Political Delay to Blame for Belize’s Poor Real Estate Report
The warning signs were there, and so was the promise to fix them. Before the 2025 general election, Prime Minister John Briceño said regulating Belize’s real estate industry was long overdue and pledged to make it a priority. But nearly two years later, the proposed law has yet to reach Cabinet. Now, the U.S. State Department is warning investors about weak regulation, outdated land laws, overlapping title systems and land fraud. As the Belize Real Estate Association defends the sector, questions are mounting over whether political delays allowed these concerns to reach the international stage. Here is what the Prime Minister promised in February 2025.
Prime Minister John Briceño (File: February 26, 2025)
“First of all, the DPM has given me a copy of the proposed legislation for real estate agents – to regulate that industry. It is something that I started working, I had it pretty much ready when I resigned back then in 2007, but it seems that the previous government had no interest in working on that. Or D.P M obviously got carried away – well, I shouldn’t say got carried away but was tied up with all of these land cleanings that he continues to do. And then he finally has this bill ready to take to Cabinet and then to the National Assembly when the elections came upon us. In his mind, the timeline I think he was working was November, 2025. So he did not have it ready, but to take it to the National Assembly. But we’re working on that, so we have that ready and that’s going to be a priority in the next government. Secondly, we’re looking at digitizing the land registry on the titles unit because once we can digitize that, it slows down. It makes the issue off fraudulent transactions more difficult because then there is a digital imprint of what is happening. And so we want to do that, not only to prevent fraud, but also to provide a more effective and efficient service for the private sector.”
The Ministry of Natural Resources is finalizing the draft of the Real Estate Agents Bill with hopes of presenting to Cabinet by the end of this year. The goal of the sector is for the legislation to be passed early 2027.
Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.
Watch the full newscast here: