What to Check About the HOA Before You Buy in Puerto Vallarta

A pre-purchase inspection tells you about the concrete, the plumbing and the roof. It tells you nothing about the organization you are about to join.

When you buy a condo in Puerto Vallarta you are buying two things. One is a unit, which you can see, touch and have inspected. The other is a share of a small institution with a budget, a list of people who are not paying it, a set of rules, and a history of arguments. Most buyers examine the first carefully and take the second on faith. In my experience the second one produces the more expensive surprise, and it is far easier to check.

Here is what to ask for, who is obliged to give it to you, and how to read it when it arrives.

This article describes how condominium documents work in Jalisco and what to ask for. It is general information, not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for having your notario and, where the amounts justify it, your own abogado read the condominium’s documents before you sign.

I should tell you where this comes from. For a stretch of my career I administered properties myself, on the other side of this exact conversation — the person being asked for the statements, not the one asking. That is why this is a list of documents and not a list of warnings. The buildings that gave me trouble were almost never the ones with old pipes. They were the ones where nobody could produce a clean set of books.

Start with the law that actually applies here

Most of what you will find online about “Mexican condominium law” is either generic or wrong for Jalisco, and one error repeats everywhere: articles still cite the Ley sobre el Régimen de Propiedad y Condominio de Inmuebles para el Estado de Jalisco of 1985. That law was abrogated on 6 March 1995. Since then the rules live in the Código Civil del Estado de Jalisco, Libro Tercero, Título Sexto, beginning at article 1001.

Two things follow from that, and both are practical.

First, if a document you are handed states the 1985 law as its legal basis, it was drafted from a template nobody has updated in thirty years. That is not a reason to panic. It is a reason to read the rest of the document more slowly.

Second, the Civil Code sets a floor and no more. The building’s escritura constitutiva — the deed that created the condominium regime — and its reglamento interno do most of the real work. Those two documents govern your unit. A general article about Mexican condos does not.

This matters before you even reach the paperwork, because a “condo” in Puerto Vallarta can be several different legal animals — a properly constituted regime, a building that was never formally constituted, or pre-construction. That is mistake three on the list first-time foreign buyers make here, and everything in this article assumes you have settled it first.

One geographic note, because the bay crosses a state line. Sayulita, Bucerías, La Cruz and Punta de Mita are in Nayarit, not Jalisco. Everything below is Jalisco law. If you are buying on the Nayarit side, the framework is that state’s, and you need someone who works there.

The one protection that happens automatically

Article 1029 bis of the Code is short and it is the single best piece of news for a buyer:

Every condominium owner has the right to be issued a statement of the account they hold in the condominium. When a contract transferring ownership of a private unit is executed, the notario público who prepares the deed must require the selling party to deliver a constancia de no adeudo issued by the condominium administrator.

So the notario is obliged to ask for proof that the seller does not owe the building money. This is genuine protection and it operates whether or not you think to ask for it. A seller who is behind on cuotas cannot quietly hand you the bill. It is one of several checks your notario performs on your behalf, which is a large part of why the buyer’s right to choose the notario is worth exercising.

Now the limits, which matter just as much. That certificate says one thing: this owner is current, as of today. It says nothing about whether the building is solvent, nothing about a special assessment that was discussed at the last assembly but not yet voted, and nothing about one that was voted last month and has not yet been billed. I have seen a clean constancia handed over in a building that was three weeks from assessing every owner for an elevator.

Ask separately, and ask in writing: has any cuota extraordinaria been approved, or is any under discussion?

The document that tells you the truth

This is the part almost nobody asks for, and it is the most revealing document in the whole transaction.

Article 1012 of the Code lists the administrator’s obligations. Section VII requires the administrator, in the first half of April, July, October and January, to deliver to any owner who requests it — or keep available at the administration office — a statement of accounts containing:

• an analytical report of the quarter’s expenses
• a consolidated report showing income and overdue unpaid cuotas
• a general list of debtors, explaining the origin of each debt
• a list of creditors, explaining the origin of each credit
• the cash balances that exist

Read that third line again. The list of who is not paying, and why, is a document the administrator is required to produce. It is not confidential and it is not a favor.

You are not an owner yet, so you cannot demand it — but the seller is, and the seller can. Put it in your offer alongside the inspection: the seller requests the current quarterly statement and the last two before it, and delivers them during your review period. A seller who is genuinely selling a unit in a healthy building will not blink at this.

How to read the debtor list

Do the arithmetic rather than looking for a verdict. If a fifth of the owners are not paying, the building is running on four-fifths of the budget it wrote. That money does not appear from anywhere. Either the service quietly degrades — the pool goes cloudy, the guard shift gets cut, the elevator maintenance contract lapses — or the owners who do pay are assessed to cover the ones who do not. There is no third option, and if you buy there you are joining the group that pays.

Then look at the origin column, which the Code requires. Twenty small recent balances in a building of a hundred units is normal life. Three owners who have not paid in four years is a building that has decided not to collect, and that is a cultural fact about the place that will not change because you arrived.

The books, and why “the assembly approved it” is sometimes not true

Section VI of the same article requires the condominium to keep at least three books: one for the minutes of owners’ assemblies, one for the minutes of the administration council, and one recording income and expenses. Those books must be authorized on their first usable page by the secretario of the ayuntamiento where the condominium sits. And when for any reason a minute cannot be entered in its book, the Code says that for it to be valid it must be protocolized by a notario with residence or jurisdiction in that municipality.

That is a specific, checkable thing, and it is the reason to ask to see the libro de actas for the last three years rather than a summary of it.

Two things fall out of reading the minutes. The first is validity: a decision that exists only as a printout in a binder, never entered in the authorized book and never protocolized, may not bind anyone. Buildings discover this at the worst possible moment, usually while trying to collect. The second is foresight, and it is the better reason. A special assessment almost never appears for the first time as a vote. It appears two years earlier as a complaint about water pressure, then as a quote from a contractor, then as a study, then as an item tabled for lack of funds. If you read three years of minutes you can generally see what the building is going to have to spend money on before anyone has told you.

The reserve, and what the Code does and does not say

Article 1026 requires owners to contribute both to operating costs and to constituting and conserving reserve funds, allocated by the porcentaje indiviso — the share of the whole that your unit represents, which is written in the escritura constitutiva and is not necessarily proportional to your square metres. Check yours. It determines your share of every future bill.

The same article carries two details worth knowing. Where a condominium has elements serving only some owners — a particular stairwell, lift, garden or installation — the cost of those falls on the people who actually use them, not on everyone. And when an improvement or voluntary work is approved, the same resolution must set the basis for covering its cost. A vote to do the work that is silent about who pays for it is an incomplete vote.

One correction I owe you, because I have written the looser version myself. You will read in many places, including older Mexican sources, that the reserve must be held in fixed-income instruments redeemable on demand. That language comes from the 1985 law that was repealed. The current Civil Code requires the reserve to exist and to be conserved; it does not prescribe the instrument. Where the money sits is therefore a matter for the escritura, the reglamento and the assembly — which is exactly why you should ask where it is, and not assume the law has already handled it. Our guide to condo fees in Puerto Vallarta goes further into what a healthy reserve looks like.

The reglamento decides whether your plan is even legal

If you intend to rent the unit, the reglamento interno is the document that decides whether you can, and it outranks your business plan entirely. Buildings here restrict short-term rentals in every gradation: outright prohibition, minimum stays of thirty or ninety days, caps on the number of units that may be rented, registration with the administration, a separate fee for guest use of amenities.

This is independent of the state-level rental rules that have been debated in the Jalisco Congress and that I cover in the short-term rental guide. Even if that legislation never passes, your reglamento binds you. Read the rental clause before you fall in love with the view.

While you are in there, read the pet clause, the renovation clause — permitted hours, required deposits, whether wet-area remodels need approval — and the parking and storage provisions, which are often titled separately from the unit itself.

Five things no document will tell you

Walk the building on a weekday morning and talk to whoever is at the desk and whoever is by the pool. Owners tell you things minutes do not.

1. Is the administrator an individual or a firm, and how long have they been there? Professionally administered buildings exist here and are common in the larger developments; owner-administered buildings can be run beautifully or run out of a notebook.
2. How many units are being short-term rented in practice, regardless of what the reglamento says?
3. Is the condominium in litigation with anyone — a former administrator, a developer, a contractor?
4. When did the cuota last increase, and by how much? A building that has not raised its cuota in six years is not disciplined. It is deferring.
5. Does the assembly reach quorum? A condominium that cannot gather enough owners to vote cannot approve anything, including the repairs it needs.

What I will tell you that costs me a commission

Two things.

If the debtor list shows that a large share of the building is not paying, the cuota you were quoted is fiction. You are being shown a number the building does not actually collect. I would rather you buy the more expensive unit in the building that collects than the bargain in the building that does not, and I will tell you that even when the bargain is my listing and the difference comes out of my own cheque.

And if the administrator will not produce the quarterly statement and the minutes before you sign — walk. Not renegotiate, not proceed with a nervous feeling. Walk. A building that will not show its books while it is trying to sell you something will not become transparent once you own a unit in it. I have given this advice on my own listings and I will give it again.

What this exercise costs

Nothing but a few emails and the patience to read fifty pages. Set that against a cuota extraordinaria, which in this bay routinely lands somewhere between ten and twenty per cent of a unit’s value when a building has to repair something it did not save for.

That is the whole argument. The documents are free, the administrator is legally obliged to produce most of them, and the assessment is not optional once it is voted.

If something goes wrong after you own it

Jalisco has a state body, the Procuraduría de Desarrollo Urbano (PRODEUR), which provides orientation on the application and interpretation of urban legislation to citizens. Article 1012 itself names PRODEUR as the arbitrator when a building inside a condominio compuesto receives conflicting instructions from the general administrator and its own council. It is not a magic wand and it does not replace a lawyer, but it exists, it is public, and most foreign owners here have never heard of it.

And if what you find is that the administration itself is the problem, understand that replacing it is a committee decision and not a buyer’s. But it does happen, and when a building I know is at that point I have an administrator I work with — someone who runs both condominium regimes and private homes on the Conchas Chinas side, which is the harder of the two jobs because the owners are usually somewhere else. Message me and I will make the introduction. Whether he is right for your particular building is a separate question, and I will tell you if he is not.

The list, in one place

Ask the seller for these before your review period ends:

• The escritura constitutiva of the condominium regime, and confirmation it is registered
• Your unit’s porcentaje indiviso
• The reglamento interno, in full and current
• The last three quarterly statements under article 1012 VII, including the debtor list
• The libro de actas for the last three years — the book, not a summary
• Written confirmation of any cuota extraordinaria approved or under discussion
• The current reserve fund balance and where it is held
• The condominium’s insurance policy on common areas, and its expiry
• The constancia de no adeudo — which your notario must require anyway

If you get all of that, you know more about the building than most of the people who already live in it. If you cannot get it, you have learned something too.

📅 Book a 30-minute call: meetings.hubspot.com/neft

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🏠 More guides on living in Puerto Vallarta: legacyvallartarealty.com/blog/

— Neft Román, Legacy Vallarta Realty
Affiliate of AMPI Puerto Vallarta y Compostela

Legal and financial rules change, and every condominium is governed by its own escritura constitutiva and reglamento interno. Verify current requirements with your notario and a licensed attorney before relying on anything here. Article references are to the Código Civil del Estado de Jalisco as published in September 2026.

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