Arkady

There is a cheap generic Silagra which definitely works, made by the large Indian pharmaceutical co that is planning to manufacture generic Tamiflu. There is another Indian one called Kanagra that also works. I don't know about Penagra. It may be a fake Indian generic which seems to be scraping the barrel as prices are low but at least the sellers will not have problems with Pfizer's lawyers for distributing it. It may even not exist at all in India and be a totally fake brand or is just a substandard Indian drug. Anyway avoid. The real V is not that expensive and readily available without a prescription. Fake and substandard drugs are a real problem here. The Thais sell their expired medicines, probably including fakes and substandards, to Burma!

A friend who lives in the Philippines found that his wife's birth control pills were less than half the price in Thailand for the same brand and took a few months' supply back. I think most foreign patented medicines are much more expensive in the Philippines due to agreements with the US. It is pathetic for Filipinos whose per capita income is much less than Thais to have a "popularist" government that makes them pay through the nose for pharmaceuticals. Of course it means that most sick people don't get effective medication. The same thing is probably in store for Thailand too if they sign an FTA with the US.

I imagine there are a lot of people doing the same thing as this woman - financing their travels through smuggling legal drugs. They can get them even cheaper in India but its not so much fun to travel there.

It is pathetic and sad that some one of that age should take a bar girl's life because she wanted to break up with him, or more likely because he found out that she had a Thai boyfriend all along. I can understand more some one in their 20s or even 30s falling for the whole thing but a 60 year who should know what life's about is beyond me. There are plenty more bar girls you can hook up with, if you have a problem with one. In addition to killing the girl and snuffing out several peoples' livelihoods, he's ruined his own life and caused misery to his own family, if he has one, in Australia for no reason.

The murder sounds quite brutal and I wouldn't be surprised to learn he had a prior record of violence. I doubt that it would go down very well in a court in France or other countries where the crime of passion concept is incorporated into the legal system. Examples of what is generally defined as a crime of passion in those countries are: a husband actually surprising his wife in bed with another man, not having previously known she was unfaithful; a woman who has been regularly beaten up by her violent husband killing him out of fear when he threatens her or starts beating her again. The girl was most likely not his wife and there is no suggestion that he surprised her in bed with another man. A French court would no doubt take the view that the case of a much older man in a relationship with a prostitute or former prostitute could not constitute a crime of passion even if he had caught her in flagrante, since having since with numerous men was her profession. In addition, they were in a business relationship running a bar together as well the implied prostitute customer relationship and it might equally have been a business dispute that resulting in the killing. A Thai court would probably be more lenient in the case of a more classic crime of passion where a respectable husband caught a hitherto respectable wife in flagrante. On the other hand their are several recent examples of the other type where a woman has killed her violent husband out of justifiable fear for her own life. Without fail the Thai courts have handed down extremely harsh sentences to women in this situation, even if they have young children to care for. In conclusion I would say this is a murder case without much mitigation and I would expect the Thai courts to treat it as such and not to show any leniency. It will probably get 25 years to life.

Very sad

It makes me wonder how farangs put up with their partners male "friends" hanging around all the time.

Another horrible story. I wonder if the murderer was actually her boyfriend or just fancied raping his friend after a few drinks. Thai males seem to thing raping their friends or girlfriends is acceptable behaviour and very few ever get reported. Raping your wife is specifically permitted in the rape law.

I hope the guy pulls through.

I don't know what the stats look like but Thailand seemed more dangerous for tourists in the early to mid 80s. I remember a lot of news reports of tourists shot on the beach or murdered in their bungalows in Phuket and Samui in those days usually by thieves. Since there wasn't much development then, there were more isolated stretches of beaches and tourists may have been more tempting targets. The roads were more dangerous too. Most were only two lanes and highway robbers would stop buses at night with a log. Probably the percentage of tourists assaulted or murdered is much less because there so many more of them now.

Crack down on illegal handguns, the root of the problem. A good idea but there is a huge number out there - litterally millions and gangsters obviously pay off the police so that their henchmen can freely pack guns.

A letter has been sent to the Ministry of Interior to request an expert on the issue to clarify the law in question, specifically concerning those foreigners with Thai spouses who wish to buy a home, as to the true legal standing on the issue.

They should know that the 1999 amendments to the Land Code were originally going to allow foreigners with Thai spouses to own land but this provision got chucked out by Parliament.

Maybe not an end to the farang ghettos but a beginning to them i.e. a few hardy farangs sticking it out in unfinished developments with no services or security trying to fight back the jungle and marauding thieves.

Pity that the government is hel_l bent on making Bkk floods much worse by developing the drainage areas around the new airport. Amazing what the mega rich will do for a few measly hundred million dollars more.

Replies to some comments in posts above.

1. Thaksin's sister, Kanana's, development in Phuket Town doesn't seem targeted at foreigners as nearly all want to live on the coast. On the other hand it is not clear which local Thais want to buy 18 million baht houses in town but it is a small development and probably done because of getting a piece of land cheap in a sweet deal.

2. It's not so relevant for the Land Dept to inspect houses owned by farang controlled companies to see if they are just being lived in rather than being held for speculation. It's more relevant to check whether the company is using it for business purposes i.e. as an office or renting it out. the latter can be cross checked with the Revenue Dept and Commerce Ministry.

3. The new floor area ratio FAR regulations should enhance further quality designed and built freehold condos in central Bkk and land prices there. Beyond Sukhumvit Soi 71 it will require a very large plot of land to build a high rise. But beyond the initial flip up in the recent mini condo bull market from 2003 to 2005 it will probably still only be the real quality buildings in prime locations that appreciate. Thais like something new and all believe in ghosts etc. I have seen several people in difficulties trying to sell what seem quite nice condos in low numbered Sukhumvit sois. Bear in mind the mentality of valuing houses based on the land value only as buyers immediately knock down houses under 20 years old that look perfectly OK from the outside.

A sign that the Diamond Jubilee truce is over. Politicians in Bangkok will start fighting again soon.

more coverage from around the world

Noisy World Cup fans shot dead

"The gunman came alone and he could not fight against all the 10 people. So he used his gun to kill the victims,"

So he only managed to hit two out of ten?

Hmmm, crap shooting skills or crap reporting...?

I agree with an earlier post that suggested the story had been distorted by a wire service to make it sell better to papers that are willing to pay for World Cup related "trivia" stories at the moment. Looking at the Pattaya City News updates it seems that there is no evidence at all that the football had anything to do with the dispute. There is also no suggestion that the killer fought 10 people or that the victims' were even with any one else in addition to their girlfriends. It seems that this is just another standard Thai pub murder committed by a gun toting drunk who instigated a dispute by pestering some one else's girlfriend. No doubt the guy is well connected to police and local politicians and will soon claim it was actually some one else who looked like him that was driving his car and pulled the trigger. But this would also be commonplace. It is tragic story but the facts alone wouldn't sell it.

I was here 20 years ago and didn't see Thais of any walk of life (other than locals and chinese speculators) wanting to live on Phuket. Can you really see any development having taken place without foreigners? and why wasn't there any development here 10-15 years ago.

The island could still be a backwater without all the foreign investment and Phuket covered in rubber trees.

There's hundreds of Thai developers now that can easily replace farangs. And the money comes from tourists visiting, not poor Western retirees moving here permanently.

I must be one of those poor pensioners who cant and don’t contribute much to Thailand. We started considering places to retire about 2 years ago. We had short listed Thailand having come on holiday a number of times. So 6 months ago we found a house we liked for 20 million bart. We wanted to make sure so negotiated with the owner to rent it for 1 year at 1.4 million baht paid up front and then if we decided it was really for us to buy with rent deducted from price. The owner (Thai Chinese) told us not to worry just buy through company like everyone else. So weve checked and talked to a few lawyers. They all said it would be fine but we had our doubts so hung on. Having lived here for just over 6 months and been cheated in many minor ways together with risks we’ve decided to take our $ 10,000 a month combined pension and do what most of our friends have done. That is buy in Portugal or Spain.

So by the end of our first year we will have spent here we will have spent about 4 million bart on rent, maid’s salary, driver’s salary, car and other things. Not a great loss and one we can definitely afford and less than our annual pension. On this subject I have noticed the few Thaïs we’ve met have all told us we should not pay our maid 10,000 bath a month since they only pay about 4,000. We asked them when they were so rich they did not want to pay a decent amount. They just think were stupid. So much for Thaïs helping Thaïs.

So well be setting up our retirement home elsewhere. No we don’t want to rent since we want a place we can make our home and the 30 year lease is also something we are not prepared to do. We want to leave some of our capital to our kids. Sad since without all the apparent problems Thailand would be a good choice. We thought of 40 million bath option but it just is not worth it. Ive been following Thai visa`as a guest and thanks to all for all warnings. You’ve probably saved us a small fortune.

If wed decided to retire here we would probably have spent at least 3 million a year on maids salaries, living well. That I reckon is at least 20times average yearly wage here. But your probably right Thailand is so rich is does not need our money and poor Portugal or spain could probably do with it more.

First and last posting probably.

I feel sad reading about your disappointed plans to retire here. Thailand could create a good niche in competing for retired baby boomers from the West and Japan. They could modify the redundant 40 million baht rule to allow ownership of up to a rai of land for a total investment of say 10-20 million including the investment in the house and land, combined with a retirement visa for those over 50. This would attract a lot of the kind of people they want to come here and spend their pensions and would not cause excessive speculation or environmental problems. Most people planning retirement obviously want to own their home and you are right to avoid a 30 year lease or a corporate structure (unless you really want to run a business). An easy and unthreatening start would be to increase foreign ownership of condos to 100% now that it is proved that 49% has not caused any problems. No one in government looks at how to position Thai tourism to be competitive and the Tourism Ministry and TAT are just sinecures for politicians and well connected civil servants to spend a lot of money travelling around the world first class and syphon off money from advertising budgets. Fortunately for them Thailand has enough attractions and an efficient private sector hospitality industry to bring in the numbers in spite of their worst efforts.

"Thanks for the interesting and detailed response on elite. I was trying to get as up to date as possible on elite.

Now here's another aspect - a piece of land near Don Muang was "appropriated" from the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) supposedly by and/or for elite. This land was used for 30+ years before (since the early 70s) as a public recreation area with the full agreement of the Air Force. It was in use by the general public every day.

When elite came along, offering golf "holidays", this land was "taken over" by elite or taken back

by RTAF - to make a golf course - supposedly for elite card holders. Thailand really needs another golf course - right ? The land was closed for public use - the golf course has not been built - yet !!!

Does anyone believe this land will revert to it's use as a public recreation facilty - or will it now be turned into condos ? And who gains ? I wonder ?"

I think that it may have been one of the two existing airforce golf courses that was going to be spruced up. It was probably just jawboning and I would doubt that any change of ownership or any real development plans took place. Thaksin also forced the army to agree to hand over beach front land south of Hua Hin which is currently run as a low grade resort by the army to build a links golf course for Elite Card. This was officially abandoned a few months later due to lack of funding. The army probably politely said put up or shut up.

What are the laws in Thailand regarding carrying handguns?

Do a lot of private citizens own them to protect their homes.

From one posting, sounds like they are legal as long as they are not carried in a public place??

Does Thailand need stricter handgun controls?

If Thailand prohibited the ownership of handguns perhaps this ugly incident would have ended up in a ugly fist fight, the two men would be alive and the incident would never have made the pages of the papers.

An interesting topic which sets Thailand apart from most Asian countries apart from the Philippines. When Thaksin first came to power he said he would ban private gun ownership and order all the guns handed in like in the UK and Brazil. First of all he said he would make the Kingdom safe enough that no one would need their own gun for protection and citizens would willingly hand them over. That's the first and last we heard of that idea but at the time there were a lot of stats bandied around about gun ownership. I think registered privately owned guns were supposed to be about 20-30 million but illegal unregistered guns were estimated at 50-60 million. So in total there is probably at least one for every man, woman and child in the country. The answer to the one part of the question is that a large number of middle class households have at least one registered gun. Upcountry people often have unregistered shotguns in their homes.

It was quite easy to register a hand gun, shot gun or .22 rifle before Thaksin came to power. He tried to make it harder and asked the gun licencing dept not to issue permits to people who already one or more. The police in the licencing dept in Bangkok complained like hel_l about this saying it was still necessary for citizens to arm themselves for protection. Of course, they are running a nice little racket demanding bribes to issue permits, although it is not a huge amount and it does or did ease the process which would otherwise take a long time. Last I heard it was a flat rate of 6,000 baht. I don't know, if it got harder or whether the limit per person was ever imposed, as I have not been in touch with any one who applied recently, but I would suspect that, after Thaksin lost interest in the issue, it went back to business as usual. I think any Thai resident,including foreigners with permanent residence, who has a respectable job or social standing with testimonial from employer or other puyai and at least 40,000 baht or so in the bank can get a permit. Pre-Thaksin any type of hand gun could be registered from a .22 to a .45. However, Thaksin's control freak rhetoric talked about not allowing .45 revolvers, .44 or .357 magnum revolvers or .22 rifles any more. He was obviously scared that the police could be outgunned in terms of stopping power by .45s and magnums, as they mainly use 9mm semi autos and .38 revolvers which are cheaper to buy and use much cheaper ammunition. He must also have worried that they would be outreached by .22 rifles which have little stopping power but more range and accuracy than a police 9mm or revolver and a head shot will do the trick. Anyway in the event the criminals seem also to prefer 9mm semi autos and .38 revolvers for the same reasons as the police and I doubt whether these restrictions have been enforced.

The standard gun permit allows the holder to keep the gun and ammunition for life at his registered address as on his tabian baan and use it for the protection of his family, householders and property. It does not allow him to carry the gun outside the home or to keep it in his car. Another permit is required to carry a concealed weapon. These are very difficult to come by and have to be renewed annually. Certain categories of people can get them without question e.g. members of the royal family, MPs, senators etc. People doing dangerous work like transporting jewellery or payroll are supposed to be able to get them but I think it requires connections these days.

As to the future I don't see a recall of private guns or a ban on sales any time soon. The UK could easily recall hand guns because there was a fairly small number and they were all carefully accounted for. Brazil banned gun sales as a result of a national referendum. In Thailand no one apart from Thaksin (who seems to have lost interest) is interested in a ban. Even the police favour private gun ownership and they, the military and several other classes of civil servants have special priveliges as individuals to import guns and ammunition free of the very high import duty and can resell them at a profit. As mentioned, MPs and senators are allowed carry permits and the majority no doubt use them. Recalling registered guns would be very difficult as Thais are unlikely to cooperate and they tend not to live at their registered addresses which would make it hard to track them all down, since there are so many of them. I suspect that relatives of deceased registered gun owners often don't bother to register a change of ownership as it is troublesome and involves paying bribes. Even if a recall and ban happened, that would still leave a much larger number of unregistered guns in circulation and many middle class Thais would probably resort to buying illegal guns which are much cheaper anyway. The guy who shot the football fans was in the habit of illegally carrying his registered guns and I am sure these types would carry unregistered guns, if there were a ban. These are cheap and untraceable and can be disposed of after use in a crime. However, a ban would reduce crimes of passion in the home and accidental deaths of children playing with Daddy's gun. The biggest problem is enforcement. Penalties for carrying weapons illegally are not that severe (cf Malaysia where the death penalty can be imposed) and enforcement is lax as the police expect well connected businessmen/gangsters and their bodyguards to carry guns and will look the other way for the right gratuity.

So IF the elite card entitlement to buy land through a corporate nominee structure set up was cancelled, was this not one of the main points of having the elite card ? All the other so called elite card benefits - things like fast track through immigration, hotel room discounts, selected restaurant discounts, cheaper rounds of golf, discounts at selected spas - and the like - were only window dressing surely ? If that be the case, is there any point in having an elite card ? And is the whole 'elite' thing about to be scrapped ? And those who bought into the elite thing to be refunded ? MalcolmL

I know a few people who bought this card and all live in Thailand, although it was originally intended for visitors who live elsewhere. Those who worked hard at using the golf, spa and other benefits like two for one first class THAI tickets (now expired) seemed happy with the value and they liked the fast track and limo service at the airport. All of them have work permits and could get permanent residence if they applied but have not bothered and now can't without having their Elite cards terminated, if they disclose it. So the visa thing is actually useless for them. The card seemed to appeal to the vanity of people who can afford to blow a million baht and liked the prestige and the novelty. It must be hard in reality to use a million baht's worth of the perks.

For the well healed who wanted to buy land, exploring the one rai/40 million baht investment route would make more sense as that seems the only legitimate way a foreigner can own land permanently in his own name but it had better be an expensive piece of land in Bangkok. It's not worth putting 40 million in low yield government bonds for three years to buy a rai of scrubland in Buriram. The Elite idea of the nominee structure sounded a bad work around at the time and would probably not have been permanent. Even buying through a 100% foreign company with BoI priveliges you have to sell the land when the priveliges expire.

Some one asked if the cards are transferable. The answer is yes but you have to pay a fee of 100,000 baht to have the card transferred to your name. The 5 year visa still has to be endorsed at Immigration every 3 months at a cost of 1,900 and it is not clear that it will be automatically renewed after the first 5 years ends. It may depend on whatever government is in power then. I would imagine that it will just be allowed to fade out with priveliges being gradually withdrawn until it is useless like other hasty schemes introduced without much thought by the star of The Emperor's New Clothes.

The Phuket Land Dept quote sounds like they are only checking to make sure the co is no more than 49% foreign owned and not bothering to check whether Thai shareholders could afford to invest in the company. This is completely different from the apparent intent of the letter to provincial governors. The situation is still very unclear and it seems too early to say which way it will go, particularly with the political situation in a state of flux. It may be different in different parts of the country. It is probably not worth panicking but I would not want to enter into a new transaction until things are clearer and prices may fall anyway due to this and the meltdown in financial markets.

At the end of the day you are exposed not only to the Land Dept and the Commercial Registration Dept or its provincial equivalent by using a dummy nominee company but also the Revenue Dept. The cheap accounting services offered by the real estate legal and accounting consultants frequently result in their accounts being qualified by the auditor who is signing off on up to 300 companies from Jan to May each year for 8,000 baht each. This means that the auditor's opinion contains a disclaimer saying that the company failed to produce detailed documentation for his scrutiny, so that his liability is limited if something untoward is discovered. This disclaimer which the accounting service will not bother to translate for you is an open invitation for the Revenue Dept to come and do a tax audit when they can say they don't believe the company really has no income and demand bribes in return for not making an outrageous tax assessment. They can also determine that whoever has the residential use of the house is receiving a taxable perk and can charge personal income tax on their assessment of the rental value. The best thing is to create some business activity for the company.

The elite card entitlement to buy land through a corporate nominee structure set up by Thai Elite Card got cancelled after ony a few months and no transactions because it ran into "legal problems". Elite card holders were offered a refund if that was the only reason they bought the card. Don't know if any took up the offer.

If this is true, apart from the land ownership issue, it could expand into a witch hunt for any companies apparently controlled by foreigners that have Thai shareholders who can't demonstrate the source of the funds used to invest in the company came from their salaries. This would be a wonderful opportunity for investigators to demand bribes.

Surely this would impact upon Temasek-controlled companies, such as Shin-Corp & Air Asia Thailand, with Thai shareholders who may have been 'leant' the money to 'pay for' their share-holdings ?

And might also impact connected-Thais, who acquired wealth in other ways, than earning a salary ??

The type of structure used by Temasek and other multinationals is a complex one put in place by the most expensive lawyers in town, involving preference shares and shares pledged as collateral for loans. It would not be so easy to break as the law stands today. The prominent Thais that acted as nominees for Temasek are probably untouchable. As already mentioned, the new Alien Business Law was intended to liberalise things for multinationals while tightening the nose on small foreign businessmen. Without much doubt this elitist theme would also be pursued in any crackdown. Witness the attitude of TRT to backpacker tourists vis a vis elite card candidates.

Hey, I just heard that

-- The news of this law brought foreign investment to a standstill and cement orders dropped 50% at the largest manufacturer in Thailand.

-- The law will be revoked after some high ranking business interests had a personal meeting with the responsible political parties

-- A new law will be written which actually provides more rights for foreign shareholders

Now, I just got that from a friend so there might be nothing to it. Nevertheless it makes perfect sense because, let's face it, the property market in Thailand is HUGE. $1 Million farang-villas are mushrooming on Samui. The market is expanding like crazy, and Thai companies are making a killing - developers, builders, suppliers, etc.. If the law went through and was enforced, all that economic activity would come to a standstill overnight. The very existence of it has already caused damage.

Money talks, in the end.

A business-unfriendly law like this stands in the way of an avalanche of giant profits, and, as usual in Thailand, those profits are being made by people with a lot of influence. Oligarchs are involved. Cement companies can be very convincing when trying to protect their interests. Occasionally they go into the shoe business for brief periods.

It is not that simple to revoke a law and write a new one. We are dealing with two laws here: the Land Code and the Alien Business Law. Both were amended by the Democrat govt after the Asian financial crisis when they are trying to make things easier for foreign investors. The amendments to the Alien Business Law made it easier for multinationals like Tesco to come in and own their own businesses but it made it harder for small foreign businessmen and introduced specific penalties including jail sentences for nominee shareholders and their foreign partners which had previously been left vague. The foreigner friendly amendments introduced to the Land Code were: increasing leases on commercial and industrial property from 30 to 50 years; allowing foreigners to buy one rai of land if they invest 40 million baht in govt bonds or other approved investments; allowing Thai women married to foreigners to buy land. These amendments to the Alien Business Act and the Land Code were fiercely opposed by opposition politicians and business people. Many of those opposition politicians are now in the government. Most Thais of all walks of life that I have discussed this topic with believe that foreign land ownership should remain in force. This makes it a political hot potatoe. Add to that the fact that we have only a caretaker govt: a new government will not be installed before December at the earliest; its priority will probably be reform of the constitution and it will probably dissolve itslef

JSM responds to Post piece

International law firm Johnson Stokes and Master have issued a response to the Bangkok Post´s piece on new regulations for foreigners investing in Thai real estate.

"JSM welcomes the renewed application of existing Thai law which ensures Thai people are not exploited. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, the application of these tests will assist the Thai authorities in ensuring that investments are legitimate. This approach by the Thai Government forms part of the worldwide campaign to eliminate illegally obtained money, from legitimate financial systems," it concludes.

-- jsm.com 2006-06-05

http://www.property-report.com/archives.php?id=508&date=0606

Oh now that's a good one, an international law firm pretending to back an imagined worldwide campaign to elimimate moving money offshore, focusing on a typical less-than-fully-developed nation (Thailand) where local profits always seem to find their way out of the country.

I would agree with Johnstone, Stokes and Master in taking the moral high ground, supporting local laws and wanting to prevent money laundering and exploitation of Thai people etc, if they were not farang lawyers illegally practicing law in Thailand which is prohibited by the Alien Business Act. Hopefully hypocrit farang lawyers breaking the law are next on the hit list after illegal farang property developers. That will provide more work for Thai lawyers and prevent them from being exploited.

It will indeed be interesting to follow this case. The Thais several years ago allowed a Thai former senator to be extradicted to the US for shipping huge quantities of marijuana there over a period of years. The guy managed to get off in the end after spending about a year behind bars in the US. Allowing a Thai to be extradicted is unusual but can happen. In the drugs case there was huge pressure from the US and he obviously didn't pay enough or have the right connections to avoid extradiction. In this case I don't see so much pressure coming from the UK which has less influence with Thailand anyway. It has to be a very clear cut case where the offence and penalty would be very similar in both countries. The laws against brothel keeping are quite antiquated in the UK and may not match the Thai Prostitution Act. My recollection of the case was that the women were doing it of their own volition and were not under age, forced, tricked or imprisoned. If it was pretty much a victimless crime, and she still has money to pay police, lawyers and prosecutors here, she probably has a good chance to avoid extradition.

I don't how she got the girls to the UK but I would guess that, as a Thai, she would have been able to ferret out ex-bar girls married to British men to hook on the side or who who had already split with their husbands. I went into a Thai massage parlour in London once and there were genuine Thai women in their late 30s early 40s there. None of them were pretty and all were married to or divorced from British men.

Seems like a silly thing for the UK govt to make a fuss about, if no women were mistreated. Their immigration laws are ridiculous. If their citizens want to marry a gold digging Thai bar girl covered in tatoos and bring her home, it should be their right. Also Thais should be able to get tourist visas much more easily. Laws against brothels are ridiculous too. You can never legislate away the demand or supply. Much better to zone it and regulate it to minimize abuse of the sex workers reduce risk of AIDs and other diseases and also collect taxes. Thailand only introduced anti prostitution laws in the 50s under pressure from the US which was giving a large amount of aid to the military government at the time.

Heard from someone who claims to have good government connections that the problem started in Hua Hin where some high ranking persons questioned the legality of the large number of housing developments targeted exclusively at foreign buyers, since they viewed them as having harmful environmental and social side effects. They were also concerned that foreign buyers were being cheated by the developers due to misrepresentation including the claim that buying through a Thai company was safe practice. Apparently all the foreigner developments in Hua Hin went ahead and built without housing development (jatsan) licences them, simply subdividing the land and reselling. This bit seems to figure with the wording in about subdividing land in the letter to provincial governors.

The scary bit is that this guy said that the Land Department in Hua Hin has been ordered to investigate all the existing companies with foreign shareholders or directors that own land there and that they believe this applies nationwide.

If this is true, apart from the land ownership issue, it could expand into a witch hunt for any companies apparently controlled by foreigners that have Thai shareholders who can't demonstrate the source of the funds used to invest in the company came from their salaries. This would be a wonderful opportunity for investigators to demand bribes.

Have experienced water shortages in Bangkok before when fire trucks came to help out. People filled up their buckets with water and brought their own soap and shampoo to take showers fully clothed being hosed down by the firemen. Could be worse

Does anyone know of any foreigners who have used this 1999 amendment to the Land Act? I have never heard of anyone who tried. I wonder if it is practicable or is one of those laws that are on the books but in practice too complicated to make use of or government officials deliberately block those trying to do so. Presumably you would need to get the permission before going out looking for you piece of land as the seller would not wait months or years for you to get permission.

No law that says a WP is mandatory to be signatory for company cheques. I have seen several situations where there was an overseas based signatory for the Thai subsidiary or rep office of a foreign company. Some years I wanted to open an account for a new company that I didn't have a work permit for with Bangkok Bank and they refused me as signatory because of no WP. So I thought stuff them and opened an account with KBANK without any questions asked about WP. It must be just some banks being anal. If you are not happy with your bank over this issue, try another one.

There is also no law to say that the authorized signatory of a company registered on the "bay raplong" with the Mini of Commerce needs a work permit. I have never been asked for this in signing company documents but I have heard of cases where govt depts wouldn't accept an authorized signatory w/o WP. As usual it is just govt depts or banks etc making up their own silly rules.

this is from another expat forum where this topic is under discussion.

Have just received this news from my lawyer. We were due to sign the contract on our off-plan property this week and pay the first 20%.

´According to the Ministry of the Interior and the Department of Land have set up the rules and regulations, which have been into force on the 29th May 2006 since then, pertaining to the acquisition of land for the company with foreign shareholder (s) for the authorities to comply with.

The Department of Land will not allow us to have a purchase of property by a company in case that the company has foreign shareholders or foreign directors. Therefore, we strongly recommend, in order to solve the problem, that we will not put your name as a shareholder or a director as long as your company setup until the company take a receipt of the transfer of the property.

We are seeking your consent that your company will be set up with all 100% of Thai shareholder and a Thai director. In this regard, please you rest your assure that all Thais will be our staff that we will make change in respect of shareholders and director to what your intention is within 7 days after the day that the company takes a receipt of transfer of the property (or soonest as possible).´

They have attached a translation from the Ministry of the Interior and the Department of Land. If anyone is interested in seeing this email me and I will forward.

I for one will be pulling out of the purchase, I don´t need another warning sign. I know they are lawyers but I don´t know them personally and who knows what will happen next?

if that sleazy solution is the best that the lawyers and agents can come up with to offer a purchaser then things must be pretty desperate.

and if that is typical of the kind of advice being dispensed by agents , then the sooner they are put out of business the better.

i still maintain , as i have done from the beginning , that most agents and those in bed with them are the lowest of the low . in their business practice and in their greed , they only sow the seeds of disharmony between thai and falang.

the selling of land is always an emotive business , and especially in a country so fiercely patriotic and nationalistic as thailand , foriegners should never have been allowed to get involved in this business in the first place. but they were easy meat for equally greedy thais with land to sell to partner.

the sooner there is a halt on developments targeted purely at falangs the better for thailand and the better for the falang community here.

Personally I would be very wary of following this advice. There are two obvious risks: 1) that the Thai shareholders retain control of the company and the property; 2) that the company gets investigated after the transfer and when you have become a shareholder and director. It would not require much imagination to follow up on all the newly formed companies that have recently bought land in farang targeted developments. Thais don't use companies for personal land purchases because it is tax inefficient and creates an admin and accounting burden. You are lucky you have not signed the contract and paid the down payment yet. I would put off a decision. Prices of farang developments are going to go down sharply. If you decide to go ahead, renegotiate the price down make them put a 30 year lease in place as part of the transaction.