Get to Know Thai Property Laws

Some good advice for any foreigner thinking about entering the property ladder in Thailand is to read up as much as possible on Thai property laws. There have been more horror stories than I care to remember, involving foreigners losing their life savings due to bad advice or generally being scammed.

It is always a gamble going into property in any other country that isn’t your own. But if we are honest with the recent financial climate it isn’t a safe bet buying property even in your own country!

The property market in Thailand is booming and has been doing so for the last decade or more. The relatively small price you pay for property compared to most first-world countries makes buying property here a very attractive option, so long as you are sensible about it.

Here are some basic pointers to help people with Thai property laws.

• We can’t own land! No matter what anybody tells you, you cannot own one square metre of Thai land. Nobody who doesn’t have Thai citizenship can. So many westerners have come to Thailand and been told that they can own land and blindly agreed to a deal, only to lose millions of baht. The same is true for a business, although a foreigner can have investment in a business. Even so the business must be at least 50% Thai owned in all cases.

• Get a lawyer! This seems like pure common sense when buying any property. Even so, many people either don’t bother getting a lawyer (even if they can’t read Thai), or get one that is recommended by somebody else and hasn’t really got their clients interest at heart. There are many foreign owned law firms in Thailand. They either have lawyers who are resident ex-pats and use English as their first language, or else have Thai lawyers with an excellent command of English. There are many forums with views on which firms are the best; the ones that have been around the longest are usually the most reliable.

• Property purchase with a Thai nominee. This is the official wording of putting a Thai partner’s name onto a property you buy. The pitfalls of this route are obvious. Whilst you may put the money into the property, none of the paperwork is in your name. Therefore in the eyes of the law the property does not belong to you.

There are several books and websites available now, which deal with this subject and give an overview of the Thai property laws, in English. They are definitely worth checking out before going into any deal in Thailand.