Burgernev

I understand a Tabien Bahn is proof of residence at the address, not ownership, but I could be wrong. Here's why I think this:

1) The documentation to obtain a Yellow Book does not include documents relating to you buying, building, acquiring the building.

2) My wife has a Blue Tabien Bahn all by herself on our house, my company owns it ....... I hope

3) My wife has small house in Buli-lam and took her name off Tabien Bahn and put her name inthe Hua Hin house, her brother lives in her house in village now and has put his name in the Tabien Bahn, he doesn't own it though.

4) A foreigner can get a Yellow Book at his wife's house, she owns it though.

What I do know for sure as I see it all the time is that when a foreigner buys a house (not condo) you go to the land office and register lease or transfer land title paper. Ie: land (not house) transfer and pay taxes etc.

You also should declare the house/building transfer and pay taxes on that, although not everyone does, tut tut. When you do this the new house owner, who is not neccessarily the land owner, gets a white certificate with their name on, in Thai with an official land office stamp. This certificate declares you are the owner of the house/building.

What happens if you then sell the house to a.n.other without going to land office and paying tax, getting new white certificate ........ haven't the foggiest.

But my advice to anyone buying a house is to register the transfer at the land office, then you have a certificate showing ownership. Sellers don't want to do this as they don't want to pay the tax, if so pay it yourself it's relatively low.

Going back to the OP asking what is the document for foreigners and what is for Thais, what I've mentioned does not discriminate, its for both.

Burgernev

Hi again Dude,

You can't live here on a tourist visa anymore, you need a non-immigrant visa, you can get one easy based on supporting a Thai, your wife. When you're 50 you can get the retirement visa.

I've never really heard of leasing land off government, but you're better off leasing it off your wife, then at the end of your time its a nice asset to give her security for the rest of her life.

Best thing is don't rush into anything, come and rent for 6-12 months, see where you want to live and that gives you time to get up to speed on ownership options.

Cheers

Dude,

If you outlive your wife you have options to protect your interests.

Yes you sign to say the money used to purchase is all hers and that makes it her personal property under law and NOT part of the joint marital assets. Lawyers say though that in divorce here the judge does take it into consideration and split it between foreigner and wife. That can't be relied on obviously.

Options:

1) She leaves it to you in her will and you can the sell it. Make sure you do a will otherwise under law it goes to family members, even Aunts and Uncles before a spouse (Foreign or Thai spouse).

2) She leaves it to you and you put it in a Thais name who gives you a 30 year lease

3) Ditto lifetime Usufruct (part of Thai law) see article from lawyer in the real estate section of this forum.

You can/should (in case of divorce) register a lease or Usufruct from day 1, these agreements automatically fall onto any new landowner, say your wife sold land or left it to her sister in her will. You have no right to make her 'will' it to you.

Theres other options, seea good lawyer.

Many foreigners have lost property by not protecting themselves in the event the relationship breaks down.

Good luck and apologies for negative talk about divorce etc, but needs to be considered.

Burgernev

ray08, thanks for your comments, I'm sort of coming to that conclusion. Even if a building is being properly maintained after 7 years, it may not be after 17 years. Maybe I should stick to houses where I have full control on it's maintenance.

If it were for us to live in and not want to leave to child then I wouldn't be concerned

Apologies OP, pkrv, if I've gone off-topic a bit.

Cheers,

Burgernev

FYI

Bangkok Bank website says:

Can foreigners apply for a home loan to purchase property in Thailand?

Bangkok Bank provides home loans to non-residents that can be used to purchase freehold condominium or apartment properties without a title deed.

Our team understands the regulatory requirements that apply and can help you with advice and finance for your property purchase.

The loans are provided via our Singapore and Hong Kong branches, but you can also inquire about them at a number of branches in Bangkok.

and:

As a foreigner, can I get a home loan through my spouse who is a resident of Thailand?

If your spouse is a resident of Thailand but does not have sufficient funds for a home loan, you can be the guarantor on the loan. However, as a guarantor your name will not appear on the title deed of the house but you will be liable if repayments are not made.

Burgernev

Following on from quicksilva and think_too_mut comments, my concern is the worse case scenario that your buidling is not well maintained, partial occuption, hard to sell, developer moves in and you don't get any real value back. I've only ever been involved with property in London which while somemay be old 1930's buildings, they're generally not unoccupied and demolished for re-development.

Because you've had 30 years income from it I don't see a problem that it's value relative to the newer units will be a lot lower, but taking the worse case scenario that the building is percevied to have a limited life span and remaining residents may decide to sell up to a developer, does that make it near impossible to sell and near worthless ?

It's not to live in only an investment, but as we've just had a son we want it to be of value for him in 30 years time.

Is the answer to upgrade every say 10, 15 years or when you see the signs, this should protect your rental yield too!? I know I'm taking the pesimistic view here, but it's got to be considered.

Thanks,

Burgernev

Took your advice pkrv and read through a lot of the old threads (head hurts now), lots of sound advice particlarly from Irene, Quicksilva and the like.

The only nagging doubt that remains is about the condition and value of the asset in 25-30 years time, it is a long term investment and me and missus will hopefully only be interested in the rental income. But we'd like it to be of worth to leave to our son.

Hua Hin market is quiet now compared to the insane boom of recent years, but it's steady and I haven't seen any drop in prices, they're still rising infact for the mid to high quality properties. Houses are the bigger share of the market here, obviously due to land availability and the relatively inexpensive, but ever-rising land prices.

What was consistent reading through the years of old threads was Mr Bing Bong saying the bubble will burst any minute now.

Although to be fair his 1,568th graphic, the inverted cumulative progress 's' curve overlaid on that green and pink gantt chart, had me a tad concerned

Cheers,

Burgernev

Nick,

Sorry about your situation, yeah it's out of order but from personal experience I know many solicitors here will advise anything to make some money.

Legal cases can take years here, you could rack up 100k+ legal fees with no guarantee of winning.

I wouldn't advise going any further with the solicitor than some letters to see if he compromises now, but I doubt it.

This small lesson might end up helping you avoid more costly problems in the future, I had a couple of small ones, many come off far worse as I'm sure you know.

Good luck.

Interesting thread folks.

I've just read the excellent "All Major Projects Ploenchit/langsuan/chidlom/wireless/ruam Rudi Areas" thread pkrv started, great information.

I live in Hua Hin but am looking to buy a condo probably in the Sukhumvit area, not high end say 12-15M and it is intended as a long-term investment ie: 20 years+

What I'd like to get an idea of is what the general growth trend has been like in the past over a long period, maybe the last 10 years ? and what happens to the value of a new/nearly new unit today when it's 25 years old then ?

Appreciate any advice,

Cheers.

I agree, he's just trolling. He can't debate.

So he lost out in the property market, plenty have done that but take it like a man.

He's a waste of space.

Burgernev

Bingo-Monkey,

You could peel off all your skin, soak in a bath of lime juice for 24 hours with a lemon in your mouth and you wouldn't be more bitter.

Do us a favour and email me just before my property value drops through the floor so I can off load it.

Address is: ivemadeaprofit@property_andnowimgonna.cum

You do realise all these nasty people are laughing at you, don't you ?

BingoBongo/ kokothemonkey,

In Hua Hin & Cha Am the market has slowed a lot in the past year, I see it first hand being involved in it.

Houses are still selling steadily, it's just not the madness it was during the preceding 3 years.

Prices are still rising, there's no signs of them levelling out let alone dropping.

People who have bought are quite happy and many have seen significant increases in their investment.

Carry on, but what you are saying does not reflect reality IMHO.

Burgernev

PS: Just had a look at that GlobalHousePriceCrash site and koko/BingoBongo talking to himself over 15 pages Get over it mate.

if you have a 30 year lease in your own name and you die the contract is null an void, Incredible but true.

You can 'will' the lease onto your heirs as long as this provision is written into the lease contract.

I believe the lease becomes invalid upon death if it is an Usufruct Lease

True a Usufruct would expire upon death, but you can sub-let under a Usufruct. So you periodically run 30 year leases with your desired heir. So when you pass the rights carry on until the 30 years expire.

Burgernev

Hi scduck,

Sent you a PM

Burgernev

Thanks Johnny,

I know the place you mean but not been in yet.

Cheers

I'd be interested in having a look too johnny.

Do they have a large selection ?

There's a lot of small outlets around with some good, reasonable stuff but they often don't do everything for the whole house.

Cheers,

We furnish all our places with Beautiful World furniture.

They've got a big diversity of styles, its all good quality wood and looks modern and stylish, if that's your taste ofcourse.

It's not cheap but its not expensive either for the quality you get, and they're always open to negotiation above the advertised discounts.

Staff and service is first class compared to most other places and they always deliver on time so far.

Other places:

W.O.L.F. used them before, quality wasn't there, it was 2 months late and customer service was abysmal. That was farangs.

Asian Living, great solid stuff a bit more traditional and less contemporary/fancy, but small selection and v. expensive. Swedish guy that runs it is very professional and helpful though.

Index/Winner - two bob, period.

Cabinet Company - good for kitchens for me (although some have have bad experiences), don't rate their furniture at all or prices.

Siam Old Teak - never been yet but heard good reports. Solid, sturdy stuff and reasonably prices people say. Worth a look.

The only other place I'd recommend is SB Furniture in back of HomePro, they have some decent attractive stuff, again quite contemporary/modern if that's you're taste. They're cheaper than Beautiful World although not the same 'solid wood' for want of a better description.

But this is just my opinion/taste (or lack of), they're all around town so go take a look and judge yourself.

Burgernev

Hi Vulcan,

My wife says it's:

An army/armed forces show/demonstration at Hua Hin airport

2 days 30th and 31st May, 09:00 - 16:00pm

Free admission

She wasn't 100% it was at the Hua Hin airport, there some air force places further past the airport on way to Cha Am, so that needs checking out.

Thay're not far from each other anyway and it should be sign-posted.

Cheers

PS: If she's got it all wrong, I'll refund your admission fee

Agree with you taxexile that there is a lot of choice in town now.

Our experience was totally different to yours and our was two years ago too, this July.

To be fair if there's a risk of what you experienced happening again, then people should look elsewhere.

Cheers,

Burgernev

I prefer to think of it as psychotic obessiveness. Poor old PTG has been waging a one-person war against all this for ages, even to the point of posting the same images as he asks you to Google.

One wonders how some people dare to get out of bed in the morning.

To the OP . . the hundreds of posts you refer to about fake-ID'd officials were posted by our late lamented fellow obsessive, emperor tud. He, too, had a victimisation fetish, to the point that he refused to even read the replies

nice one bendix, quality humour mate

//Edit: restored font format of quoted text as per forum/netiquette rules -- Maestro

They did our kitchen.

They are more expensive but they are quality in our opinion.

The service and quality couldnt really fault. It's about 2 years old now and had no problems.

Best to buy your own equipment and give it to them, theirs was well over the top pricewise.

Burgernev

If the whole year rent and advertising is fully covered by the first four sales it shows the quality indeed of these estate agents

I'm not sure what the correlation between shop rental and agent commission rates, currently 5% in Hua Hin, has to do with the quality of real estate agents.

I can see what your other points would have to do with their quality. It's applicable to some, but not others.

Cheers,

I was told by estate agent today that 50% of estate agents in HH have packed in as supply has oustripped demand

He's ill-informed then.

There's approx. 30 real estate agents now in HH (not talking about the one's working from home on the internet), that's at least 8 more than this time last year. Their numbers are increasing, not decreasing.

There's about twice as many as there was 3 years ago.

They've got no overheads apart from rent and advertising, and no cash-flow issues as they have no product to buy. Their whole years rent and advertising is covered by the first 4 no. sales they make.

The market's been a lot slower the last 9 months or so, compared to the madness of the 3 years preceeding that, but it's still steady enough for the businesses to do ok.

The property people who may well suffer are the developers whose houses and developments arent the best quality/value, the better developments are still selling.

The one's strugling may drop their prices, and people will be able to get bargains there. That's ok if you want to live in them though.

Burgernev

No, no particular reason.

Just that some people rent places and do not know, until after it's too late, what the place is like.

If you inspected in the day, you won't know about student noise in the night

Cheers,

I know several people who stay in VIP condo who drink in the bars many night, challenge free

I do ask them why they dont save some of that beer money and spend it on renting somewhere half decent though

Burgernev