Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T18:22:50.486Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inheritance and Succession in Informal Settlements of Latin American Cities: A Mexican Case Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Erika D. Grajeda  and
Peter M. Ward
Erika D. Grajeda
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
Peter M. Ward
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Latin American urban areas often comprise large low-income former shantytown areas that originated as illegal land captures and that have been consolidated through self-build over thirty years or more. Today most of the original households still live in their homes, often alongside adult children (and grandchildren). As part of the Latin American Housing Network study (www.lahn.utexas.org), this article reports on survey research for Mexico and describes the stability and nature of these shared arrangements and the considerable asset value now represented by these properties. Although these properties are often considered patrimonio para los hijos, many consolidator pioneers are aging, so that the issue of property inheritance has become salient, especially for second-generation adult children and their families. However, fewer than 10 percent of owners have wills, and most will die intestate, often having made verbal inheritance arrangements regarding their “estate.” This augurs the rise of a new round of informality of property holding that bears little relation to the national and state legal provisions that actually govern inheritance succession, whether through wills or via intestacy provisions. The article describes the various legal codes that prevail in Mexico relating to marriage and acquisition and assigning of property upon death, and it offers several case scenarios of interfamilial and intragenerational conflict, especially insofar as these relate to gender and social constructions of inheritance rights among the poor.

Resumo

Resumo

Las urbes latinoamericanas suelen contener áreas masivas de asentamientos de origen informal ya consolidados dado los esfuerzos de autoconstrucción y autogestión de sus habitantes en un transcurso de más de treinta años. Hoy en día la gran mayoría de los hogares fundadores o pioneros permanecen en estos asentamientos, y en muchos casos, con sus hijas e hijos adultos y sus respectivas familias. Como parte de la Red Latinoamericana de Vivienda, este artículo presenta los principales hallazgos relativos a la estabilidad residencial e índole de arreglos intergeneracionales de convivencia en México y Bogotá, como también datos sobre el valor actual de estos inmuebles que en muchos casos alcanzan a US$45.000 o más. Si bien se ha considerado que la vivienda es un “patrimonio para los hijos”, hoy en día muchos de los dueños originales (pioneros) se encuentran en edad avanzada, tanto que el tema de la sucesión y herencia se ha convertido en un tema fundamental para las segundas generaciones y sus familias. Sin embargo, menos del 10 por ciento de los propietarios cuentan con un testamento y por lo tanto, la mayoría muere intestado, optando en su lugar por una serie de arreglos sucesorios orales e informales. Se muestra que una nueva ronda de informalidad está surgiendo a raíz de estos arreglos informales que se encuentran fuera de las provisiones legales de la sucesión. Este artículo describe las normas legales que regulan la sucesión en México como lo es la propiedad marital y leyes sucesorias, y presenta también una serie de casos de conflictos familiares e intergeneracionales que subrayan temas de género en cuestiones de herencia en asentamientos de índole informal.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 47 , Issue S1: Special Issue , 2012 , pp. 139 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by the Latin American Studies Association

References

Deere, Carmen Diana, and León, Magdalena 2005 “Liberalism and Married Women's Property Rights in Nineteenth-Century Latin America.” Hispanic American Historical Review 85 (4): 627–678.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, Alan 1999 “A Home Is for Ever? Residential Mobility and Homeownership in Self-Help Settlements.” Environment and Planning A 31:1073–1091.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, Alan, ed. 1996 The Mega-City in Latin America. New York: United Nations University Press.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Alan, and Ward, Peter M. 1985 Housing, the State and the Poor: Policy and Practice in Three Latin American Cities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reprinted in paperback, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
González de la Rocha, Mercedes 1994 The Resources of Poverty: Women and Survival in a Mexican City. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Grajeda, Ella 2006 “Más caro: Promover un intestado que pagar $2,500 por testamento.” El Gráfico (Mexico City), September 9.Google Scholar
Grajeda, Erika 2008 “Inheritance in Mexico: Current Testamentary and Property Regularization Policies.” MA thesis, University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Liceaga, M. Sofia 2006 “Tranquilidad post mortem.” El Economista (Mexico City), September 13.Google Scholar
Lomnitz, Larissa Adler de 1976 ¿Como sobreviven los marginados? Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno.Google Scholar
Moser, Caroline 2009 Ordinary Families, Extraordinary Lives: Assets and Poverty Reduction in Guayaquil, 1978–2004. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Perlman, Janice 2010 Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Portes, Alejandro, and Hoffman, Kelly 2003 “Latin American Class Structures: Their Composition and Change during the Neoliberal Era.” Latin American Research Review 38 (1): 41–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Bryan R. 1973 Organizing Strangers: Poor Families in Guatemala City. Austin: University of Texas Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Bryan R. 2010 “Moving On and Moving Back: Rethinking Inequality and Migration in the Latin American City.” Journal of Latin American Studies 42 (3): 587–614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robichaux, David Luke 1997 “Residence Rules and Ultimogeniture in Tlaxcala and Mesoamerica.” Ethnology 36:149–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robichaux, David Luke 2002 “El sistema familiar mesoamericano y sus consecuencias demográficas.” Papeles de Población 32:60–95.Google Scholar
Sussman, Marvin B., Cates, Judith N., and Smith, David T. 1970 The Family and Inheritance. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Varley, Ann 1993 “Gender and Housing: The Provision of Accommodation for Young Adults in Three Mexican Cities.” Habitat International 17 (4): 13–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varley, Ann 1994 “Housing the Household, Holding the House.” In Methodology for Land and Housing Market Analysis, edited by Jones, Gareth and Ward, Peter M., 120–134. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.Google Scholar
Varley, Ann 2000 “Women and the Home in Mexican Family Law.” In The Hidden Stories of Gender and the State in Latin America, edited by Dore, E. and Molyneux, M., 238–261. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Varley, Ann 2010 “Modest Expectations: Gender and Property in Urban Mexico.” Law and Society Review 44 (1): 67–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varley, Ann, and Blasco, Maribel 2000 “Intact or in Tatters? Family Care of Older Women and Men in Urban Mexico.” Gender and Development 8 (2): 47–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Varley, Ann, and Blasco, Maribel 2001 “Exiled to the Home: Masculinity and Ageing in Urban Mexico.” European Journal of Development Research 12 (2): 115–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, Peter M. 2005 “The Lack of ‘Cursive Thinking’ with Social Theory and Public Policy: Four Decades of Marginality and Rationality in the So-Called ‘Slum.‘” In Rethinking Development in Latin America, edited by Wood, Charles H. and Roberts, Bryan R., 271–296. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Ward, Peter M. 2008 “Hacia una segunda etapa de la regularización de los títulos de propiedad en Mexico.” In Irregularidad y suelo urbano: Memorias del II Congreso Nacional de Suelo Urbano, edited by Iracheta, Alfonso and Medina, Susana, 123–139. Toluca, Mexico: Colegio Mexiquense.Google Scholar
Ward, Peter M. 2012 “‘A Patrimony for the Children’: Low-Income Homeownership and Housing (Im)-Mobility in Latin American Cities.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 102 (6): 1489–1510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, Peter M., Jiménez Huerta, Edith R., Grajeda, Erika, and Velázquez, Claudia Ubaldo 2011 “‘The House That Mum and Dad Built’: Self-Help Housing Policies for Second Generation Inheritance and Succession.” Habitat International 35:467–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar