Dogmatix

Can you cite examples where Thai courts have rejected the land ownership by a foreigner and what the court ordered to be done to rectify the situation? I am unaware of any cases like this and can't think who would sue in the court. The Land Department has power to force the company to sell the land or it can seize the land and have the Legal Execution Dept sell it by public auction without going to court. But I have never heard of cases where this happened either. There have just been threatening noises made from time to time but, so far, never any action. What has become more difficult, since a letter sent to land offices by the Interior Ministry in the last days of the Thaksin government before the 2006 coup, ordering them to check, is registering land in the name of any company that has any foreigners associated with it at all, whether as shareholders, directors or just people hanging around in the Land Office, Before 2006 the instruction to land offices was just to refer to the director general any transaction where foreigners owned over 40% of the shares but it was easy to get around this by reducing the foreign shareholding to 40% in the Land Office before going up to the counter and increasing it back up to 49% before leaving the office.

Meant for Chinese, not falangs. PTT div yield is 5.25% net of 20% withholding tax, not north of 7%. I don’t think you can invest in stocks. Govt bonds or REITs only most likely. Listed REITs pay high divs and not bad. What makes you think land prices in urban areas eligible for this scheme have been falling? They did in the Tom Yung Kung crisis of 1997 which was devastating for Thailand but not in the 2008-9 GFC and not that I have seen during COVID. I seem to recall that the 2002 ministerial regulations required construction to commence within 1 year on raw land and would expect something similar to prevent speculation on raw land. Of course you could buy a ready made house. The capital appreciation potential for structures is different from raw land, as most rich Thais want to demolish the house, even if in good condition, and build their own design. You might only get the value of the land. So best to build a modest shack. no rights of inheritance for foreign heirs but they get the sales proceeds. The estate must sell the land within 12 months, if heirs are Thai. Hidden costs. You need the minister’s approval for each transaction. Better factor in a signing fee. Since you will have to wait for God knows how long for the paperwork, sellers are likely to charge a higher price, if Thai buyers are interested, and you could be gazumped by a Thai buyer while waiting anyway. These were all factors that came to mind when the law was passed in 1999 but when the ministerial regs came out in 2002, the qualifying investments were no longer available. Anyway I had already gone the company route in 2000.

Not good news. No law means a vacuum that can be more easily filled by the next government drafting a completely new bill that bans recreational sales completely. If there is already a law with certain restrictions in place, it will be harder to amend that, than to draft a new law, if there is nothing in place.

Did this a couple of times at CW but never again. Horrendous wait. Once they insisted on an edit. So back to the translation agency and then repeat the whole thing. Once they lost the original document and made no effort to find it. Just shrugged it off. Their English is very poor. They let garbage through and insist on edits that make no sense to a native speaker but don’t bother trying to argue with them. They have the power. in future I will pay the translation agency to do this tedious job. Well worth it if they require an edit. Let them sort it out for themselves.

Well if it hasn’t happened after 30 years, Bob, you already know it ain’t gonna happen. So quit worrying about it.

Right. Not only single rais for residential use in a Bkk and Pattaya. Sea front land in resorts and large tracts of agricultural land. I can imagine that investigation of the initial transactions would reveal Chinese buyers buying from Chinese nominees.

Most Thais I talk to, including those of Chinese origin, say their government is planning to sell the country to the Chinese and are not happy about. Even real estate brokers who hope to profit from it are unhappy with the principle. No one is worried about poor blue eyed chaps like you. You overestimate yourself. All focus is on the Chinese invaders.

Thaksin did not introduce this. He sabotaged it. The Land Code was amended by the Chuan Democrat Government in 1999 resulting Section 96 bis that allows the ownership of 1 rai of residential land in Bkk, Pats and other designated urban areas in exchange for investment of 40 mil in investments to be specified in ministerial regulations. But the Dems lost interest in the hot potato after a bitter fight with their own backbenchers and the opposition to get the legislation passed and left the regulations to the next government which happened to be Thaksin. His government spent a couple of years drafting regulations to ensure that the qualifying investments would never be available. Today Thaksin’s PT party remains consistent in opposing foreign land ownership, despite his own foreign land holdings. Where did you get the idea this was introduced by Thaksin?

Why not just use a translation agency direct? Many of them provide the MFA legalization service at an additional cost and take responsibility for any edits demanded by the MFA. I have used Sawadee Translations and found them very efficient and friendly and reasonably priced managed by a native English speaker who checks the English translations, which helps avoid the rubbish English you usually get from Thai owned translation agencies. Having said that, the MFA is happy to approve translations into rubbish English because their translators’ level of English is poor, as you would expect, given the low standard of English teaching in Thailand. I have had them actually insist on an edit that was very poor English. I have no connection with Sawadee, other than as a customer. There are also many other transaction agencies out there that can do the job for you. If you go with a “legal service”, they will only subcontract a translation agency and mark up the price 100%.

The Land Code doesn't allow for inheritance by foreign heirs which could be a problem for some potential buyers. Originally the Land Code did allow for inheritance of land by foreigh heirs in the context of the foreign treaties but since there are no surviving foreign treaties that permit land ownership. Unless foreign heirs are qualified to buy land under this scheme, the land will have to be sold. Also while the estate of a Thai citizen has Thai national status, the estate of a foreigner does not which means the estate might have to transfer the land within 30 days of the owner's decease.

Only the ministerial regulation to do with the qualifying investments to be reviewed every 5 years. The 40 million is already in the Land Code and can't be changed without a new law that has to go through parliament.

I have never met Anutin but friends who have done business with him say it is actually very smart and savvy. He seems to cultivate his boorish image with the racist comments and other BS to appeal to his poltical base who are mainly peasant farmers in Buriram and Srisaket but he is hoping to expand that to other parts of the NE and South in the next election. Pretending to be an idiot is also a clever way to avoid having to make intelligent repsonses to unwelcome media questions.

The other side of the coin is that most have already tried relationships with Thai men in their own age group and decided they don't want another Thai man.

Probably not married. The Thai word "faen" means anything from girlfriend or boyfriend to legally married spouse.

Parcels sent by mail are exempted from Thai taxes, if the value is less than THB 1,500. There is no exemption for parcels sent by courier and import duty and VAT must be charged on the total landed cost including freight and insurance. Send your gear by mail and declare at less than THB 1,500 and you have reasonable chance of them coming to your door with no tax charged. 2kg is a tad heavy though and might encourage them to open it up and assess tax based on what they think the maximum possible value could be. So personally I would suggest breaking up into two parcels sent a week or two apart.

Less dangerous if you are 100 metres away. I doubt your wife could hit anything with a 9mm Beretta at even 25 metres but with a .17 HMR or .17 WSM and a decent scope she might hit something 100 metres away.

Also very peripheral civil servants qualify for the welfare scheme, including local defence volunteers in villages, as well as state enterprise employees. Some years ago a US embassy report of an investigation into welfare guns imported from the US and found re-exported to neighbouring countries was leaked on Wikileaks. Here it is. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WL0911/S00555.htm. The embassy investigators visited a Thai Indian owned firearms importer and gun shop owner involved in the welfare scheme. The interviewees gave the impression that 80% of the welfare guns were bought by law enforcement and military officials for use as duty pistols and emphasised the need for officials to have guns in the Deep South. It sounds a rather sanitised version of the welfare scheme but I would guess the US embassy officials were not so dumb as to believe all of it. However, the US is happy with the business which includes a lot of European brands like Glock, Sig Sauer, HK etc which cannot be exported directly from the EU due to a directive caused by perceived Thai government human rights abuses in the South. So the US exports the European brands either from Glock and Sig factories in the US or US wholesalers import the guns from Europe and re-export them, presumably with fudged end user certificates given to the European manufacturers, which is exactly what the US embassy was investigating in Thailand. As an aside, the Europeans are somewhat hypocritical in this area anyway as HK exported assault rifles to the Mexican government with approval from the German government on condition they signed end user certificates that the rifles would not be sent to Mexican provinces with the worst records of human rights abuses. Of course the HK products went to these provinces and have been documented being used in human righst abuses. Back to the welfare scheme. I'll leave aside the obvious criticism that the Thai government should equip law enforcement and military with firearms necessary for their jobs and take them back when finished. Accepting this nonsensical situation, the most sensible reform of the welfare system would be let officials but not state enterprise employees, buy guns they need for duty from the welfare scheme. In most cases this would be a single handgun which should be mandatorily sold when they leave the job. Any more guns officials want for sport or collection purposes, they should buy at the retail prices like all other Thai citizens. The reason this won't happen is that there is just too much money being made from the welfare scheme. Profit from it must be well in excess of 1 billion a year and a lot of palms are greased all the way up the chain. If it were purely to provide service weapons, why not sell them to the officers at cost which would be about half the welfare price?

Maybe a low income province. I have heard of 20k paid for being found with a licensed gun but no carry permit found in car in central Bangkok at night. I think a 1,000 baht fine is optimistic for deciding to accept being charged and to to court instead of paying an on the spot bribe, if that option is offered. That might be the fine for a licensed gun in a locked box in the boot of your car with ammo in a separate locked box on the way to or from a range but I think it would be over 10k for a loaded handgun within reach. It would also be advisable to be represented by an experienced criminal lawyer to make sure police and prosecutors follow due process and don't get you on trumped up charges. Finally, it is quite common for police to get their armourer to remove or damage some some difficult to replace (in Thailand) part of the gun out of spite. So when it is returned to you after being acquitted or getting a modest fine, you can only use it as a paperwork - to teach you a lesson not to be a smarty pants and refuse to bribe the cops. So you may be out of pocket another 80-200k for a new gun.

I know some guys with Thai wives who would be delghted to have an excuse to let the partner card go.

Numbers 1 and 3 on the list of gun murders, Brazil and Mexico have very strict gun control laws that make it extremely difficult for civilians to buy legal firearms but there are huge quantities available to criminals on the black market. Thailand would be like that, if they intraduced stricter control of legal guns but failed to control the thriving black market in guns which is fueled by the nonsensical civil service welfare scheme. Unlike licensed gun shops the scheme has no quotas and regularly imports more guns in a year than the combined quotas of all Thailand’s gun shops. Many of these weapons are reported ‘lost’ and show up at crime scenes or in neighboring countries. I recall a quote from a Bangkok senior policeman some years ago about gang violence. He said that previously vocational school delinquents used only homemade single shot guns, either .22 pen guns or 12 gauge pistol shotguns, but since the ramping up of the welfare scheme, they were increasingly using ‘list’ welfare guns which significantly increased their fire power. There is no restriction on buying more discounted guns after ‘losing’ them. The scheme is also a money spinner for officials into the billions. So they will not stop it. Apart from ‘lost’ welfare guns a big source of black market weapons is strangely enough inheritance. Thailand’s slack officials are too lazy to close the loop on deceased permit holders. There is actually a system to allow heirs to inherit guns and get permits with less restrictions than regular applicants in order to encourage heirs to come forward and re-register inherited weapons within 30 days. But there is little education and awareness of this and there is no linking of death certificates to firearms permits which are issued for life. As a result of this muddled approach thousands of formerly legal guns become illegal, held by heirs or sold into black market. So much of the black market is actually created by government policies and ineptitude. But officials reports like Thai PBS gloss over a lot of details.

It tells you something about the personality and culture of your employer, if they refuse to help foreign employees apply for PR, knowing this is very important to them. The company I worked for helped quite a few foreign employees apply for PR and citizenshp and never grumbled about it.

I buy a lot stuff from the US. There are quite a few that only accept PayPal, both on Ebay and stand alone welbsite, although I think the number is declining as PayPal's market share and current relevance of its business model declines.

Why did she try to escape before she was caught? It would have been much easier to wait to be caught before attempting to escape.

Definitely the murders of these people in the name of Thaksin's war on drugs made no difference to the drug situation: the 9 year boy murdered by police in the back of his mum's car, the 15 year old girl murdered on her way to school and the 70 year old woman murdered while drinking a sprite on her porch, the couple who won big on the lottery and decided to keep it quiet which resulted in them being murdered by police for being unusually wealthy presume to be from drug dealing & etc & etc. RIP to all those brutally murdered in Thaksin's fake war on drugs that was really just a way for police to murder anyone they felt like with impunity.

Sounds like a lawyer who was happy to give a legal opinion citizenship without reading the Nationality Act first. In fact the Act is somewhat ambivalent about dual citizenship, neither specifically prohibiting nor permitting it. There are certain provisions that allow for revocation of Thai citizenship from naturalised Thais and Thais who obtain citizenship through birth in Thailand to two alien parents for making use of or taking an interest in (neither term is defined) another nationality.