Arkady

This keeps on being reported as if it is a proposal by the government for a new law or amendment of an existing law. It is not. It is already an existing section in the Land Code (Section 96 bis below) as a result of an amendment made by the Democrat led government in 1999. The current government obviously does not have the ability to get a law or amendment of its own of this type through parliament with the public participation process and vetting by the juridical council required with hardly any parliamentary time left before elections and significant opposition to land sales to foreigners throughout Thai society, including probably its own MPs. In fact all the government needs to do is issue a one page Interior Ministry regulation in the Royal Gazette to update the qualifying investments for the THB 40 million to investments that are actually available today. So if they really want to do it, it will be done. Section 96 bis was sabotaged by the Interior Ministry subsequent to its promulgation in 1999 because no existing qualifying investments were ever specified in ministerial regulation. Regulations were delayed for 3 or 4 years until Taksin was in power and specified only qualifying investments that had already ceased to be available and others that were supposed to be issued but never were. So no foreign purchases of land have ever been authorised under 96 bis. Nevertheless the Post hilariously quoted today someone saying that it worked really well to revive the economy in the late 90s 555. Section 96 bis The provisions prescribing the acquisition of land by foreigners by virtue of the provisions of a treaty under first paragraph of Section 86 shall not apply to the foreigners who bring in the capital for investment more than forty million Baht as prescribed in the Ministerial Regulations whereas the acquisition of land for purpose of residence shall not exceed one rai and shall be approved by the Minister. The acquisition of land by foreigners under paragraph one shall be in accordance with the rules, procedures, and conditions prescribed in the Ministerial Regulations. The essential issues shall be included in the Ministerial Regulations as follows. (1) The type of business in which the foreigners invest that economically and socially benefits the country or which is declared by the Board of Investment as eligible for the application of the investment promotion under the law thereon. (2) The period of maintaining the investment shall not be less than three years. (3) The land that the foreigners may acquire shall be within the locality of Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, the City of Pattaya, Municipality, or the zone designated to be the residential area under the law on city planning.

Congrats to all on the list. AFAIK applicants who moved their tabien baans to Bangkok have always felt they needed to maintain the Bangkok address until after announcement in the RG. I think the greater number of provincial addresses reflects greater efforts made to set up systems to facilitate applications in the provinces with larger numbers of expat workers, perhaps to support the MOI's push to take over the entire process from SB. That might leave people living out in the boonies in the lurch, as it is hard to see the MOI setting up systems in all provinces when they might never be used. However, they might not be willing to overlook the use of borrowed Bangkok addresses, as SB does.

https://www.thaicitizenship.com/yellow-tabien-baan/

Logically they could as Thai credit card companies and other financial providers are able to do so but PP has chosen not to. Imagine the furore, if they tried to pull the same stunt in the US and closed the accounts of green card and work permit holders. They would be accused of racism and shamed into finding a work around without any doubt whatsoever. But discriminatory racist business practices are OK for PP in third world countries.

I am wondering what level of domestic business PP can do in Thailand. The number of times I have seen a Thai online merchant accepting PP can be counted on the fingers of mutilated hand. Thai SME vendors also hardly ever accept credit or debit cards. Everyone transfers the money electronically and sends the slip by LINE. Not protection for scammed buyers but great for vendors with no fees or charge backs. For e-commerce I would guess that PP has only been used by Thais and foreigners who have credit cards and buy stuff from overseas vendors. A very small percentage of Thais do this and a large percentage of foreign residents for obvious reasons. While they were offshore, you couldn't link to a Thai bank account. So it was limited to credit cards. Coming onshore and being able to link to Thai bank accounts, I guess they hope they will be able to penetrate the domestic market. But it does seem a very long shot. Anyway the share price has been telling us that PP has been going down the tubes for a while. The only innovation I can see is their compliance with Thai regulations and coming onshore but this is negative as far as I can see. Their market niche for me was largely that they were offshore and not part of the Thai nanny state regulatory environment.

I just received an email from PayPal advising me that, despite having already agreed to their terms for re-registering my international account with PayPal Thailand, I now have to agree to a completely new set of agreements and register with Thailand's national ID verification system, NDID through a Thai bank, by 30 November to continue using my account. One thing that caught my eye in the Q & A linked to the email was this. 14) I am not a Thai national and cannot enroll in NDID. Will I be able to use a PayPal personal account in Thailand? PayPal is using the NDID platform as a sole means of verifying the identity of customers seeking to use PayPal Thailand personal accounts (including existing account holders whose accounts will be transferred to PayPal Thailand). For the time being, a Thai national ID is required to enroll in NDID (other forms of identification which do not have a 13-digit Thai national ID number, such as a non-Thai passport, work permit, non-Thai Identification card (pink ID), or Thai Permanent Resident Permit cannot be accepted). So PayPal has now decided to ditch completely all customers residing in Thailand who are not Thai citizens, including permanent residents and expats with work permits. If you are still reading, there are also a number of new restrictions for Thai citizens, e.g. no more payments between friends and family. It is not clear to me what the implications of having to register through a Thai bank may be, since my account has never been linked to any bank account. Personally I have stopped using PayPal for anything where an alternative exists already. There are just a few sellers in the US that only accept PayPal and I have never used it for receiving money. Even though I do have a Thai ID card, I think this is complete BS and no longer wish to have anything to do with PayPal.

They sound a right load of so and sos. I don't see how it would doable without cooperation from your employer. Even if some documents could perhaps be certified by the RD, most will need the company's certification and you will need the PofA and a letter confirming your position and salary. Do you mean to say that, if a Thai employer asked them for a salary letter with certified company affidavit, if required by a bank to get a mortgage on a house, they would also tell him to naff off and look for another job, if he insists on troubling them for documents not directly instrumental in them making money?

Using 7/11 services is definitely a modest goal and not recommended to give as the reason someone wants citizenship at the Lamlukka interview 555. But we take what we can get. For me it 's just being able to show one document or maximum two, if tabian baan included, instead of the whole shooting match of passport, WP, PR and PR books. If you are not working, it is a constant irritation being asked for a WP, despite having PR. For the manned Thai immigration gates, you can also use them with PR. But with a Thai passport it's fun when an IO or some Thai busybody tries to shoo you out of the queue and you just flip over the Thai passport and watch their face fall. I actually did the busybody thing myself when I was close to missing a flight and there was a bunch of Indians in the Thai queue in front of me. They became aggressive and refused to budge. But when they got to the front of the queue, the IO just pointed a wagging finger towards the back of the long alien queue and packed them off without saying a word. Of course I gave them a big smile as they filed past me.

Go to the police station and file a Section 112 criminal case. Since you are a Thai citizen, they are obliged to accept the case. If not you can complain to police national HQ.

It would be difficult to inconvenience those elites by just enforcing existing legislation and bringing in new legislation to inconvenience them would be impossible under the 2017 constitution which, for the first time, prohibited involuntary revocation of nationality from those who are Thai by birth. Those who vulnerable to a move to suddenly enforce existing legislation, which is admittedly ambivalent and open to interpretation, are are naturalised Thais. In the past the main targets were those who acquired nationality through birth in the Kingdom to two alien parents but it is arguable that they are now protected by the constitution, if they are considered Thai through birth. Foreign women who acquire nationality through a Thai husband are not vulnerable.

Hard to know, if she asked just out of curiosity or if there was a more sinister purpose. Also what would have been her reaction, if you said no. If she could see your itinerary on her system and noticed no US visa in your passport, then she would know your answer was incomplete, i.e. not using it on this leg but still have it. A friend came back from Oz with a completely blank Thai passport just weeks after getting his citizenship and they asked him if he still had a Kiwi passport. He said that he did and the IO said he could see on there system from his previous trips. Seems that he was curious and happy that he could make a correct match. I went to the US in August on ANA with a new Thai passport and came back through Tokyo which scrapped visa free travel for Thais due to COVID. When I was checking in from the US to come back ANA's system gave me the option of changing nationality to travel on a different passport which I did. Otherwise there could have been a mismatch as Thai Immigration would have received the wrong passport details. My guess is that the airline sends them details of passengers' complete return trip, since they have it anyway and it would be of more use for destination countries to know where passengers have travelled from, rather than just where they transited. Anyway the IO stamped my passport without comment. Anyone know when the e-gates will be functional? I didn't even see them and wondered, if they have been carted off somewhere to salvage parts for scrap. It is incredible that a new system that was many years in the planning, tendering and development and cost taxpayers vast sums of money should just be left to become obsolete and scrapped without ever using it. But as time goes on, that is looking more and more likely. This is a fast moving field and the system must already be somewhat out of date. But that is exactly what happened to the infamous airport explosive detectors ordered during Thaksin's watch. One has a nasty sense that the problems with the e-gates are similar - i.e. so much of the purchase price went under the table that there wasn't enough left for the developers to produce a viable system or maintain it. As traffic builds up at Swampy, they are going to need them, as they are intended for pre-registered foreigners both living in Thailand and abroad as well as Thais.

If talking about applications accepted by Immigration but rejected by the Immigration Commission, I doubt it has ever been nearly as high as 90% in normal times because Immigration filters out those that are not qualified according to the letter of the regulations. Referring to mere enquiries to Immigration that are told they are not qualified or not yet qualified, then, of course, the percentage would be much higher. Thaksin's regime as PM was another matter. In the early noughties entire batches of applicants were rejected out of hand because the evil, xenophobic interior minister Purachai hated all foreigners and claimed without citing any evidence that the applicants all lacked merit and were probably all crooks - just like him and fellow politicians. Maybe that was the period you referred to. Some people apply, despite being told by Immigration that they are unqualified because they insist that, according to the letter they are qualified. A case in point is the notorious humanitarian category where the regulations imply you are qualified by virtue of supporting a Thai child or spouse without working in Thailand but Immigration demands a work permit and Thai tax receipts. One guy reported in this thread that he did that with his lawyer threatening to sue the officers in the Administrative Court, if they refused to accept his application. But he never posted again, so presumably he ended up in the circular file, possibly with another reason given for reject to avert legal action. I am sure he would have posted in triumph, if he had been successful. I think the borderline cases that are accepted by Immigration but rejected by the Commission are few and far between but there are certainly oversights by Immigration. I know of two cases that were initially accepted by Immigration but later sent back by the MoI because it was noticed that both applicants had extra jobs that they naively referred to in their documentation but didn't have WPs for the second jobs. They were both told that the Labour Ministry rep on the Immigration Commission might well have insisted on their prosecution, if they had proceeded to that stage and were advised to fix the problem and re-apply. One thing that puzzles me though is that, since they introduced the Thai language requirement in the early noughties, I have never heard of anyone failing the Thai language interview which seems as if it would be quite difficult for someone with only basic Thai. Probably there is a lot of self-selection of people who decide not to apply because they know their Thai is poor or non-existent. However, you would think this was an area that, since it is subjective, there would be quite a few failures. I can only assume that either the interview is just for show and everyone passes, no matter how awful their Thai, or that those who fail are too ashamed to post about it. My own experience on this topic during my application, also about 25 years ago , was in a meeting with a Pol Maj Gen at Immigration to whom someone had introduced me. He showed me a pile of files of rejections and invited me to thumb through them and I recognised a couple of names. They were mainly applicants working for 2 million baht registered capital companies which was the minimum required for a work permit. He said that a cut off of of 5 million baht had been set and all employers smaller than that were automatically assumed 'man of straw' companies to save the officers having to do detailed investigations to check that they were real businesses. He said the applicants were not told the real reason for their rejections and some applied again and again with the same pitiful results. But I doubt that category was anywhere near 90%, as most applicants tend to be employees rather than operating their own small businesses.

It is a good point. They have now demonstrated clearly that WPs are not regarded as absolutely essential. When WPs were first introduced in the early 70s, PRs who were working were given life time WPs as long as they remained in the same profession, as part of the transitional provisions of the first Working of Aliens Act. It would seem reasonable now to reintroduce that. Also the exemption from having 4 Thai staff was never applied to PRs until fairly recently. I got WPs with zero Thai staff. Then Immigration insisted that the Labour Ministry should close the loop and insist on 4 Thai staff, the same as they did. A Labour Ministry official seemed quite embarrassed about it when I enquired and pointed to some wording in the the second Working of Aliens Act that was scrapped by the junta, that rambled on about the need to protect jobs for Thai citizens but didn't mention PRs as justification. When I pointed out that PRs have been given life long visas and should be expected to allowed to work, he just shrugged. Since they have also demonstrated that 4 Thai employees are unnecessary and used to find them unnecessary for PRs, there should be pressure to reinstate this privilege for PRs. If LTRs can convert to PR, they will have problems if the higher grade visa has less privilege. Surely the people they want to apply for LTRs are also the very people they want to apply for PR. What contradictory nonsense!

I didn't realise the LTR visas were administered by the BOI. That is definitely a plus point compared to Immigration. When I was preparing to apply for PR there was an option to apply for PR through the BOI for which one of the requirements was to invest in special Bank of Thailand bonds. I made an appointment with the BOI to find out, if I would do better to apply to the BOI than to Immigration. I had already had a nasty experience with Immigration when they demanded B40k in "tax" when I went for my first locally issued NON-B visa. The tax assessment was made on the basis that they saw a number of entries to Thailand in my passport for a few days each in the preceding months and assumed I was working without any evidence. They refused to issue the NON-B if I didn't pay. I did get a receipt but it was just scrawled on a scrap of paper. So I thought the BOI might be a better option, despite the need for the bonds and, strangely enough, an HIV test. Immigration just demanded tests for leprosy, elephantiasis, alcoholism etc for PR as AIDS had not yet appeared on their radar. At the meeting with the BOI a couple of well education young Thais explained very politely that, despite being heavily promoted by the government, the BOI PR scheme was unfortunately non-functional because the Bank of Thailand had refused to issue the special bonds. (This is similar to what happened to the 1999 amendment to the Land Code allowing foreigners to buy a rai of land in exchange for a B40m investment - the special government bonds were never issued and the qualifying real estate funds were no longer issued by the time of the amendment.) It occurs to me that they could have easily set up another PR scheme with investment criteria and no Thai language requirement to be administered by the BOI, as in the past, but make it functional. But I guess the current thinking is that it is better to sell residence as a short term lease than a freehold.

Shocking but these things happen due to the ignorance of PR amongst officials. I got the fake red book treatment at the Phya Thai district office in Bangkok when I went there to register my marriage, an incident which somewhat spoiled what should have been a joyous occasion. The head of registrations first of all declared that there was no exemption from the freedom to marry affidavit for foreigners with PR. When I argued with him he suddenly lost his rag and said my red book was fake because red books and ID numbers with 8 prefix were only given to Chinese foreigners. Muttering a few curses at the dolt we rushed to the Sathorn DO where they were all smiles and rushed to do the job before closing time. Time was that there were thousands upon thousands of Chinese migrants with PR and everyone knew what a disintegrating red book was. Since PR was the only visa longer than three months and was easy to get, there must have been hundreds of farangs with red books too. But then they made it hard to get and introduced a myriad of new visa choices. Personally I think PR makes a lot more sense than LTR visas, Elite cards and other nonsense they come up with from time to time. Because it is quite expensive it is already a potential money spinner, if they were to choose to broaden it out and they could charge more to the super wealthy who want to apply after one year or some such. All they need to do is rejig the regulations a bit and get rid of the red books and blue/white books and replace them with a smart card. They also need to let PRs work without a WP in non-strategic industries, or at least restore the right to get a WP with no Thai staff, which used to be the case and which they are happy to give to LTRs who have a lesser claim to the privilege IMHO. In spite of all of this PR is the one type of visa that has endured nearly 100 years already, while all other visa types come and go.

Yes, of course it was unfair and bad luck too. But nothing the low level cops at Immigration could do to avert it. I can't say, if it would be worth writing to the Ombudsman but clearly nothing to lose. Why do they maintain these regulations about re-entry when they probably don't know why they were put there back in the mists of time anyway? They just stick to the rules without thinking too much and yes, it does generate income and costs more than renewal of retirement and marriage extensions just to re-endorse a visa that has a high upfront cost and is supposed to be life. Once you have PR, you have to either pay up or not travel or get citizenship. Is citizenship safer? Yes.

My sympathies Brian. Unfortunately the cancellation of PR for those who return with an expired re-entry visa is set in concrete in the Immigration Act. Hence no flexibility on this without a cabinet resolution. Yes, citizenship is a better option. Even it can be revoked after 5 years living abroad, this is rarely imposed and hasn't been for manyears. I guess they had their reasons for this which probably no one can remember today, since I believe it has been so since the original Immigration Act of 1927 or shortly thereafter. Similar to the provision for revocation of Thai citizenship for living abroad for 5 years, this must be to do with the large numbers of Chinese migrants who went back to China for lengthy periods for education or business. Without modern technology it would have been easy for those who didn't wish to return to Thailand to sell their Thai documents to another Chinese who wanted to immigrate. PR was very useful to them because it gave them full residence rights without the obligation to military service or to pay the corve tax. Foreigners could own land more easily before the 1954 Land Code and restrictions on foreigners working and owning businesses only came in in the early 70s.

You could perhaps argue that you had already renounced your former nationality tout de suite and returned the passport to your embassy. Hence no need to cancel the visa because the passport is cancelled.

That is interesting as well as very nasty and racist of them. It is managed by the Singha beer people who pay a peppercorn rent to SRT for the land. Funnily enough I enquired over 10 years ago before I got Thai nationality and was at first told I had to be Thai. Then I was told I could join, if I either had a tabien baan in Hua Hin or owned property there. Since I had a condo there, I was told I would be eligible on presentation of the chanote. In the end something came up which meant I couldn't spend so much time playing golf in Hua Hin and I didn't go through with it, as I didn't think I could justify the cost any more. It is probably an unofficial racist policy of whoever happens to be in charge locally at the moment. If you write to the Singha speople and to the papers telling them that Thai people are being discriminated against in their own country, things might change, as it is a very hierarchical organisation that is very concerned about its image which they spend a lot of money to burnish. When I was playing golf there regularly, I became aware that there was a scam going on amongst some of the caddies. They observed foreign golfers who, for reasons better known to themselves, would put their wallets in their golf bags. At a certain par 5 where the tee was high up the caddies would take the golf bags down below to a point where they were out of sight from the tee but could see better where the balls landed on the fairway (or elsewhere), leaving their golfers alone on the tee with their drivers. At that point they would take out their golfer's wallet and remove some bills - say if they found 5,000 baht, they might remove 1,000 hoping it would not be noticed. They would have already called a caddy accomplice to notify him that the opportunity had arisen and he would amble by on a motor bike and pick up the cash. If the golfer noticed and made a fuss back at the club house, the caddy could ostentatiously turn out all his or her pockets and produce only small change. At one point a male caddy, a known yaa baa aficionado, got so greedy that he took the whole wallet and didn't want to share it will an accomplice, so it was still on his person. The club management tried to calm the golfer down when he complained about the theft, insisting that he must have been mistaken as the caddy insisted he had not put the wallet in his golf bag. But, seeing that the management planned to take no action about the theft, the golfer got riled and called the police himself. Thereupon the caddy threw the wallet into the bushes and pulled a knife on the golfer and threatened to murder him. The police arrived and made a show of dragging the knife wielding caddy off but released him without charge and he was back at work the next day. This scam went on for two or three years and obviously the caddy master was in on it and probably the club manager too. For them and the police it seemed like a victimless crime, since only foreigners were targeted (just like the foreign call centres) and the victims were unlikely to have the connections or persistence to do them serious damage. Most of the victims either didn't notice the thefts at all or couldn't be sure they had been robbed anyway. The scam came to end when it finally got reported in the local Hua Hin English language free sheet and one of the national English language papers. Some of the female caddies who hated the aggressive male caddies who organised the scam (and harassed the female caddies) and didn't want to get involved in it had spilled the beans to a local foreigner. That came to the attention of the Bhirompakdee family and they immediately fired the club manager, the caddy master and all the caddies involved in the scam - about half of the total and everyone knew who they were. A new manager was sent down from Bangkok with no relatives in Hua Hin and that was the end of it but I would still not advise leaving your wallet or valuables in your golf bag there or at any other course.

I agree with Yankee. If you have already completed a round trip successfully with your Thai passport, you can relax. The chance of any hassle is close to zero. in the remote event there should be a problem, you have followed best practice and cancelled the visa. Many people in this thread reported that did not bother to cancel their visas and had no trouble with multiple trips under their belt. I think you can argue that visas just expire anyway, if not cancelled. The only time this has ever caused problems is when people who already had Thai nationality arrived with a foreign passport and left on a brand new Thai one but there are no cases that I know of recorded in AN or elsewhere where newly naturalised Thais have had this problem. Of course, there is always a first time, I know. Maybe someone else can tell you, if they should have stamped something in your passport to cancel the visa. In my case I I had PR and thought it necessary to cancel it, as retaining PR, which, unlike, visas doesn't expire, could imply the retention of a foreign identity in Thailand. Also there is a clear process for surrendering PR at CW which only takes a few minutes with no queue and it can be done on the way to the passport office nearby. For my WP I took the view there was no point in going to the trouble of cancelling it and just it expire.

Now it is pretty clear what they are trying to do and I have the sense this time that they could get it done. This is nothing new as the Land Code in Section 96 bis was amended in 1999 by the Chuan government to allow foreigners to own 1 rai of land if they put THB 40 million into approved investments. The law provided for much of the key details to be filled in with ministerial regulations. When the were issued several years later, huge backtracking was evidence because the regulations specified approved investments that did not exist. So no one was able to use this law to buy land. But it remains on the books and can easily be activated. The government can issue a one page decree to create new ministerial regulations that will bring this law to life for the first time. This will avoid the painstaking process of getting completely new amendments through parliament against political opposition and dealing with the public backlash as it grinds through its three readings. Not to mention that the government has no time to pass any new legislation before its time will be up. Think of it like the legalisation of cannabis. A one page decree followed by a 120 waitiing period and they're done without many Thais even noticing. They wake up 4 months later and find foreigners are allowed to own land. What they can't change without going through the parliamentary process is what is already in the law, e.g. ministerial approval is required for each transaction and purchases can only be made in Bangkok, Pattaya or areas designated as residential zones throughout the country. The ministerial approval will probably make it unviable for those without the highest level connections. What seller is going to wait around for months or years for that? But they can make the investment conditions viable. In 1999 the intention was to get foreigner to invest mainly in special real estate funds designed to help out the crippled property industry but by the time the regulations came out these fund were no longer being issued. The BOI was empowered to designate alternative qualifying investments but declined to do so. An easy way would be to designate investments in any BOI promoted company or any stocks listed on the SET. Unlike the now redundant provisions in the Land Code for foreigners to own land under international treaties owners, there is no provision for foreign heirs to inherit the land. So presumably the estate would have 12 months to sell to a Thai buyer, as in the case of foreign heirs of a Thai citizen. The treaty laws allowed foreign heirs to inherit as long as they were also qualified to hold land under the relevant treaty. This is the current law. Land Code (Added by Land Code Amendment Act 1999) Section 96 bis The provisions prescribing the acquisition of land by foreigners by virtue of the provisions of a treaty under first paragraph of Section 86 shall not apply to the foreigners who bring in the capital for investment more than forty million Baht as prescribed in the Ministerial Regulations whereas the acquisition of land for purpose of residence shall not exceed one rai and shall be approved by the Minister. The acquisition of land by foreigners under paragraph one shall be in accordance with the rules, procedures, and conditions prescribed in the Ministerial Regulations. The essential issues shall be included in the Ministerial Regulations as follows. (1) The type of business in which the foreigners invest that economically and socially benefits the country or which is declared by the Board of Investment as eligible for the application of the investment promotion under the law thereon. (2) The period of maintaining the investment shall not be less than three years. (3) The land that the foreigners may acquire shall be within the locality of Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, the City of Pattaya, Municipality, or the zone designated to be the residential area under the law on city planning. Section 96 ter Any foreigner who is granted to acquired land under Section 96 bis shall, if fails to comply with the rules or conditions prescribed in paragraph two of Section 96 bis in the Ministerial Regulations, dispose of the land being under his/her right within the time period prescribed by the Director-General which is not later than a hundred and eighty days but not longer than one year. If such time period elapses, the Director-General shall have power to dispose of such land. If the land granted to be acquired by the foreigner under Section 96 bis is not used for purpose of residence within two years from the registration date of acquisition, the Minister shall have power to dispose of such land.

The government's plan to charge the tourism fee to all incoming foreigners without except based on the nationality shown on their ticket raises an interesting question about dual nationals. Presumably they will be charged, if they buy a ticket under their foreign nationalities and perhaps that will show up somewhere undesirable. I have just bought a ticket to go overseas and back from a large foreign online travel agency and I am not aware of having been asked to submit nationality to register an account or buy the ticket. Of course Thai airlines demand to know your nationality. Perhaps foreign ticket sellers will just charge everyone. It is not yet clear how this is going to work. Thai regulators may be unaware that nationality is not always demanded by overseas sellers of tickets to Thailand, since they are famous for shooting from the hip without doing any research.

1. The head of registrations at a Land Office refused to register land in my name without the original of the naturalisation certificate which I didn't have with me and I was a plane ride away from my home. Eventually she agreed, if I signed an essay scrawled by her certifying that I was indeed a Thai citizen and had not yet had my Thai citizenship revoked. A real PITA wasting an hour arguing with her and signing unnecessary docs. I told her to just take my ID card to the district office next door and put it in the smart card reader, if she didn't one, or call SB or the MoI but she refused to consider any of that. 2. BTS. A sales clerk refused to let me buy a 50% discount senior card (not sure if they are still issued) on presentation of my ID card. She said it was for Thais but not this kind of a Thai. I had to get her to call her supervisor who went red in the when he saw what his girl was doing and the huge angry queue behind me and told her to issue the pink card double quick. 3. At a sports club that practised dual pricing in membership prices. Same thing as BTS - not for this type of a Thai. I refused to pay more than the Thai fee and she said would take it up with her boss and, if he confirmed that white Thais had to pay the foreigner price, I could either pay the differential or get my money back. When I came back to pick up the card, nothing more was said about the white Thai rate. 4. At a tourist "attraction" in Hua Hin. I was told the Thai rate was only for Thai citizens born in Thailand which is obviously an absurd assertion, as there is no place of birth on ID cards. Ethnic Thais could easily be born overseas and white Thais could easily be born in Thailand. What they meant was that they didn't feel like giving the discount to white Thais. I asked her, if she was aware who had ountersigned my citizenship application and threatened a 112 prosecution but cut no ice. So my family just left and they made no money out of us at all but had the satisfaction of discriminating against a Thai on grounds of racial origin. As we were leaving, we heard them explaining to a Thai family what all the fuss was about - the farang tried to get the Thai price but we couldn't have that. Perhaps I have been unlucky. I have had other incidences, such as at the hospital where my son was born where I just could not get the message through that I was Thai after showing my ID card and tabien baan. The girl would not stop asking for my passport and WP for the birth certificate, until I got rather irritated and asked my wife to go and explain to her and the missus had a hard time getting it into her brain too. This wasn't an attempt at discrimination, just utter incomprehension that a white guy could be a Thai citizen. The Revenue Department also called the other day to ask me to bring my passport to check I had been in Thailand 180 days in the tax year to qualify for a tax rebate but didn't insist when I explained. I remember reading in other threads about farang fathers taking their Thai citizen look krung children to tourist attractions such as Safari World and being refused the Thai price for kids which is tricky, if they are not old enough to have ID cards and the mother is not with them to remonstrate. In this case, it is probably recommended to bring copies of their birth certificates or tabien baan, although that is not picture ID. Farang look krung kids may also be effectively discriminated against at places where they use a measuring stick to charge kids taller than 90cm. Look krung kids, especially boys, are likely to hit 90cm much younger than most Thai kids but nothing can be done about this.

This was true once but those lawyers are out of date. The Treaty was revised in 1966 and the right to own land was deleted at the request of the Thai side, while the US side raised no objections as they were of the opinion that US citizens and corporates at the time had little interest in owning land in Thailand, a country that looked like it could easily fall under communist rule. The US side was also persuaded by the Thai government that Thai small land holders, particularly upcountry, were a key bedrock against communism and that foreign land ownership could cause resentment and upset this dynamic. In the previous version of the treaty signed in 1920 US citizens were allowed to own land in Thailand, as long as Thais were allowed to own land in the states they came from. This provision had been insisted on by the Thai side because many US states had iniquitous provisions preventing Asians from owning land until the Supreme Court deemed these laws unconstitutional in 1958. There was a great deal of fear and resentment against Chinese and Japanese immigrants in the US and states enacted laws to prevent Asians from owning land to discourage them from settling. Federal law also preventing them from gaining citizenship in the early 20th century which was used as the basis of these land laws. The residual wording in the Land Code re treaty ownership of land is still there, even though the other 12 foreign treaties that permitted foreign land ownership had all be revoked and not renewed by 1970. The US was the only foreign power that had bargaining power over Thailand by that stage and the Thais knew that, if they could get the US to give up it land ownership rights, the other countries would be forced to follow suit. The treaty owned land was grandfathered when the treaties were revoked and up until the late 80s there were still some notable treaty owned plots in Bangkok. HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank had lavish managers' houses in Sathorn and Wireless Roads respectively, although they head been divided into flats for senior management by the tme they fell under the wrecking ball. East Asiatic Co Ltd owned a prime property on the river that was originally godowns and is now Asiatique. There is probably more but the only remaining treaty owned land I am aware of today is the British Club on Silom Road which is owned by its ordinary members.

You're lucky you got the usufruct. Some land offices, particularly upcountry, will simply refuse to do it and the director of registrations has the discretion to do whatever he likes where foreigners are involved. How easy it would be enforce a usufruct against a hostile Thai wife or ex or her heirs, if she is deceased particularly if the property is in their village, would depend on individual cases. And yes you should do it before you are married, if possible, because the Civil & Commercial Code provides for annulment of a contract between husband and wife, if one of them can convince the judge they were taken advantage of by the other. Some can still get away with using Thai companies but this has been made much harder since the Interior Minister issued new instructions to land offices to try to prevent foreigners from using a corporate ownership structure. Basically the land officers were ordered to reject any transfers to companies that any overt or suspected foreign involvement. Thai nominees can be quizzed as to what is the business plan of the company and why do they want to invest their entire paid up capital in a resort villa with infinity pool.