donx

28 minutes ago, MarkyM3 said:

Magictoad....not everyone has a Thai bank account. Unless you're a retiree or working in Thailand it's near impossible to get one.

 

And not everyone on these forums live in Thailand year round. 

8 hours ago, Everyman said:

 

Citi provides such refunds if you are in the “Gold” relationship tier with at least $200,000 US on deposit. 

Charles Schwab bank accounts do the same refunding of all ATM fees and there is no minimum balance. At least this was the case not long ago. Before my mother-in-law passed away in February 2023, my brother-in-law used one of our debit cards to get 10,000 baht each month to support my wife's mother. The ATM fees would be refunded at the end of each month.

14 hours ago, TedG said:

How about IAD to BKK?

I'd love a direct flight from DC to Bangkok, but only if it takes no more than 14 hours. My wife doesn't like extremely long flights, but she also hates multiple stops, so I always have to find the best/cheapest one-stop flights without too much of a layover.

We will be travelling on Qatar Airways (our first time) at the end of July with a stop in Doha for 3 hours. Total travel time including the layover is 23 hours.

The land and layout of the house plan look nice. I'll keep you in mind when we start seriously making plans to live in Krabi.

I realize you plan on building these houses one at a time so the price you expect to set for each house is likely to increase over time. Nevertheless, roughly how much do you expect to sell the houses for? According to your initial post, it appears that each house will have close to 1 rai of land. Who do you expect your customers to be?

I ask because my wife (Thai) and I plan on living in Krabi when I retire in the next 5 years and she wants to build a house with mountain views. Most of the villas I've seen for sale are built on relatively small plots of land. Your venture appears not to follow that approach which is refreshing.

On 3/16/2025 at 8:55 AM, Hammerheads said:

Is there anyone in this post who lives in Ao Nang and would recommend it? I currently live in Bath, UK. It is full of tourists and, quite frankly, it's brilliant having them here. I'm not interested in anyone moaning about petty things that you can find almost anywhere. 

Although I don't live there since we live in the US, my wife owns a townhouse in Ao Nang that is in a relatively quiet area not far from Noppharat Thara beach which is part of a national park. We rent it out on Airbnb and guests comment about it not being too close, but not too far from Ao Nang beach with plenty of local food options available.

Remember that Ao Nang includes a larger area than just Ao Nang beach. There are many less touristy areas within what is called Ao Nang, Krabi.

My wife and I plan on buying a piece of land near the mountains in Krabi and building a house there for us to live when we retire.

I think you can have documents such as this signed and notarized at a Thai consulate for a fee. My wife is having three documents signed that her lawyer emailed her to sign for a fee of $15 per signature page at the Thai consulate in Washington DC. The consulate will stamp the documents. I don't know how my wife intends to submit the signed and stamped documents yet.

10 hours ago, Mamasun said:

Hello, yes what happen to my house (build permit on my name ) after the 30 years lease ? do i need to leave the house or ? if the owner of the land don't renew the lease ???

If the owner doesn't renew the lease, then the owner can take possession of the house you built unless you are able to remove the house from the owner's land. 

7 hours ago, Naus71 said:

Thank you Delight for your answer.

I will add more details so maybe someone else could help me. My wife is buyng an house for her daughter in Bangkok but can't move to Thailand till August, so in agreement with the seller, she will pay a deposit right now and in August the purchase will be finalized. Obviously there must be a document to protect my wife for the deposit made.

 

My wife did the same type of agreement years ago on a piece of land. Since she wasn't going to be in Thailand for a few months, her sister acted on her behalf setting up a purchase agreement with a deposit stating that my wife had until the end of July to complete the purchase. A small deposit of something like 5% or 10% of the price for the land was included with the purchase agreement.

It turned out that the owners actually hoped the sale would not go through because they either had a better offer or felt they could get a better price by the time my wife purchased the land. I don't think my sister-in-law used a lawyer to create or review the purchase agreement. Perhaps the sellers were the ones that drafted the agreement.

20 hours ago, Agusts said:

 

I also thought it was like this, but I'm told now must specify on the money transfer reference from abroad, the condo unit #, project name, town (basically address)...!?!? 

 

Who told you this? Your bank? Your local land department?

15 hours ago, Naus71 said:

It is not a question of trust, but of procedures. Searching for these procedures I found this article that indicates:

 

A Foreign Exchange Transaction Certificate (Thor Thor Sam) is a legal document issued by banks upon receipt of foreign currency into your bank account in Thailand. You can ask for this certificate from your bank when you are remitting funds to Thailand for purchasing a condominium unit. It is Thailand government’s condition that the money used to pay for the purchase price must originate from an offshore source in the form of foreign currency. The foreigner has to present this certificate to the Land Office where the ownership registration shall take place. Otherwise, foreigners cannot register the property under their name.

 

so i thought the account must be in my name

My understanding, although I could be wrong, is that it doesn't matter whose bank account the money was transferred to so long as the funds for the purchase of a condo come from overseas. Additionally, you should be able to show that the money originated from an overseas bank account in your name.

As you see from other responses, some people have transferred the funds to the builder or to an agent or lawyer. Transferring to your wife's account makes the most sense to me in your situation, in my opinion.

21 hours ago, Naus71 said:

Save the frogs,

Visa is not a problem, besides being over 50, I am also married to a Thai. We will not retire to Thailand for another four years, and with the increasing prices of the real estate market I was thinking of buying a condo before moving.

If you are married to a Thai, then she can have a bank account if she doesn't already have one. Send the money to her bank account. Very easy unless you don't trust your wife. 

On 3/22/2025 at 8:58 PM, zzzzz said:

so u buy a $10 onward ticket to satisfy airlines check in!!
much ado about nothing

Where can I find a $10 onward ticket? Where does such a ticket take me? I'm a US citizen and some destinations such as Laos require that I obtain a visa as well as a ticket that costs at least $100. And I'm travelling with my family of 4.

On 2/28/2025 at 9:09 PM, Yellowtail said:

Kasikorn always calls me when I receive a swift transfer to confirm the exchange rate is acceptable and to state what the money is to be used for.

 

Swift transfers, in my experience typically take two days.

 

Update your contact info. 

Kasikorn won't accept changing my wife's contact information from her defuncted Thai phone number to her US phone number. We can change it to some other Thai phone number, but only if she appears in person at her Kasikorn bank branch. And then we will have the same issue if my wife changes her phone number again. She has to keep her old phone in order to use the Kasikorn App because the account App is associated with the phone's IMEI number, or perhaps it is the phone's EID number.

This all wouldn't be a problem if we lived in Thailand, but we don't and she only visits once a year or so.

I use Wise to transfer small amounts from the US to Thailand, usually $3000 or less. These transfers are usually received almost immediately into my wife's Thai bank account (Kasikorn). When I need to transfer large amounts for the purpose of purchasing real estate, for example $50,000, then I use a swift bank transfer. These take longer and my bank fee for this transaction is $50.

My last swift transfer took a very long time, but I blame this on Kasikorn bank because they needed a confirmation from my wife to accept the transfer, but we didn't know this was required (it wasn't in the past as far as I am aware) for over 2 weeks when my US bank called me and said she needed to contact Kasikorn bank. Our bank provided us with two Thai phone numbers for my wife to contact Kasikorn bank. I think this is a new requirement because there have been so many fraudulent bank transactions recently. It's strange and not very reliable since my wife never had to provide any proof to the bank of who she was such as her Thai ID number. She could have been anyone that sounded like a female, spoke Thai, and knew the account number and amount in US dollars being transferred.

It could be that Kasikorn tried to contact my wife with the phone number associated with her bank account. The problem is that her account is associated with a Thai phone number that is no longer active (at least not active for her). Kasikorn won't allow associating her bank account with a foreign phone number, and since we live in the US, she only obtains a Thai phone number while she's visiting for a month or so each year. In the past when I used swift bank transfers, my wife would be in Thailand waiting for the money to arrive. Perhaps she contacted Kasikorn about those transfers asking about the status of the transfer and therefore they already knew the transfer was legitimate.

4 hours ago, rabas said:

When I mentioned a house is worth what someone will pay, he said not exactly. A house is worth what a bank land assessor says it is as that determines what a buyer can borrow. Facepalm, of course. Logically, a bank wants to make the largest loan that will not lose on default. But I need to go the the local bank branch, probably in Phuthasisong.

 

This is also true in the United States. I bought my house there in 2016 and because the bank assessed the value of the property $10,000 less than the asking price (which I was willing to pay), the seller was forced to either sell it to me for $10,000 less or find another buyer.

On 1/18/2025 at 1:54 AM, sanook 1 said:

Similar experience,just i didnt need to sign anything,wife has her maiden name also..i thought we had a one off but seems they get a note on all thais married to foreigner then.

Is your marriage registered in Thailand like @FarangRimPing? My wife retains her single status on her Thai ID and kept her maiden name. We were married in the US and never registered our marriage in Thailand and thus I have never been asked to sign any documents every time she purchases or transfers Thai real estate to herself. 

Do you know who owns the vacant land that your girlfriend thought she was buying? It's not clear from the above discussion if that plot is owned by the man occupying the plot she bought or not. If he owns that adjacent plot of land, do you think you could convince him to swap properties?

For some perspective, my wife has a townhouse she has owned for several years, but had remained mostly unused until last January when she decided to list it on Airbnb. She immediately received several bookings until April. She did receive one booking in July, but other than that, it has remained vacant since March. She has an 11 night booking in December, so we expect bookings will increase as the high season approaches.

Her townhouse is within walking distance of a beach in Krabi. It also accommodates up to 8 guests. Keep all this in mind if you decide to dip your toes into running an Airbnb.

On 6/16/2024 at 8:05 AM, JBChiangRai said:

A cautionary note for anyone buying any kind of property in a company.

 

Let's assume you have 49% of the shares and you have Thai nominees holding 51%.

 

You cannot leave the property in your will, because you don't own it.  It will have to be sold and 51% of the proceeds will go to the Thai nominees and the 49% will be distributed as you wished in your will.

Why can't the 49% shares be willed? 

You can always ask for a discounted rate of an Airbnb, especially if you book for several weeks. My wife had a family stay at her Airbnb townhouse for 21 days. They asked for a discounted rate which my wife accepted.

On 4/13/2024 at 8:17 PM, AverageAussie said:

Just as an update to the thread, it seems that the DOPA review is still ongoing. Airbnb have sent a further email communication asking for input by way of survey (just a couple of minutes long).

 

It's all self-interest of course, but this seems to be a better way to gauge overall sentiment collectively from owners rather than multiple solo submissions - probably in Thai language.

My wife didn't received such an email from Airbnb. I'm guessing she didn't receive it because her Airbnb is a townhouse, not a condo. Are you renting a condo on Airbnb?

33 minutes ago, advancebooking said:

Actually I didnt mention something. If either the tenant or the landlord go to the rev dept with the lease agreement and buy legal stamps from them and stick them on the actual contract then you know 100% you have to pay taxes. This is the only circumstance by which any thai pays taxes on rent. 

Since my wife has an agreement with Airbnb and they are including VAT as a charge against her profits, wouldn't this information be similar to the situation you posted where she will need to pay taxes on her rental income?

This topic is of interest to me as well since my wife is in a similar situation to the OP. We don't live in Thailand and my wife has never paid tax in Thailand even when she was living there many years ago. However, she now receives rental income for her townhouse that is available to rent through Airbnb. I asked her about taxes and she said she has a friend that works in the government (revenue department?) that can explain what she needs to do. Airbnb collects VAT but I'm sure she will need to start paying personal income tax on top of the VAT.

Perhaps she should establish a Thai company so she can deduct expenses to reduce her tax liability.