Laura Bennett

I'm Laura Bennett, and I was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina, in a house where the kitchen calendar was always covered in my mother's handwriting. My family is English and Scottish American on both sides, and the most treasured thing I inherited is a recipe card for my grandmother's shortbread, with her notes squeezed into every margin. I think that card explains a lot about me, because I have been writing notes in margins ever since.

For years I worked as an office coordinator at a US relocation services company. My job was to keep international moves organized for families: housing searches, document lists, shipping dates, school questions and all the small logistics of settling into a new place. I was never the person making the big decisions. I was the person at the desk making sure nobody forgot the apostille, the lease addendum or the date a visa appointment had to be booked.

That work taught me that most moving stress doesn't come from the big choice of where to go. It comes from the dozen small things nobody explained clearly, which pile up at the worst possible moment. Some of the families I helped were heading to Mexico, and their questions stayed with me long after the files were closed. They asked whether they could really own a house near the beach, what a fideicomiso was, how much money a consulate wanted to see, and whether the city they had fallen for on vacation would feel the same on an ordinary Tuesday.

Mexico Shores is where I try to answer those questions the way I wish someone had answered them for those families. I am quiet and methodical by nature, and I double-check everything, so I read the official sources more than once, keep track of when rules and figures change, and say plainly when something is uncertain. I am not a lawyer, notario, tax adviser, immigration consultant or real estate agent, and I don't sell property or services. What I can do is lay out the questions in a sensible order, so that when you sit down with the professionals who can confirm the details, you already know what to ask.

When I'm not writing, I'm usually walking a trail in the Blue Ridge, wandering a busy farmers market with a canvas bag and no plan, or working slowly through my Spanish flashcards. I still bake my grandmother's shortbread every December, and yes, I still follow her margin notes exactly.

0 articles