave a presentation on "The History of El Rosario" at the Rosarito Beach Engineers Club in 2010. The transpcript of his presentation to the group is attached. Our in-house expert, Raphael Munoz made factual edits to the preentation in red. In a nutshell it says the gift of El Rosario's land area to an Irish family (Crosswaite) from Southern California was in violation of the Mexican constitution in effect at the time of the land transfer (what with the Mexican revolution going on and all) or other published decress.

Spanish language transcipt attached in PDF format with edits by TalkBaja's legal expert Raphael Martinez Munoz in red:

The Crosswaite family is a very interesting story; a very typical example of how Mexico will bend, change and even erase rules and laws when it wants to. How they came to own the land and a lot of their history since is the subject of heavy gossip in the NW corner of Baja. My perception is that they have made more enemies than friends and based on the current change in the political scene, I suspect that the next couple of years will be critical for them if they are to survive and maintain their economic status...

Another Rosarito land squabble, eh? Well, this is going to be fun.

For what it's worth, property title in Baja has been clouded since the arrival of the white man. The peninsula's main landowners commissioned Ulises Urbano Lassépas to write an entire book about the problem in 1859 and we have a governmental office called CORETTE sorting things out to this day.

The Crosthwaites, who spell their name thusly, come from Cumbria, which is the northeastern corner of England along the Scottish marches. The accent there sounds vaguely Irish but they are really British.

Now, members of the Crosthwaite family here in Tijuana have told me they descend from a representative of the so-called Compañía Inglesa that tried to sell worthless land in San Quintín to unsuspecting gringos during the 1870s and '80s. That company owned most of northern Baja; their main office, in Ensenada, is now a museum.

But family history is often fanciful. Especially here in Baja.

On the other hand, if the Crosthwaites really do come from the Compañía Inglesa, that would mean they got their land title from Luis Hüller who got it from Porfirio Díaz himself. For whatever legal weight that might have.

Precedent vs. political access vs the Mexican constitution. I am sure this will be easy to sort out...