qualtrough

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 🙂

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.

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.

Makes sense, thanks.

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 🙂

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

What's not right? I applied for and received Thai citizenship on the basis of my marriage. Thai ID card and passport. I'm listed as the owner on one of our two blue books.

Thank you for your response. Looks like it was a misunderstanding on my part about the chanote issue. Tomorrow I am going to have a yellow book for the newer structure made out to my name, and following that go down to the Land Office to add my name to the two chanotes we have for the properties. I will let everyone know how that goes.

Situation: I am a farang with Thai citizenship. My wife is Thai. We have two adjacent plots of land. One contains our home, the other has a smaller guest house. Two different tabian baans for the structures, two different chanotes for the land. We had wanted to add my name to the tabian baans and chanotes, but were informed by the land office and another office that there can only be one party listed as the owner on each of those documents. In other words, no joint ownership. So right now it looks like we will have to decide how to divide up ownership for the land and structures. My primary concern is this. We have been together 30 years, so I am not particularly concerned about the wife doing a runner, but more concerned that at some point one of us in our declining years could fall prey to a scam such as borrowing on the house or land, or outright selling, or make that kind of decision due to mental illness, senility/Alzheimers, etc. What I had hoped for was a situation in which both parties' agreement would be needed to sign off on any decision to sell or borrow against the land/houses. So my question is: Is there any kind of recognized legal arrangement that would ensure that neither one of us could sell or borrow against our properties and or structures thereon without the other's express permission? Please accept my thanks in advance for any constructive replies.

Nobody?

I have a small company here so my return is a bit more complex than a simple 1040, and now I have some investment money so that's a complication. My US-based preparer ghosted me, so I am really looking for someone based in Thailand who prepares US returns and is knowledgeable/reliable. If anyone has a recommendation I would greatly appreciate it. I am looking for someone I could meet initially and discuss this with.