qualtrough

On 5/30/2025 at 10:12 AM, heiri007 said:

 

There is a dislike of everything non-Thai among the higher ups. Thais integrate so well in other countries. Here? Am still waiting for the first mixed or naturalized Thai to have a say in government or politics. Show biz of course, but politics. A farang face in local elections, that would mark real progress.

Thai-Chinese citizens have been and are prominent in politics here. Does that not count?

I don't think a farang running for office here would be progress. If I wanted that, I would have stayed back home.  Thailand is wise to be choosey about the number of people it allows to be naturalized. I am very glad that Thailand hasn't opted for the mass-immigration policies of the US and  many countries in Europe.  We are already seeing a backlash against some of the foreigners is allowing in at the moment, and in most cases it is justified. YMMV.

On 12/18/2024 at 5:06 PM, DrJoy said:

Just avoid the trolls

You are right. So many sour grapes. You see it here and anywhere else the topic comes up. Not to mention the sheer amount of misinformation about the process.

On 12/12/2024 at 10:41 PM, DrJoy said:

31 Female candidates granted Thai nationality, RG publication on 11-DEC-24

 

53941.pdf

One Dutch woman, the rest from PRC, Taiwan, Lao,  Vietnam, Burma, and other Asian countries.

On 9/18/2024 at 6:41 PM, FlyingThai said:

 

I think for many if not most it's the problem that you would have to surrender your current citizenship as dual citizenship is not permitted in a vast amount of countries unless obtained by birth.

 

There are practical benefits, but they are limited depending on your financial situation. As is, people who have very little money it's rather useless because buying property is probably not in the cards. If you have a lot of money then you get most of what you want anyway unless you insist on having property in your name.

 

Some people I know did it for fun as a pet project.

I think many more countries allow dual citizenship now than don't, and I know some have recently relaxed their rules on that.

In any case, even if they have very little money, how could they not see the benefit of never having to waste any time or money on visas and work permits and all the other hassles in daily life thrown up by not being  a citizen?

On 10/27/2024 at 12:31 AM, IsaanExpat said:

Hop further back in this Thread. Arkady had posted some information about a dual Brit-Thai who had tried to use his British Citizenship while entering Thailand I believe. And he had his Thai Citizenship revoked.

I believe I saw that earlier. Was that the one where the person was repeatedly warned not to do that, not just a one time thing? 

Any other cases that come to mind to anyone?

On 10/22/2024 at 5:47 PM, david143 said:

https://ratchakitcha.soc.go.th/documents/33075.pdf
Loss of Thai nationality

https://ratchakitcha.soc.go.th/documents/40015.pdf
Restoration of Thai nationality

https://ratchakitcha.soc.go.th/documents/40473.pdf
Female Candidates

22/10/2024

Male candidates still pending
 

From my very brief perusal, the loss of nationality document appears to  list people who have requested giving up their Thai citizenship. Their names and their new country of citizenship are then listed. It looks like those of countries that do not allow dual citizenship, like Singapore.

I would be interest in seeing information about people whose citizenship was taken away from them and the reasons for that.

On 9/3/2024 at 1:16 PM, sas_cars said:

I assume you memorized both songs. How was the singing and was it accepted gleefully? 🙂 

I obtained citizen through marriage and was not required to sing.

On 5/16/2024 at 5:12 AM, SAFETY FIRST said:

She looks great, I'd buy her Durian. 

 

I'd say the only people that would be complaining are jealous women and the many miserable, cranky, moaning AN forum members we have here. 😂

 

I'm heading down to Rayong today, get myself some tasty Durian. 

 

My girlfriend sells mangos wearing a sexy outfit. 

 

 

She has nice mangoes!

On 5/12/2024 at 9:59 AM, onthemoon said:

Yes, I think so. Thanks.

You can divide your life into pre and post citizenship periods, and the latter is so much more convenient. Well worth any wait.

Sorry for beating this horse to death, but my decision is to go for the usufruct now, and if I am around in five years and feel like it I can always pay the reduced price and get added to the chanotes. If anyone can  see any flaws with this reasoning please speak up now or forever hold your peace 🙂

On 5/4/2024 at 1:14 PM, GarryP said:

The Land Office is notoriously corrupt. Not that many years ago, it was ranked as the most corrupt Thai government agency. Probably still is. 

 

On a related note, I am quite a few years older than my wife so am considering having my name removed from our title deeds. May make things easier for her when I kick the bucket (hopefully not anytime soon).

Same situation, bit of an age difference. But we have a will that stipulates that everything goes to the surviving spouse, and then to the children when both of us have shuffled off this mortal coil. That was  drawn up by Tilleke & Gibbin, so I am assuming they knew what they were doing.

6 hours ago, oldscool said:

Before you pay any fee, I’d ask for an explanation of how it’s calculated, and obviously get an official receipt for any payment.

 

I’ll add that: regulations do change; language problems do exist even between native Thais, never mind naturalised Thais, regarding land regulations, which can be quite obscure; naturalised Thais are not frequent visitors to the land office, and the average official is not likely to be aware of any specific variations in the regulations for naturalized Thais – if indeed there are any; and no two cases are necessarily the same.

 

Regarding usufruct, there’s no reason why a native or naturalised Thai shouldn’t use it – it’s standard in many countries – if it actually provides the level of security you are looking for.

 

And last but not least, having conferred with my other half, I’m advised that adding a name to an existing chanote (ie not transferring ownership, but extending it) should not require any fee other than the nominal administration fee – the 2.75% which I referred to earlier was for a different situation. If that’s the case then I can’t explain either of the charges you referred to.

 

If you and your wife are not fully up to speed with all of this, I’d really recommend taking someone with you who is - getting refunds from government departments can be excruciatingly slow!

 

Thanks for your reply. I definitely will ask for a calculation, e.g. how are they basing the valuation.

Regarding the usufruct, I believe they wanted 75 baht for the fee, and the rest to pad their own nest. Hard to challenge decision-making officials on things like this, because if I tell them "No, we will only pay the fee" they can come back with something along the lines of "We are not going to give you a usufruct because you are obviously using it to avoid paying the transfer fee". Or any number of reasons. Conversations like that can go back and forth until the end of time. Sadly that is the way it works here much of the time.

To recap, it looks like the choices are to either pay what they ask for the usufruct, or pay the transfer fee after agreeing on how that assessment is determined.

I keep vacillating between choice 1 and 2, but will probably go for paying the transfer fee as long as it is within reason of the legit rate due.

3 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

I was about to reply and say there is a tax implication, before I read that the Land office wanted to charge you 75,000 tax.

 

Yes, there is a tax implication, because half the Chote is in effect being transferred to a new person, so tax on half the value is correct.

 

Consider the situation where you add your name to the chanote, and a few months later she removes her name from the chanote, you now have the chanote in entirely your name without paying any tax, that is why there is tax to be paid.
.

Makes sense, thanks.

21 minutes ago, Arkady said:

I jointly own a house and land and two plots of raw land jointly with my wife. When Srettha became PM Chuvit publicised a case where he alleged that Srettha's company, Sansiri, had aided tax evasion when buying a high value piece of land that was owned jointly by a group of about 12 people. 

 

All the land I own jointly was previously owned solely by my wife and my name was added to the chanotes after I became a citizen. There was definitely tax to pay, as it was considered a transfer of half the value of the land. Theoretically there is a special low rate rate for transfers to direct family and we had called to the Land Office ahead to confirm this for the first transaction.  But a nasty wrinkle awaited us at the Land Office. We were told that, in order to benefit from the reduced tax rate, I would have to be able to show that I was already a Thai citizen when the land was acquired which I was not.  I thought this sounded like a scam or xenophobia but exactly the same thing happened with the other two pieces of land in another province.

 

The tax on transfer of land goes down after 5 years because you don't have to pay specific business tax on land you have held for more than 5 years.

 

I had a usufruct on our house before I became a citizen.  I paid a lawyer a few thousand to organize it but didn't have to pay a bribe at the Land Office. There was a small fee. I assume the bribe is because they have the right to refuse usufructs, particularly if they can say they were concerned someone would be taken advantage of and sign their rights over under duress for very small financial benefit. This is very common when foreigners buy land in the wife's name and want a usufruct.  Land officers may be refuse, specially in places like Pattaya where they see it every day.  They may still view you as a foreign in that context.  As so often in the Thai bureaucracy, vague laws and regulations combined with excessive discretion allowed to officials creates perfect conditions for corruption.  Unfortunately I don't think there is much you could do about it because they do have the discretion.

Very helpful, thanks. I think this explains what is going on, and your explanation of why 10,000 was being asked makes perfect sense.

Pretty sure I will just bite the bullet and tell them to proceed with the expensive option 🙂

1 hour ago, oldscool said:

As of a few years ago adding a name to a chanote incurred 2 costs: 1. a fee of (I think) 2.75 %, as it is actually a change of ownership rights, even if no money is changing hands 2. A nominal administration fee.

 

This would seem to explain the 2 charges you mention. Having your name on the chanote gives you the protection you are looking for, as GarryP suggests.

 

Usufruct is not relevant to your situation, so I can't explain why the เก็บกิน was raised.

 

An update as you proceed would be interesting, thanks.

Thank for your help!

Here's some clarification to the best of our understanding.

If I want to have my name on both Chanotes right now it would cost 75000 in the fees you mention.

They also said if I wait 5 years this would be reduced to 35,000.

OK, fair enough.

But then they suggested the usufruct, but stated that would cost 10,000 baht under the table. This would mean the chanote holder (wife) could not sell or borrow against the properties without my consent as they explained it to me.

So, now what I am not clear about is why adding a usufruct would require a  10,000 baht "fee"? My name isn't being added as a co-owner, rather basically as a tenant with usufruct rights. 

As this juncture I am thinking I will just pay the 75000 in fees and get added as the joint tenant and be done with it.

Thanks to any others who have had any positive suggestions/comments. Or those to come.

1 hour ago, bradiston said:

I wasn't aware marrying a Thai entitled you to Thai citizenship. But I know of one commentator on this forum who obtained Thai citizenship using a route available in rare circumstances, involving quite a lengthy process of living and working here for at least 3 years I believe, speaking Thai, etc etc.

It is actually pretty straightforward. If you're married to a Thai woman for 3 years, have had back-to-back work permits and visas for 3 years, and an income of 40,000 baht/mo, you can apply. Once you meet those requirements it usually takes three to five years for final approval. You can do it yourself without the assistance of any lawyer or other services. No bribes were sought or given. The actual cost in fees is  under 10,000 baht total. It's mostly just an exercise in gathering documents and then undergoing interviews snd waiting.

There's a lot of incorrect information about this on the web, but there is a good thread here that has a lot of good information. You can find it under the "Story of My Thai citizenship" thread. 

9 minutes ago, bradiston said:

Kin kep sounds like usufruct. I signed a usufruct agreement with my Thai daughter on a property we have just sold. Or she just sold, rather. I had to sign an understanding releasing all claim in the property in the process. But my name did get entered onto the chanote, but obviously not as an owner of any sort. Entering into the agreement and having it recorded on the chanote didn't cost us anything as I recall.

Thank you for your comment. I had the term switched around. It's keb kin เก็บกิน, and you are correct, it apparently does mean usufruct.

But I still have two questions: 

Why do I need to be listed under a usufruct rather than as a co-owner on the chanote?v is it not possible to have joint ownership?

2. Why is there any transfer fee involved (75000 baht), as no money is exchanging hands? Are they really doing me a favor by overlooking that for 10,000 baht, or is that just BS in order to get 10,000 baht?

29 minutes ago, Celsius said:

Why would

 

You were definitely correct about Alzheimer's

If you don't have anything useful to contribute why don't you just FO and  stop wasting everyone's time here? Surely there must be other threads that could benefit from your comments?

8 hours ago, bradiston said:

Yes, peculiar. If he has Thai citizenship then he's Thai. But, does he speak Thai? Suggest a visit to a Thai lawyer. Or the land office.

Yes I speak, read, and write Thai. I was looking for some advice from someone with experience like GarryP before involving a lawyer.

So we went down to the Land Department today. Now the hang up is they're trying to tell us that we need to pay 75,000 baht in some kind of transfer tax due in order to transfer my name onto the Chanotes.

Then they said that I could be listed as a kin kep กินเก็บ which would mean I would be able to live there  my entire life and that neither of us could sell or borrow against the property without the permission of the other. And if that is true I would be fine with it. But they expressly said that there could not be two outright owners on the Chanote.

And then hush hush they said that they could get around the 75,000 Baht tax due and I could pay a 75 baht fee and 5,000 baht, for, well you know what. I wasn't very comfortable with it because I think it's fishy, but I was thinking well 5,000 baht what the heck. But then when I went out to the car to get the money my wife called and said that was 5,000 for each piece of property so total of 10,000. So I said let's forget about it for the moment until we can sort this out.

Questions:

1. So is it correct that technically in order to get my name on the Chanote I need to pay some kind of tax on the property value? The property was transferred from my wife's father to her something like 25 years ago. The other property was purchased 10 years ago and is in my wife's name too. I was the one who paid for it.

2. Is it true that the only way I can get my name on the chanote is as a kin kep, not as an actual 50/50 co-owner?

3. Do I just suck it up and pay the 10,000 and be done with it?

Again, please accept my thanks for any assistance with this.