How to check the SEDETUS irregular developments registry in Quintana Roo

Your development is advertised, presold and financed. None of that means the state authorized it to be sold.

This is how to search the SEDETUS irregular developments registry in Quintana Roo, how to read an entry, and what to do if your project is on the list.

Before You Begin

Quintana Roo publishes a public list of real estate developments being marketed without the permits state law requires. As of 8 September 2026 it holds 130 projects, and every one of them still carries the status Irregular. The search is free, needs no account, and takes about two minutes.

• SEDETUS is the Secretaría de Desarrollo Territorial Urbano Sustentable, the state authority for urban development in Quintana Roo. It runs the public registry and adds projects in batches rather than continuously.
• Articles 80 and 81 LAHOTDU, the state law on human settlements and urban development, are the cause cited in every entry on the list. The wording does not vary. The project is advertising and commercializing itself without the Constancia de Congruencia Urbanística Estatal, the state urban congruence certificate, and without the municipal licences that go with it.
• Irregular is an administrative status, not a criminal finding and not an automatic cancellation of your contract. It records that the state found the project was being sold without authorization.
• What you need in hand: the project name exactly as it appears in the marketing, your municipality, the name of the entity that signed your contract, and the contract itself.
• The registry covers Quintana Roo only. Yucatán and Baja California Sur publish no equivalent list, so a project in Mérida or Los Cabos can be neither cleared nor condemned this way.

The Process

Step 1: Search the project name

Open the registry and type the development name into the search box. The table paginates ten rows at a time, so search rather than scroll. Use the brand name on the signage and the social media accounts, because that is the name SEDETUS records.

Step 2: Search your municipality as well

Sixty-five of the 130 entries name no promoter or seller at all. If your project was renamed, marketed under a second brand, or sold by an entity that never appeared in the advertising, a name search alone can miss it. Filter by municipality and read those entries one by one.

This is not a Tulum problem. Tulum holds 36 entries, Isla Mujeres 32, and Benito Juárez, the municipality that covers Cancún, 27. Othón P. Blanco, Bacalar, Puerto Morelos, Lázaro Cárdenas and Playa del Carmen account for the remaining 35.

Step 3: Open the entry and read four fields

Each row opens into a detail page. Four fields carry weight: the date the project entered the registry, the stated cause of irregularity, the address of the sales office, and the offer text that SEDETUS copied from the developer's own advertising. The rest is contact data.

Step 4: Save the record before it changes

The registry preserves the developer's sales pitch, and 86 of the 130 entries include it in full. That text is a state-held copy of what you were promised, which is stronger than a screenshot on your phone. Save the page as a PDF, note the date you captured it, and file it with your contract.

Step 5: Check the federal side of the file

The state registry and the federal consumer record are separate checks, and a project can fail both. Adhesion contracts for presale housing must be registered before PROFECO, and non-registration is its own infraction under the Federal Consumer Protection Law. Confirm whether your presale contract was ever registered before you decide what you are dealing with.

Step 6: Put three questions to the developer in writing

Ask for the state urban congruence certificate by number and date. Ask for the municipal construction licence by number and date. Ask why the project appears on the SEDETUS registry and what has been filed to remove it.

Send all three by email and keep the thread. A written non-answer is worth more to you later than a phone call in which a sales manager offers reassurance.

Step 7: Find the other buyers in your project

A listed development rarely has one unhappy buyer. When several buyers share the same seller, the same breach and the same remedy, they can act together instead of each paying separately to prove the same facts. That is the structure behind a group complaint under Article 99, and buyers in listed Tulum projects have already used it.

Common Failure Points

• Reading absence as clearance. The registry lists projects the state has caught. A development that is not on it may simply not have been reviewed, so absence tells you nothing about its permits.
• Waiting for regularization. Not one of the 130 entries has moved off the status Irregular since the registry opened on 27 June 2025. Treat "we are resolving it" as a claim to verify.
• Accepting an amendment instead of an answer. Developers often respond to permit questions with an addendum that extends the delivery date. Signing one can restart the clock you were relying on.
• Letting the evidence disappear. Marketing pages come down once a project is questioned. The registry copy of the sales pitch is often the last surviving version.
• Assuming the listing cancels the contract. It does not. The listing is a fact you can use, and the remedy still has to be claimed.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. My development is on the registry. Is my contract void?

No. The listing records that the project was being marketed without state authorization, and it does not cancel your contract on its own. It does support a claim that the seller misrepresented the legal status of what it sold you, which matters in a demand for rescission and refund.

2. The entry does not name my seller. Is it still my project?

Possibly. Half the entries name no promoter or seller, and developments are routinely marketed under a brand that differs from the contracting company. Match on project name, municipality and the sales-office address before you conclude either way.

3. Does a listing get my money back?

Not by itself. It is evidence, and it narrows what the seller can credibly argue about what it was authorized to sell. Recovery still runs through a written demand, then conciliation before PROFECO, and litigation if those do not resolve it.

The Path Forward

If your project is on the registry, the useful next step is not another email to the sales office. It is a written record of what the state says, what your contract says, and where the two diverge.

If you have not signed yet, the registry is one input among several and the cheapest one to check. It belongs in the same review as the permits, the land status and the developer's delivery history.

PeninsuLawyers represents foreign buyers exclusively. We have no affiliation with developers or brokers. Book a consultation at peninsulawyers.com to have your project checked against the registry and your contract read against what the seller was authorized to sell.