Zona de bajamar in Serena del Mar: why fenced lots on the shore cannot be sold

The zona de bajamar — the tidal strip between the high and low water marks — is public domain of the Nation and cannot be privately owned. That does not stop it from appearing in Serena del Mar fenced, built on, and covered by a notarised deed.

Public-domain property is outside commerce: it cannot be sold, mortgaged, or acquired by possession, however many generations a family has occupied it. What can exist over the beach and the tidal strip is a concesión or a permit from the maritime authority — temporary, revocable, and transferring ownership to no one. The consequence for a buyer is financial: if part of the area being priced falls within the zona de bajamar, that part is not being bought and a bank will not take it as collateral. The line is invisible from the terrace and is not drawn on the deed.

Serena del Mar runs on rules of its own. The land is developed under a plan parcial, a master plan adopted by District decree, and that decree, not a general reading of the POT, the city land-use plan, is what sets uses, land transfers to the city and development obligations for a given lot. So the document to request here is the adopting decree with its drawings; the land-use certificate that serves in a settled neighborhood is not enough. The second difference is a layer of private government that exists nowhere else: the ciudadela, the master community, has its own statutes, an architectural committee and design rules governing façades, fences and renovations, and those rules follow the property on resale, binding a buyer who never negotiated them. The third is the counterparty: you usually deal with the developer or with a fiduciaria, a trust company, administering the stages, and the unit's registry record descends from a very large parent parcel subdivided in phases, so title is verified upward, to the matriz, the parent record, and to the deeds transferring land to the District. Infrastructure was built by the developer: what matters is whether it has been handed over to the utility or is still privately held.

What is specific to Serena del Mar

What to verify, step by step

1. Ask DIMAR, the maritime authority, for information on the deslinde — the official demarcation of public-domain land — along the stretch of coast where the Serena del Mar property sits, and whether any concesión is current over that beach and in whose name. The request is made in writing and does not require being in Colombia.
2. Compare the area and boundaries on the certificado de tradición y libertad (the title and encumbrances certificate) against the IGAC cadastral record. A discrepancy in area on the seaward side is the signal worth understanding before going further.
3. Read the certificate's entries from oldest to newest, looking for allocations, falsa tradición, or consolidations that extended the property toward the beach at some point in the chain.
4. Insist that the survey be properly referenced and signed by an identifiable professional, not a sales-office plan with no author.
5. Check in addition what is specific to Serena del Mar, which is not the same from one stretch of coast to the next: which stage of the master plan the property sits in, because the development obligations and infrastructure timelines differ between them; which amenities are actually built and which are merely approved, a distinction the sales office does not always draw and how the master-community dues work alongside the individual complex's dues, which are two separate charges that add up.

Mistakes that cost money

• Treating the fence, the building and the paid property-tax receipt as proof of ownership. It is the mistake of someone buying a beach lot: none of the three turns public-domain land into private property, and a tax receipt is not title.
• Confusing the concesión with ownership. It is the mistake of someone buying a tower apartment facing the beach and assuming the access comes with the unit: a concession authorises an use for a term, it is held in someone's name, and it is not sold with the property.
• Accepting that “it has always been done this way here”. Local custom does not change the legal nature of the land, and the foreign buyer is the one who absorbs the difference.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know where the zona de bajamar ends on a specific property?

You cannot infer it by looking at the beach. DIMAR is the competent authority, and the deslinde for that stretch is what you ask it for.

If the deed is registered, is the question settled?

Registration records that the transaction was filed, not that the thing transferred was capable of private ownership. Those are two different questions, and the second is answered by the maritime authority.

What is it about Serena del Mar that changes this enquiry?

The rule is the same across the city; the history of the land is not. Bocagrande and Castillogrande include land reclaimed from the sea, La Boquilla combines a coastal sandbar with collective title, and in Serena del Mar the right move is to ask about that stretch and not the one beside it.

Where to check it

• Dirección General Marítima (DIMAR) — public-domain tidal land and concessions over the beach
• Superintendencia de Notariado y Registro — the certificate of title and encumbrances, which is the property's full history
• Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi — the cadastral record, area, boundaries and assessed value of the property
• Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial de Cartagena — land use, the rules applying to the property and protected land
• Cardique, autoridad ambiental del Canal del Dique — environmental permits, water setbacks and mangrove or wetland constraints
• Ventanilla Única de Registro (VUR) — checking the registry folio online and ordering the certificate without visiting the office
• Cartagena de Indias — the rules of the municipality Serena del Mar belongs to

Official bodies. Specific figures are requested there, not copied from a listing.

Updated 2026-11-05