gobbledonk Posted March 24, 2010 Report Share Posted March 24, 2010 Yeah, I know - a minefield, right ? What struck me on this trip were the number of places pushing freehold house/land packages to Farang. I dont know if its some kind of strata title on an estate or similar, but I thought the only way you could buy freehold land in Thailand was to marry a Thai. Pattaya has long been home to dodgy deals, but we arent talking small bikkies here - 10 MB is roughly what you would pay for a 3-bedroom house in many parts of Oz (granted, 'many' doesnt include the inner city, but we dont have people in coloured shirts threatening to bring the government down either ..). I suspect that there may be some 'interesting' paperwork written in Thai in some of the forms folk sign for one of these packages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eldar1 Posted March 24, 2010 Report Share Posted March 24, 2010 As far as i know these house+land through a company deals are legally a bit dodgy, they are tolerated for now but if the government wants to fuck with you they can easily do it. i heard that it might be possible to own the house but lease the land from a Thai (wives are a natural choice) for 30 years. Then again I'm no lawyer and thus I'm not qualified to make any statement on it. I would suggest asking a proper lawyer that is not connected to a real estate agent (conflict of interest), so no sunbelt asia and ilk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted March 24, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2010 Thanks eldar1 - any real estate investments in Asia will have to wait at least 4 years for this young buck (!), but there seemed to be no lack of interest from Farang at the various displays in Central last weekend. It doesnt matter how cute the promo girls are, I think you've hit the nail on the head re the ability of future governments to mess with anyone who has used a temporary loophole. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Munchmaster Posted March 24, 2010 Report Share Posted March 24, 2010 As far as i know these house+land through a company deals are legally a bit dodgy,.... They are. The companies look like they are majority Thai owned but they're not because the Thais are just nominee shareholders. ....they are tolerated for now but if the government wants to fuck with you they can easily do it.... I recall, just after Taksin was ousted, the military government stating that they would investigate all land / property deals by companies where any farang were involved to make sure that the companies weren't "dodgy". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dexi Posted March 24, 2010 Report Share Posted March 24, 2010 Those detailed scale models of houses for sale in perspex cases often seen at the shopping malls such as Big C look good and attract quite a bit of attention.Prices would have to be really cheap to tempt me to buy -.(<2 mill.)and thats not going to happen..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
torrenova Posted March 31, 2010 Report Share Posted March 31, 2010 The company for house route is illegal, simple as. It was overlooked but now the Thai directors of the company are having to show the cash they are supposed to have put in for their 51% or 61% and then the government can ask whether they have paid tax on it. Great idea eh ? Invest Bt40m and you can legally buy 1 rai (1600sqm) and build one house on it. But there is no easy way out of it. You cannot just say westerners can own land or prices will rocket and you cannot screw over every westerner who has a house through a company. So how do you deal with that ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted March 31, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2010 But there is no easy way out of it. You cannot just say westerners can own land or prices will rocket and you cannot screw over every westerner who has a house through a company. So how do you deal with that ? I think you are applying Western logic to a Thai-initiated problem. I dont work from the assumption that there will --never-- come a day when politicians are willing to 'screw over every westerner', but then I am also one of the kooks who can see civil war erupting in Thailand before 2020. For the sake of KS' blood pressure, I'm not going to spell out the 'trigger' for said war - suffice it to say that none of us is immortal (and that includes a certain high-ranking military officer). Hardly a blinding newsflash for most expats, but I'm hearing it from Thais as well as Farang. Alarmist hoo-ha ? Lets hope so. Interesting times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mekong Posted March 31, 2010 Report Share Posted March 31, 2010 The company for house route is illegal, simple as. Would you care to explain how it is ilegal this is news to me, it makes me laugh how people who dont even own land / property in Thailand all of a sudden become bar stool barristers as opposed to bar owners. Sorry Torrenova you are full of shit, my wife works in the private sector and has paid tax on her > 1.5 Million THB / Annum Salary for all the years that I have known her. Based on her pre-taxed savings she has proven monies to support her investments. Furthermore when we sold my old apartment in CBD BKK as a "Marital Home" she was also entitled to claim 50% of the profit made on it based on estimated value from the day we got married. We were very careful to ensure that the wife could show monies from an indipendant (from farang) means to own the land in her own rite, and have the lawyers bills to prove it. The illegality begins when foreigner gives Thai wife monies to buy land in her own name, which I suspect in 90%+ of the deals to be the case, but when Thai Spouse can prove that income / land ownership was indipendant from the Farang Spouse it is totally legitimate. Maybe if you associated with nornal Thais and not the blood sucking whores that Pattaya attracts you would understand the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozpharlap Posted April 1, 2010 Report Share Posted April 1, 2010 I am a bit confused with this thread. Has some one made the point here that, "they will take a land/house off a Thai if it is in a Thai's name just because there was a declaration monies wholly came from her despite, but in reality, the monies came from the farang? Surely that would not be the case? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mekong Posted April 2, 2010 Report Share Posted April 2, 2010 Oz Refer back to This Thread from last May Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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