allistar Posted May 30, 2009 Report Share Posted May 30, 2009 Most of the Thais that I know whose families have had to sell their land (Thais don't want to invest in "western" concepts like stock markets) or gold because they faced an economic emergency, possibly caused by hospital bills or some other concern, and have had to sell at least part of the land holdings, usualy to Thais that deep cash reserves and look for opportunities where a family has to have the money. Unless you can teach old Thais new tricks, many will eventualy lose any new cash/holdings left to them by farangs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddha Posted May 30, 2009 Report Share Posted May 30, 2009 I do not doubt the expertise on the subject but I still cannot grasp the idea of 'buying property' anywhere. Condos have yearly taxes and monthly fees, properties have yearly taxes. I can live cheaper renting...almost anywhere. Sure I do not have the upside of appreciation, but I also do not have the risk of depreciation. So buying in Thailand...I can find a very livable apt in BKK for 8000 baht or less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allistar Posted May 30, 2009 Report Share Posted May 30, 2009 The taxes on houses isn't much. The thai government collects is money when the house sells, not from property taxes. I built my house with the intentin of dyinging in it, so appreciation /depreciation didn't play any role. And the house and property are just the way I want it. And, if all hell breaks loose in LOS, I can afford to walk away from it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavanami Posted May 31, 2009 Report Share Posted May 31, 2009 Being from the West, it is difficult for me not to want to buy a condo, land or house. In the West, this used to be the way the middle class could save for the future, but I have to agree that buying in LOS is risky and can be a money loser. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RayRay Posted May 31, 2009 Report Share Posted May 31, 2009 I do not doubt the expertise on the subject but I still cannot grasp the idea of 'buying property' anywhere. I am in 100% agreement with you on this. About a year ago, before the financial meltdown, I read an interesting article that showed housing investments barely keep up with inflation except for two periods. The first was right after WWII and the other was the recent housing bubble that is now crumbling before our eyes. When I finished university I thought I was supposed to go out and buy a house. That's what everybody in the USA does. I never got around to doing so (didn't have the money at that time, then moved overseas). Looking back on it I'm not upset one bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gadfly Posted May 31, 2009 Report Share Posted May 31, 2009 Apparantly they do care, and this is apparant from the original post. Land purchase through Thai spouse forbidden: Land Dept If the Thai spouse has enough money to buy the house that is fine, but if the Thai has no money and uses money given to him or her by a foreigner to acquire property, that is against the law. If we check and find out later that a Thai person has been using money from a foreigner to buy land anywhere in Thailand, we will revoke title deeds,â? This authority is referring a situation where spouse directly buys property. He uses the word "spouse". The land department official makes a point of emphasizing a direct purchase by an individual whom, in the opinion of the Land Department, doesn't have "enough money" to deserve to own the property. That is what he is saying. If they really don't care about Thai spouses directly buying property, why are they making such a big fuss about property purchases through a spouse? The old - and totally ridiculous, IMHO (we can deal with that separately) - argument about Farangs buying up Thailand doesn't make any sense at all if a Thai women is buying the property. It's in her name and she will have the property all to herself when her husband passes away - or sooner, if things go sour. So why would the authorities possibly care? Why make such a gigantic fuss about this? I thought Cent also had a good, and maybe better, theory: there is an opportunity here for authorities to make a buck by shaking down property owners. Times are tight, and corruption is rampant here. Anyway, I thought the poster, Kididmegood, had a great comment on the latest nonsense Anyway, that's really absurd thinking... So if I marry a Thai woman, I can't offer a gift to my wife if it's in the form of cash or a land? Populist crap. It's actually worse. If you give her money or anyting of value (say, sin sot), and she uses that gift to buy property, according to this senior land department official, they (meaning, presuably the land deparment) can revoke title and seize the property. Hmmm...maybe Cent does have a better theory about is driving this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faustian Posted May 31, 2009 Report Share Posted May 31, 2009 Indeed, fully agree with all your points... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavanami Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 A few years back, the law used to be that if a Thai lady married a farang, she could not own property, short and simple. Then they changed the law but looks like they added this complication about if the Thai lady doesn't have the funds... IMO, they (Thai gov, etc) do not want the lo-so Thais to own property. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThaiHome Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 This article is only dealing with the nominee issue. I am surprised some people here are not better at reading what is actually being said, so here is what I think he meant (as opposed to what the translation of what he said): We have been trying for some time get foreigners to stop using unqualified nominees to buy land. This has got to stop. And then he goes on in typical Thai fashion and makes an idle threat, and says that if we wanted to, we could confiscate the deeds if we find the nominees are not qualified, even the spouse of a foreigner. But, again in the typical Thai way, he says that because there are so many problems with deeds in the Phuket area, we are going to be very slow in processing the applications, so you may never get the deed if we suspect the nominees are not qualified. So many posters have let their farang paranoia get the better of them and are reading all kinds of things into his statements, none of which he actually meant. You are taking a translation of an interview conducted undoubtedly in Thai and reading literal meaning into every word. You just canâ??t do that with statements from Thai government officials. You have to understand the context what he saying and read between the lines to get what he meant, not what he said. Nowhere in this article does it say that if a Thai spouse buys the land directly and the foreign spouse signs the statement that it is her money being used, that they will not approve the transfer or will they confiscates the deed. If you understand anything about Thai bureaucracy then you would know that if they have statement from the foreigner that it is not his money, then they are ok. Read the first paragraph, it is only nominees. Oh, and I really like the one that this the â??Thai Eliteâ? making sure that the â??low class Isaan wivesâ? donâ??t get to own any land. That one is pretty hilarious. TH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faustian Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 That might indeed be very wrong and if your understanding is that something was lost in translation is true, then I'm glad to hear it. The same "paranoid" conclusions were reported all over the farang forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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