investment property in Thailand

Generally, I’ve heard that foreigners cannot purchase property over there unless an apartment and there are various regulations such as restrictions on the number of foreign ownership in the one complex etc. If purchasing through a company will need to have a Thai partner with at least 51% share ownership.

There is a good website at http://www.thaivisa.com/ with lots of info on the various Thai legal requirements and an active discussion forum.

Terryw
Discover Home Loans
Mortgage Broker
North Sydney
Click below to email me

I have looked extensively at buying land or a house and land in Thailand. What the other posters say is correct, a foreigner can buy a condo – as long as the total foreign ownership in the complex is 49% or less. Usually this isn’t a problem. If you want to go this way, I have found that properties 2 to 5 years old are probably the safest. Firstly, I love the Thai people to bits, but they are a permanently disorganised lot. A new building NEVER opens quite finished, and seldom with reliable management. So avoid the hassle and buy in when they’ve got their act together. Also if you are renting it out, you will be obliged to have it run through the property managers. There is a famous saying in the Kingdom – ‘Thais help Thais’. As a farang expect not to get the pick of either the holiday clients or permanent tenants, unless of course you ‘donate’ cash now and then to the manager. This goes for repairs as well – if the manager is onside, the bills will be ‘Thai price’ not ‘Farang price’ – a BIG difference believe me.

As for the house/land option, on the face of it aliens cannot do it. However if you create a Thai company with say six Thai nationals who have 51% control + yourself at 49%, it can be done. A local solicitor can structure the company so that you are granted the other directors proxies for ever, therefore ensuring you retain control. A friend did this in Trat on the southeastern coast. The solicitor sent his ‘researcher’ out for 3 hours with 6 directorship forms and some cash and he came back with 6 Thais who had nominated to be the majority directors. All their company mail is permanently directed to the solicitors office. They included a beach massage chick, a hotel porter and a taxi driver. They got paid 1500thb each, (about aud$50), have never met eachother and never will! All up the legals + govt fees came to about aud $2k. This was about 18 months ago and my mate has since bought a block of land in the company name and is in the process of building a house.

This link is from a property company on the island of Koh Phangan, but the general info is valid. I have found very helpful:
http://www.kp-property.com/index.cfm?action=phangan.glossary&CFID=315381&CFTOKEN=19806661

One final word about this topic is the confusing array of land titles that exist in the Kingdom. They range from ‘chanot’ which is pretty well iron clad to what amounts to basically squatters rights which mean nothing at all.

This link will assist here:
http://www.iamkohchang.com/Real_Estate/index.htm

I hope this is of some help to you. Cheers, nw1

Sounds like a great, safe place to buy into. Think I’ll stick to the US, mind you I’ll be sure to leave my gold here or someone might put a cap in my arse to finance their next hit.

easymoney