onlooker

Daughters are always named "Porn" - what's that all about anyway? Is that racist?

Hopefully the above comment was made in jest. Or perhaps ignorance isnt always bliss?

There's a simple explanation for the 3 hour check in requirement. It's so everyone who wants to use the one of the half a dozen public toilets has enough time to do so.

Please dont criticise the Council for National Security they have the Thai nation's best interests at heart.

And if they say that it cant be lifted, what are you going to do about it ( Other than anything that might get you arested - such as demonstrate, hold a meeting, post message on a webboard or mention it in passing to a former member of TRT.)

It doesnt matter who's in charge of any country - people will always bitch and moan after a while. The bottom line is that amongst Thais Thaksin would have won any upcoming election and he was the democratically elected leader.

It's not as though the Democrats would embrace foreigners - that ain't a vote winner in Isaan or even in Bangkok. Nothing at all to indicate that they'd be fairer or would remove any policies put in place by TRT that affect farangs. Why would they? To get the vote of the farang Thai wife block??

Also, you cant criticise the new order, as they're officially beyond reproach, and people have to have someone to slag off - so Thaksin's the easy target now.

Wonder if Article 3 includes the right of free speech as one of the basic rights . . . or not.

Alarm bells should always ring when developers say stuff like:

Ownership either Leasehold OR Freehold, your choice

in their advertising

I have a feeling the reshuffles arent being implemented to help border runners. But maybe the new guys in charge want to reach out to farangs and revoke the new laws, you never know.

There will be a General Election . . . in Oct 2007

Thaksin has declared a state of emergency on Channel 11 (Army TV station) Looks like it's some army generals trying a coup but without the support of all the top generals, so it's army vs. army.

Thai TV stations now all playing the same homage to the King video, which has pissed my missus off as she wanted to watch her regular saop operas.

Wait till the coup's over then you can watch, dear.

Also on BBC now - tanks near government house

The dead Canadian guy is Jesse Lee Daniel, a 34-year-old teacher at Phol Vidhya School in Hat Yai.

(Let's see how long it is before someone posts asking if he had a WP or not.)

I am happy in my ignorance, of course I get to enjoy it being retired in LOS.

Jimmy - I think what the other posters are trying to tell you is that you'll be far happier and have far less chance of losing your house if you aren't ignorant.

There's nothing in it for the posters here - they have nothing to gain or lose from giving you their advice / thoughts. on your situation . . . on the other hand the developer has everything to gain from giving you his positive spin on things.

Think about this . . .

Koh kood is being developed as an island for the rich. A 6 star resort with private airstrip will open soon and it's common knowledge that members of the government have large land holdings there.

Gambling is illegal in Thailand.

Gambling isnt illegal in Cambodia.

What better place for a casino?

Nothing much on iTV at the moment bit if you put Channel 11 on there's what appears to be a jitterbug dance competion, some very cute chicks there.

Hi mekka,

You can get a nom-Imm "o" visa when you are under 50yo...

but only if you married a thai lady,

or if your father or mother is thai,

or a few restrictive conditions like that,

but NOT for tourism.

You can get a Non Imm O for visiting family or friends in Thailand - regardless of your age 18 or 80.

No documentation from the Thai you are visiting is required, just their name & address on the application form.

A Non Im m 'O-A' retirement visa is only issued to the over 50s

Why does it appear to be such a hardship for anyone who is under 50 and has some omney in the bank to simply get a 12 month multi entry Non Imm O visa which require nothing more than completing a couple of forms, apassport photo and a few thousand baht. Messing around with 30 day visas never made any sense at all to people in this situation.

Maestro . . .Not sure why you're trying to give a guy a hard time about having a multi entry tourist visa.

Check out the website below - you can get a quadruple entry tourist visa for GBP100 in less than half an hour if you visit the consulate in person.

www.thaiconsul-uk.com

You can also dowhload a program (from the AIS, DTAC, True websites) to your phone that will ad the extra '8' automatically to the numbers in your phone book if you cant be bothered doing it manually.

But the instructions are all in Thai - maybe someone with better Thai than myself could take a look and post an English version.

If the new system is to be bought, installed and certified in 30 days, I bet that this will be another inside job...and a lot more money will change hands..

Unfortunaltely, there wont be enough time for a transparent tendering process to take place. New Benz's all round at the AOT.

Obviously a slow news day at The Nation as this article is a rehash of the one below from 2 years ago

MIA FARANG CLUB: 'It's not just about the money'

Published on Jun 15, 2004 The Nation

It's not just the lure of financial security but the "bad habits" of Thai men, say those Thai women who have chosen Western men over their male compatriots for husbands.

And this seems to be backed up by a recent survey. According to the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB), the bad habits of Thai men are one of three main reasons why large numbers of women from the country's Northeast have married Western men, leading to the "mia farang" phenomenon in the region.

The other two reasons are: poverty and family debts - especially after divorcing a Thai husband who leaves them to take care of the children - and women who want to emulate the success of neighbours who have married a foreigner.

"Thai men have a tendency to ignore their responsibilities to their family. They easily become 'jao choo' [adulterous] as well as alcoholic if they have money," said Suphee Traiphoo, 42, from Udon Thani. Suphee married German Peter Volk, 59, 18 years ago.

"I'm not saying all Thai men are like this but many of them are. Let's just say that without an order from God, I would not marry a Thai man," she added.

"They [Western men] are romantic and good at taking care of their wives, especially financially. And they share the housework, unlike the majority of Thai men," said Suphee's neighbour Noolam Jaithiang, 45. Noolam is married to 60-year-old Austrian lawyer Kowarch Andreas.

Both Noolam and Suphee divorced their Thai husbands before remarrying with Westerners.

"I had four kids with a Thai husband before marrying my first Austrian husband with whom I have a 12-year-old daughter. We are no longer together but I am now living with another Austrian man. We are not yet married as my first Austrian husband wants to secure my financial situation if he dies. My current Austrian boyfriend has no problems with the situation," Noolam said.

"We share similarities in that we both have grown-up children and need someone to be with and help each other. He came at the right time to my life," said Noolam.

After divorcing her Thai husband, Suphee went to work as a cleaner in Bangkok in order to earn money to raise her nine-month-old child. It was in Bangkok that she met her German husband through a friend who also had a German husband.

"After a long period of contact, I told him I had 11 family members to take care of and took him to my home. He said okay and told me he was not a rich man, just an ordinary working man," Suphee said.

The pair married and she went to work as a cleaner in German for 15 years until she got her pension three years ago. She then went back to live in her hometown in Udon Thani's Ban Non Ngarm with her husband Peter, who is also retired.

"It was not love at first but his good side did make me see him differently later. He cares about my family and always asked whether I sent money to my family on salary day. He helps me with the housework and loves my Thai son," said Suphee.

Eighty per cent of the 15,284 mia farang interviewed in the survey were married to Thai men before marrying their foreign husbands, the board's regional office director, Decha Vanichvarod, said.

"We found that the mia farang group is not the beautiful group who are attracted to work in the sex industry. They are just typical Isaan [Northeast] women with very little education. But they are healthy, patient and good at looking after the household. These qualities seem to attract Western, mostly elderly, men" said Decha.

"She is sincere, straightforward and diligent. I love her even though she grumbles too much sometimes and orders me around to do this and that," said Suphee's husband Peter.

"I trust my sense when seeing her eyes. She is courageous and self-confident, unlike my former wife," said Andreas about his wife Noolam.

Grandma Lamai (not her real name) from Roi Et's Ban Jaan said she was impressed with the way her Swiss son-in-law of eight years treats her daughter and grandchildren.

It is far from normal Thai men's standards, she said.

"When my daughter married him, he learned the ways of Buddhism in order to understand us even though it was not his religion. I could feel his sense of care and respect," Lamai said while showing photographs of her two grandchildren. Lamai has visited her grandchildren in Switzerland twice.

Prasit Boonchoob, the headman of Ban Jaan, where 80 out of the 587 families in the community feature a Western husband, said even though he was conservative he agreed that Western men took good care of their wives.

"If I was still single now, I don't think I could get a wife from this village," he said.

"Even though it is not a new thing I am a bit surprised to know that most women we interviewed mentioned the same things about Thai men's behaviour today as they had in the past. They hate Thai men's bad habits, especially the drinking, gambling and womanising, which they describe as being irresponsible to the family," said Decha.

Kamol Sukin, Sumalee Phopayak

The Nation

UDON THANI, ROI ET

------------

The Mia Farang of Isaan

"They are mostly typical Isaan women, rather dark skin, quite strong and healthy and not the type to attract typical Thai men," said researcher Decha Vanichvarod when asked to characterise mia farang, the Thai wives of foreign men.

Decha is director of the National Economic and Social Development Board's Northeastern Region.

"They are not 'beautiful' according to Thai men, or among the good-looking women who normally head for jobs in the sex industry in Bangkok, Phuket or Pattaya," he states in a soon-to-be published report.

Decha's study surveyed 15,284 mia farang in 19 provinces of the Northeast, ranging in age from 20 to 52 years of age, and averaging 32. Khon Kaen, Udon Thani and Nong Khai were the top three home provinces in terms of numbers.

Most of the women - 69 per cent - had an education no higher than Grade 6, 24 per cent made it to Grade 9 and the remaining 7 per cent graduated from higher levels.

Eighty per cent of them had been married before. Many have children with Thai husbands, the study found.

More than 50 per cent were from farming households and found they could not survive economically after breaking up with their husbands.

Many seek jobs in the service sector, such as hotel maids, waitresses or masseurs, which they feel give them a better chance of meeting foreigners.

Many meet Western partners through neighbours or relatives who have married farang. The study says 63 per cent met their husbands independently in Bangkok, Pattaya or another big city, 35 per cent through a relative and 2 per cent on the Internet.

Before meeting their farang partners, 33 per cent of the women had worked in Bangkok for less than Bt5,000 a month; 17 per cent worked in Pattaya for a similar income; 13 per cent worked in other tourist cities for salaries around Bt7,000; 26 per cent were farmers with a Bt1,000-per-month income; and 11 per cent had already worked abroad, many in factories, for salaries in the Bt30,000 range.

Since marrying, 72 per cent have become housewives and receive money from their husbands upon request. The women send an average of Bt8,000 a month back to their families.

The top three home countries of the husbands are Germany, Switzerland and England (20, 14 and 12 per cent, respectively). Other husbands of the women surveyed were from Australia, the United States, New Zealand, Canada, Sweden, France, Holland, Denmark, Belgium, Scotland, Italy, Norway, Greece and Israel, and Asian nations including Japan, Malaysia and Singapore, with small numbers from Laos, Hong Kong, South Korea, Kuwait and China.

Businessmen comprised the largest group of foreign husbands (22 per cent), with smaller numbers working as state officials, technicians, engineers, retirees, teachers and doctors.

Peter Volk appears to be the poster boy for farang-Isaan marriages

It'll be interesting to see if the Christian school on Sathorn Rd where he was apparently working manages to come out of this unscathed.

Simply having a Thai limited company own land is not illegal, if it was, the Land dept would never register it in the first place. What is illegal is having nominees or having a inactive company holding land.

So where does that leave farangs who have used Sunbelt - in the very recent past - to set up a company specifically to buy land - something that was mentioned to the advisor during the fist meeting? Also mentioned was the fact that the farang, not being resident of Thailand, had no Thai friends/family etc and so needed help with finding nominees. Not a problem, said the friendly Sunbelt advisor - we can help.

Sunbelt is just one of may law firms who have been happy to do this and are now coming across s preaching to the masses and being moralistic when nothing could be further from the truth.

The opinion of a large Pattaya based developer. Foreign owned and selling land to farangs, the majority of whom buy using companies specifically set up for this purpose. (The method recommended on their website.):

Foreigners may NOT own land in Thailand ! Nothing new

Thais may NOT act as nominees for holding shares for foreigners in a company! Nothing new

Foreigners may "normally" NOT own more than 49% of a Thai juristic person (company) Nothing new

As the Senior Lawyer and partner in our law firm advised, in the past it was standard practice to register a land transaction into a company, with initially all shareholders and directors being Thai. Shares and Directors where changed after the registering of land transfer.

Over the years the land offices have become lenient, and it has become possible to register land in companies with sole foreign directors and up to 49% foreign ownership.

This is legally still possible, however the new directive from the interior ministry, suggests that some foreigners are doing this for a living and it would thus be prudent to, ". if it is apparent that a foreigner holds shares or is a director or it is reasonable to believe that a Thai holds shares as

a representative of a foreigner, the officials shall investigate the source of income of Thais holding shares; inquiring into the current profession and the number of years in the service and monthly salary.", thus the official needs to start to do all sorts of paperwork and expose themselves. Why would an official receiving 7000 Baht monthly salary do that ?

Therefore, currently Land Offices are not transferring land into companies with foreign shareholders or foreign directors. Why should an officer risk doing anything else.

For us, this represents a small procedural change in that land is transferred into companies that are not 51% Thai owned but 100% Thai owned. Subsequently ownership of shares and directors is changed. Still: Nothing new

Because 51% is a majority and 100% is a majority. Nothing new. Only a change in the procedure of registration.

Why is the Government doing this ?

There has been a complaint from Prachuab Kiri Kahn (Huahin) pertaining to foreigners buying up small plots of land and splitting them for commercial Real Estate Development purposes.

Such a complaint must be taken in by the government and if the plaintive is influential even acted upon.

To understand the motivation behind such a complaint however it is important to understand a bit of history and the current real estate market in Huahin.

The government has long promised the mega bridge and superhighway connecting Bangkok to Huahin. Thaiair started flights to Huahin and there was even a ferry service between Pattaya and Huahin. Land speculation in Huahin was at a peak. However, the Bridge and superhighway has never materialized, flights have since been stopped and the ferry service has faltered. Recently however the Huahin property market has been revived, sparked by a few high end condominium projects sold mainly to well to do Bangkokians and small Farang detached housing developments. The Thai end of the market, through copy copy mentality, was soon overdeveloped and has since run into oversupply, while the small detached Farang developments are still selling units. Oversupply is impossible in this market as a villa is sold and a new one is built.

Farang developers (without developers licences) still selling while banks are foreclosing licensed Thai developer's properties has almost understandably brought about the current complaint and subsequent ministerial action.

Comparably the government is regularly forced to crack down on social woes by closing bars at midnight which is also not ideal for tourism.

Will the government crack down on "indirect" foreign ownership of land ?

No. If the government wanted to crack down on foreign "indirect" ownership of land, they would have multiple very effective ways of doing that. The "foreign" Thai real estate market brings in billions of US dollars in foreign direct investment into the country. The government certainly dose

not want to miss that. Foreign residents attract relatives and friends as tourists. And log stay Farangs are a constant source of currency flow into the Kingdom.

In fact the Tourism Authority of Thailand has just initiated a program to lure long stay Farangs into Thailand and sell them real estate through its 100 million Baht 30% share in the Thai Longstay Company Ltd. XXXXXXXX and 50 other major developers catering to Foreign buyers where invited to sign MOU's with the company and the TAT at a ceremony nationally televised on May 12th 2006 under the patronage of H.E. the governor of the TAT.

The government understands exactly what is going on in the Thai real estate market. It knows exactly who the players are, that are doing the Farang business. If it wanted to shut them down it could do so in 1 hour or less.

But bureaucracy is bureaucracy and thus there shall be times when bars close at midnight, the odd tourist is arrested for topless sunbathing and occasional undeliberate bureaucrat action that invokes a media wave decrying the end of the real estate market in Thailand. - nothing new.

For us it is not a legal problem but a marketing setback which will take marketing effort and some time to heal. According to insider information we will soon be back to the old procedure.

Regards

I'm pretty sure I've seen the same place as fisherd3 mentions. There's also another place on Highway 3, not far from the turning to Ban Phe - around 20km (I think) out of Rayong. (Heading from Rayong to Ban Phe it's on the left of the road.)

They have quite a few sizes and styles of house for around 1 million baht including delivery & construction. Nothing as large as the house in your photo though but I'd guess they could build pretty much anything you wanted.

This is what one of Bangkok's best known law firms has been telling clients who have purchased land through a company specifically set up to allow a foreigner to do so:

Comments from Dragonman / Nadia2 are welcome. . .

The Thai government did recently change the laws on acquiring land with a

foreign company. Fortunately you were able to purchase and register the land

before this came about. The main problem people have now is forming a

company and trying to register the land. The land department wont do it.

There has been no indication that existing companies holding land will have

problems. Actually, as it stands now, your property purchase has appreciated

substantially as you can sell your land to another farang by simply

selling the shares in the company.

Your company has not actually done anything “illegal” by purchasing the

land. We simply slipped through an open loophole. You can still register

land with a company of your type, the only difference is now you must show

proof that the Thai shareholders have the ability to pay for their shares.

Its easy for them to implement “from now on”, but it would be impossible for

them to go back and investigate the shareholders in every land purchase.

What’s the worst case scenario? They could investigate your company and find

you in violation of land registration laws. In this case you would have 1

year to sell the property.