Condo management in Mexico

Almost every state statute divides authority the same way. Knowing the split answers most of the questions an owner arriving from another market has, starting with why the administrador keeps saying a decision is not theirs to make.

Each owner's monthly fee is normally calculated on their indiviso — the participation percentage the escritura constitutiva assigns to the unit, usually tied to floor area. Owners in the same building pay different amounts, by design, and it surprises nearly every first-time buyer.

The cuota ordinaria covers the month's running costs: security, cleaning, water, common-area electricity, elevators, landscaping. A cuota extraordinaria is approved by the asamblea for a specific project and apportioned separately. Many condominios also hold a fondo de reserva, which is what keeps every elevator failure from becoming an extraordinary assessment.

Arrears are the single most cited problem, and what the condominio can do about them varies by state. It is worth asking how the building handles collections before you assume a healthy budget: a condominio whose reported fee looks low may simply be one where a third of the units are not paying.

The asamblea ordinaria is the annual meeting that approves the year's accounts and the next budget, and confirms or replaces the administrador. An asamblea extraordinaria is called for anything that cannot wait: a major work, a change to the reglamento interno, removing the administrador.

Notice periods, quorum and voting rules come from the state statute and the building's own bylaws, and they differ enough between states that no general rule is useful — the local law has to be read. What is common everywhere is the consequence of getting it wrong: a badly convened asamblea can be challenged, and so can everything it approved.

Absentee owners are the structural difficulty here. A building where a large share of units are second homes or rentals held from abroad struggles to reach quorum at all, which is why powers of attorney and proxy voting matter more in Mexican coastal condominios than almost anywhere else in the region.

The condominio's own paperwork tells you more about the next five years of ownership than the unit does. Four things are worth asking for by name.

Ask a Mexican administrador where the week goes and the answer is rarely the accounting. It is the phone.

The pattern repeats building by building: a WhatsApp group per tower where notices, complaints and unrelated conversation share one thread; direct messages at any hour; the same question — what do I owe, when does the pool service come, where are the bylaws — asked again by different people; and somewhere in there, the request that mattered, three screens up.

For an owner abroad the same problem shows up as silence. You are in another time zone, possibly asking in another language, and there is no record of what you asked or whether it was resolved. When the administrador changes, that history does not exist at all.

Eloria handles that part and not the others: it is not an accounting system and does not try to replace one.

Residents and owners write on WhatsApp, where they already are and where there is nothing to install. Eloria answers from the condominio's own information — the reglamento interno, common-area hours, current notices — opens a case when a vendor or a decision is needed, and escalates it to the administrador. Everything is recorded per unit and per case, so the history survives a change of administrador.

It speaks each market's vocabulary rather than a translation: cuota de mantenimiento and condóminos in Mexico, expensas in Buenos Aires, gastos comunes in Santiago.