gc2023

My wife is keen on it. She is Burmese...there are millions of Burmese in Thailand so it is almost like home for her (when we are in Thailand we are finding them all the time). Partially it is a reaction to the rapid rise in housing prices in Western countries. Houses we looked at with more space and more land have doubled in price since 2019 (we were in contract for a house then in the US but it fell through). I believe she fears something similar will happen in Thailand (FOMO). She also wants control to be able to customize the place how she likes and grow her own plants in the garden. She also likes to keep pets which I assume will significantly reduce the potential rental pool. I don't feel we should be in any rush to "buy/lease" but if something does come up I am trying to be prepared as much as possible for it.

Thanks very much for this response. You are right. I am trying to follow the principal "Invest only what we can afford to lose". What we would try to get would be very modest. Trying to find a modest place close enough to shops where a car would be useful but we could live without it (i.e. we could walk to local Thai restaurants & street food/local markets)...as well as being able to have some sort of garden (which means a house rather than condo).

Thanks very much for your response. Another thing I was told by at least one lawyer was that when you go to the land office to transfer title a foreigner could not be a shareholder in the company. The company would be started with only the Thai shareholders and my name would be added later...which would be another point where if they decided to screw me I would have zero recourse.

Yes, neither my wife or I are Thai.

My wife (non-Thai) just retired and she wants to "buy" a property in Thailand to retire to (most likely Chiang Mai area). She doesn't want a condo, she wants a house with land. So I am trying to figure out how to do this while trying to protect myself as much as possible. I am wondering - anyone talked to "Lawyers For Expats" (https://www.lawyersforexpatsthailand.com/)? What is your opinion of them? I ask because I have talked to several real estate lawyers now. Pretty much everyone pushes creating the company route. I am not comfortable with that, especially since from my understanding the use of nominees is kind of sketchy legally and given our limited ties to Thailand currently we would likely be relying on nominees provided by the lawyer (one said they would provide a list of random names and we would choose 3 from that). So I found a lawyer that would do it what I understand is the "legal way" - one American Thai youtube lawyer that creates video after video warning of the dangers of creating companies with nominees. Pretty much the introductory call was mostly about showing us why leasing is the right way to go. But I am not sure I liked the attitude and if felt a bit weird about his ideas about holding the title (he personally could hold the title and we would have to pay land taxes upfront to him for 30 years). Obviously I needed another opinion I found another one called "lawyers for expats". He talked a good game and it felt like he was sharing more information about the process than any other lawyer that came before. He seemed to suggest you could design the sales contract and a "memorandum of understanding" in such a way for the lease that could give you more freedom with transferring the property etc. This all sounded good and was giving me more confidence in the process. Because I hadn't really explored these same questions with the American Thai youtube lawyer, I went back and got specific about asking what additional clauses we could put in the lease. He pretty much said that I am seeing this all wrong - what the other lawyer told me was all nonsense and any of these provisions aren't worth the paper they are printed on (like the 30+30+30 lease). But it also felt like if I went with him he would do the absolute minimum. As part of my search for someone to trust, I did try <deleted> They may be a good legal firm but the people they provided to talk to us had limited English skills, didn't seem very knowledgeable and still talked about creating a company which seemed no better than others we had talked to (and they don't have any associated accounting firm to help with the yearly paperwork). I am getting lost in all the contradictory information here. I like the guy from "lawyers for expats" the best...but I don't know if his story was just too good. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Any other recommendations for lawyers to talk to? Or am I just overthinking this, especially if I am not looking to create a company?