Evictions in Mexico

* Not all foreigners who have property in Mexico have a lot of sympathy for those unfortunate people who are losing their homes at Punta Banda (Oct. 31). This is a question of one person using bad judgment and 200 people following.

I have (foreigners don’t own) several pieces of property in Baja California. The titles to these properties are held by a Mexican bank, which issues to me a fideicomiso, a trust. This is the only legal way that affords protection. I know of a few other places in Baja where other Americans are continuing to plunk their hard-earned money on bogus land deals.

If you can’t get a fideicomiso, go find another piece of property regardless of how beautiful it is or what your neighbor in Long Beach told you.

ANTHONY KINNINGER

Newport Beach

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One does not have to look very far to find one of the real causes of economic difficulties south of the border. If foreigners cannot take their money to Mexico and not be robbed, why would anyone want to do it? Since the government made the mistake of approving the [leasing] of property to outsiders decades ago, it should require that the homeowners be reimbursed or paid off. This kind of government-sanctioned robbery will cost the country much more in lost business opportunities than the value of all the land involved.

N. DAN BISHOP

Castaic

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It really is disingenuous for the former residents of the Punta Banda development to act so surprised. For many years, it has been obvious to any impartial observer that these people were living on land to which they had no legal title. This dispute had already worked its way through the court system in Mexico and the results were unambiguous.

Yet these “ugly Americans” still tried to use dangerous blockades to prevent the government from carrying out the legal decree. Apparently they have zero respect for the legal system of the country in which they have been guests.

JERRY SWOVELIN

Carlsbad

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Now I understand what Vicente Fox may have had in mind by proposing open borders between the U.S. and Mexico. Mexicans will be able to buy homes here with money from the U.S.-owned homes they expropriate in Mexico.

GARRY WORMSER

West Hills