Escritura, Communal or Ejidal? Understanding Land Ownership on the Oaxaca Coast

Anyone looking to buy property on the Oaxaca coast quickly runs into terms that simply do not exist in Europe or North America: escritura pública, acta de posesión, comunal, ejidal. These are not bureaucratic labels; they determine exactly what rights you actually acquire over a piece of land. Understanding the differences means buying with confidence.

What is an escritura pública?

The escritura pública is a notarial deed, drafted and certified by a notario público, a state-appointed notary with extensive legal review obligations, and subsequently recorded in the Registro Público de la Propiedad, Mexico's official public land registry. It is one of two recognized ways to document property ownership on the Oaxaca coast, the other being the acta de posesión (explained below); the two differ mainly in which level of government registers them, not in whether they are legally valid.

Holding an escritura pública gives the owner the complete bundle of ownership rights recognized under Mexican law: to live on, use, rent out, sell, use as loan collateral, or otherwise transfer the property at will. Because it is recorded in the state's public registry, it also offers the strongest available protection if an ownership dispute with a third party ever arises.

Before issuing an escritura, the notary verifies, among other things:

The complete chain of title and previous owners

Whether any liens, mortgages or other encumbrances rest on the property

The exact location, size, and boundaries of the parcel based on cadastral records

Whether all applicable taxes and fees have been paid

Only after this review is the deed signed by buyer, seller, and notary, and then registered. From that point on, ownership is officially recognized by the state, publicly searchable, and enforceable against any third party, making the escritura the most comprehensive legal protection a property purchase in Mexico can offer, and a prerequisite for mortgage financing through traditional banks.

The trade-off: the process is more involved and more expensive than obtaining an acta de posesión, since notary fees, registration costs, and transfer taxes apply. For properties in fully regularized, formally titled locations, however, the escritura pública is the standard route and generally available.

What is an acta de posesión?

An acta de posesión is a document confirming actual possession and use of a property, issued by the relevant municipality (ayuntamiento) or, in the case of communal land, by the comisariado de bienes comunales. For land that is comunal, the acta de posesión is the document that actually applies: an escritura pública simply is not available for that land unless and until it goes through a separate regularization process. Registration level is what differs between the two documents, state level for the escritura, municipal or community level for the acta, not legal validity.

It is a common misconception that an acta de posesión is a lesser or temporary stand-in for an escritura pública. In practice, it establishes who possesses and uses a property, and since when, giving the holder legally recognized ownership rights at the municipal level, the basis for connecting to electricity and water, for municipal fees, and for buying, selling, or transferring the property under local practice. In many coastal communities where formal state-level titling was historically never completed, the acta de posesión has been the standard, fully accepted basis for property transactions for decades.

Communal land (bienes comunales)

One distinction matters up front: communal land is not the same as ejido land. The two are often confused because both fall under what Mexican law calls "propiedad social" (social property, based on Article 27 of the Constitution) and both are registered as agrarian nuclei with the same federal agency, the Registro Agrario Nacional (RAN). But their legal origin is different: an ejido is created through a dotación, a formal land grant to a newly formed group of campesinos, while a comunidad's land is established through restitución or reconocimiento y titulación de bienes comunales, a process that confirms rights the community already held, often since colonial or pre-colonial times.

This distinction also explains why the paths to formal titling differ: dominio pleno, the mechanism for converting a parcel into individual private property, applies specifically to ejidal parcels under the Agrarian Law, while communal land generally does not follow that same individual-conversion route, given its basis in pre-existing collective rights.

Communal land is held collectively by indigenous communities whose rights often trace back to colonial or even pre-colonial land grants, well before the 20th-century ejido reform ever existed. It is administered by the comisariado de bienes comunales, the governing body of the respective community. Individuals generally receive usage or possession rights rather than a conventional civil-law title. The community itself, however, keeps its own records of possession and how it has changed hands over time, typically documented through an acta de posesión.

For buyers on the Oaxaca coast, one thing is worth knowing clearly: buying communal land is a long-established and legally recognized practice. A large share of the properties in and around Puerto Escondido sit historically on communal land, and thousands of owners have possessed, lived on, and sold such properties for decades without issue. The comisariados have well-established procedures for officially recognizing and documenting changes in possession, local authorities accept the resulting usage rights for utility connections and municipal purposes, and the local real estate market, including banks, notaries and experienced agents, is thoroughly familiar with this form of ownership. With careful review of the community's documentation, buying on communal land is a safe and viable path to property ownership, not merely a fallback option.

When does communal land need an escritura pública?

Communal land can hold both records at the same time: its recognition as communal land, documented through the comisariado de bienes comunales and an acta de posesión, and, alongside it, an escritura pública obtained for a specific property or project. Getting an escritura does not erase the land's communal origin or standing; it adds the state-level title needed for a particular purpose, most commonly development.

This matters most for larger projects. If a developer wants to build apartments or condominium units and sell each one with its own individual title, the project needs a base escritura for the property it is built on. Once that base escritura is in place, a notary can draft an escritura constitutiva de condominio, formally subdividing the property into individual units. Each unit can then be sold with its own separate escritura, just like any other titled property, while the land's history and connection to the comunidad remain part of the record.

In short: the escritura pública and the acta de posesión / communal status are not mutually exclusive. A developer typically obtains the escritura specifically to enable subdivision, construction, and individual ownership of units, it is an added layer of title for that purpose, not a replacement of the land's communal record.

Traceability: records for communal land and the public registry

One point that is often overlooked: even without a state land registry, communal land does have a traceable history. The comisariado de bienes comunales keeps its own records of changes in possession, prior actas, and boundary lines within the community, comparable to an internal chronicle of ownership, even if it is not equivalent to a state registry.

For private land with an escritura pública, the Registro Público de la Propiedad performs this function at the state level: every transfer, every encumbrance, and every change of owner is centrally recorded and therefore verifiable by third parties.

In both cases, a certain degree of history and traceability exists, the difference lies in which level (community or state) maintains it, and what legal weight it carries.

A brief note on ejidal land

For completeness: ejidal land is the third category you may come across. It originated from Mexico's 20th-century agrarian reform, is governed by federal Agrarian Law rather than civil law, and, unlike communal land, was never intended for free sale to third parties. Ejido land was originally allocated for agricultural cultivation (siembra), and an individual ejidatario's rights over a specific plot are documented through a certificado parcelario, issued by the Registro Agrario Nacional (RAN) under Article 78 of the Agrarian Law. A certificado parcelario confirms usage, enjoyment, and possession rights within the ejido, but it does not by itself grant dominio pleno (full private ownership).

To convert a parcel into regular, freely transferable private property, the ejido's assembly must formally approve the parcel's adoption of dominio pleno; once approved, the RAN registers the change and issues a título de propiedad. From that point, the former ejidatario can proceed with a notary to obtain a conventional escritura pública, and the land leaves the ejidal regime for good.

Note for Puerto Escondido: properties offered here come in all three forms, escritura pública, communal land with an acta de posesión, and ejidal land. This guide focuses mainly on the first two since they cover most transactions, but ejidal land is still present in the region and worth understanding on its own terms.

Bottom line

For buyers on the Oaxaca coast, what matters most is straightforward: look closely at which document exists for the property you are considering, and who issued it. Due diligence is always essential, regardless of which form of title applies. With proper verification, properties held under acta de posesión and escritura pública can both be a solid basis for a purchase.

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