Crackdown on foreigners using Thai nominees: DSI raid offices of law firm in Bangkok, Phuket and Samui

[scottiejohn]

1 hour ago, jvs said:

There is absolutely no way the would take your property away from you.They would give you a certain time in which you would have to sell 

You cannot legally sell something you do not legally own.

[baansgr]

1 hour ago, Happy enough said:

i'm not panicking. our properties are legal. and not panic mongering but genuinely if i had purchased in that way i would still be concerned to here this news as it's a lot of money

How as a foreigner did you legally purchase properties other than a condo. Is there a way to do that now?

[CGW]

Just now, scottiejohn said:

You cannot legally sell something you do not legally own.

Gloom & doom time again, been a few months since this one was running, I'm sure the Yellow shirt property developers will be right behind the "government" with this one ? it would really encourage the Chinese buyers!

[holy cow cm]

7 minutes ago, badjoke said:

Good on them for upholding existing laws and closing loop holes. The Junta has made sweeping crackdowns across Thailand , demolishing business built on public land as well. If they can do this to their own people you better believe they can come after farang as well

Those who crave a lawless Thailand better start looking at new alternatives. Why anyone would gamble with their own home based on a loophole is beyond me

Sweeping crackdowns? More like eradication and a sterilization if they could get away with it. The only ones who don't get hit are pro them, the boot lickers or them themselves that have granted themselves personal immunity with the bylaw of can be under amnesty. Try looking at the Chiang Mai Doi Suthep land building debacle. Disgusting. Why hasn't that been cleared up as hastily as the Junta hit others? Because it is for loyal government people? You tell me, I don't know the answer.

 

I'm not saying your wrong, but things are seemingly done here for ulterior reasons, not for the true reason of un-spoilt justice. For me, I'm fine as am in/on the up and up; but could they take this farther and call wives proxies and take their properties? How far this can be twisted is you never know. 

[mike1967]

There is one easy solution. Don't be crazy enough to build a house in Thailand, problem sorted!!!???

[holy cow cm]

43 minutes ago, BuckleUp said:

All our investments here are safely in my wife's name, who is 100% Thai. Well as safe as can be, with the politics and all...

 

she is your proxy

[dotpoom]

2 hours ago, Get Real said:

Another bunch of morons and gullible people that gets what they deserve. You can´t trust people telling you stories about how things work. You just have to learn to take command and search out the truth yourself before you get knee deep into the shit.

Who...the owners of the investment company?

[holy cow cm]

40 minutes ago, KittenKong said:

I can introduce you to a thousand farangs who have lost everything to their Thai wives. You may be luckier, but it will only be a matter of luck.

You know more farang here than I do. 

[KittenKong]

31 minutes ago, robblok said:

That depends a bit I have gone though a divorce.. with a Thai lady in Thailand.. I came out with the car and the house. You just have to make good choices. 

No, you were luckier.

[dotpoom]

2 hours ago, Happy enough said:

so this thai law firm was advising foreigners to break the law so they got raided, rightly so

now when the DSI  go through their records and investigate all the purchases, well i bet there's some farangs who used this firm who will be shitting themselves right now.

in fact anyone who has used these methods to swerve the laws should be very concerned about their 'investments' right now.

 

Sounds like that makes you very happy?

[KittenKong]

11 minutes ago, CGW said:

You should change your circle of acquaintances, I have been here 30 years & don't know one person who has lost everything (apart from those that passed:( ) 

I also know people here who have not lost everything. They are in addition to the many who have lost a lot.

 

I also know some people who have not lost money here at all. Me for a start.

[robblok]

6 minutes ago, KittenKong said:

No, you were luckier.

That is what people who lost it all say.. because otherwise they had to admit their choices were bad.. that would indicate some responsibility... and like Thais other people also don't like that. 

[billd766]

2 hours ago, stanleycoin said:

Oh no,  here it comes.

Quick sell the house now. 

 

 

I would love to, but I can't.

 

It belongs to my wife, as does the land.

 

She would probably get rid of me if I tried.

[anon789561]

6 minutes ago, dotpoom said:

Sounds like that makes you very happy?

not at all. was just messing around as i knew where this thread was heading, it's been a few months since the last one i think 555

[kjun12]

2 hours ago, jvs said:

You are over reacting!!This comes around every once in awhile.If they would really go after every company set up buying houses for foreigners it would be really really big!!!

You may be correct but I do not remember this being done before.  I would be concerned if I owned property in this fashion.

[yellowboat]

They always target the foreigners without ever mentioning the Thais who actually set up these things.  The xenophobia gets mind numbing .   How big a problem is this ?    It seems like another none problem being exploited for nothing more than a little lime light.   Thailand is getting very boring. 

[kannot]

48 minutes ago, robblok said:

That depends a bit I have gone though a divorce.. with a Thai lady in Thailand.. I came out with the car and the house. You just have to make good choices. 

C'mon Rob tell the whole  story, she kept the 2  Mercedes S Class and the one  Ferrari

[GAZZPA]

2 hours ago, jvs said:

You are over reacting!!This comes around every once in awhile.If they would really go after every company set up buying houses for foreigners it would be really really big!!!

There is absolutely no way the would take your property away from you.They would give you a certain time in which you would have to sell or put in some other name.I do not believe in these panic reactions.

It's not over reacting to take this seriously. I only ever bought condos for this very reason, using a company to buy property that you live in is illegal. i know of quite a few people who have inactive companies that they bought the houses on and simply pay some accounting each year. It is not legal for a foreigner to own land, simple as that. So, if you are one of those people then now is the time to act and protect your investment money. I think it is very dangerous to assume that you will be given time to put it right, if they catch you then they can deal with you. As you are not entitled to own Thai land they can legally take your property and there will nothing you can do. So, what you call panic I call sensible reaction.

 

My fear is what this will do to the expat community and retirees in Thailand. It will have a huge impact on the property market if all the houses owned under a foreign company with thai nominees were to have to sell up and get their cash out asap, I can see nothing but terrible news for the economy in general., but that won't stop the Thai authorities from doing it anyway.

 

 

[anon789561]

4 minutes ago, yellowboat said:

They always target the foreigners without ever mentioning the Thais who actually set up these things.  The xenophobia gets mind numbing .   How big a problem is this ?    It seems like another none problem being exploited for nothing more than a little lime light.   Thailand is getting very boring. 

to be fair they are going for the thai firm for what basically amounts to fraud and other charges no doubt. no real mention of action on any foreigners. the DSI are just doing their job

[Tchooptip]

Three years ago a couple of Frenchmen real estate agents in Samui laugh at me in public at a reunion at the French consulate, telling me how on earth dare you to tell everyone it is dangerous to buy land in Thailand and own a house, when nothing is more easy with a Thai company, we sold dozens of houses like that for years so we know better than you.!

But it is illegal I answered, those are not real companies, one day or another in the future the owners could face a real problem if there would be any serious checking by the land department, so an old couple of French retired who did buy a house and a land to those people came to their rescue telling me I that  know nothing because probably I was jealous not to be able financially  to buy a house myself and how they were very happy in their new house. And for everyone, present, tourists or expats  I look like the fool that knows nothing while the real estate agents were giggling. 

[xylophone]

1 hour ago, Horace said:

The problem is that the law is hopelessly muddled in this area.  I would be careful about blaming the law firm until we have more facts  Signing a document saying your are holding shares on behalf of a foreigner to make a company appear Thai is no brainer.  That is obviously an illegal nominee relationship.  

And I believe that is how many farangs "bought" their houses and in which case they should be worried.

 

AFAIK the law states that any Thai director/holder of shares in a company which owns a house in "conjunction" with a foreigner has to be able to show the amount of funds they personally invested, from whence the funds came, the turnover and tax situation of said company, along with number/names/salaries of employees to comply with Thai law.

 

Most, set up in the early days would not be able to show the proof required to comply with the above, the laws around which were tightened just a few years ago.

 

I have a friend who lost his villa recently due to a corrupt lawyer, so he took it to court and the problem he encountered was that he bought it through the nominee route, so was adjudged to have acquired it illegally, so had no right of ownership. Case and villa lost.

 

For what it is worth, until recently some property developers and lawyers were advocating this Thai nominee route on their websites although I did notice reference to this in a few, disappeared after rumour of another crackdown a couple of years back.

[yellowboat]

7 minutes ago, Happy enough said:

 the DSI are just doing their job

Can't say if this is a real problem or not.  I get the feeling there are more serious investigations than this that needs their attention.  

[Get Real]

35 minutes ago, dotpoom said:

Who...the owners of the investment company?

They are busted so they will probably get what they desreve. No, not really what i meant. I was pointing my finger on the gullible morons that just go with what they here and today belive they are running a legal business or owns a house with the land it stands on. Thoose kind of specific specimens that just blindly trust the first one saying something positive to them. You know, the once that represent the blind half who are involved in purchases amounting to 2 billion baht. 

[Horace]

I don't know how this law firm structured the companies, but using shares with different voting and economic rights is not a loophole.  Consider:

 

1.    The definition of an "alien" says nothing about voting rights or economic control.  It simply says that Thais need to hold 50+% of the shares.  If they wanted Thai shareholders to have voting rights and economic control, why didn't they draft the property law and FBA to say that Thais must have control over the company when they enacted the FBA?  They didn't.

 

2.  They expressly discussed requiring Thais to have superior economic and voting rights when the FBA was enacted 1998,  but decided not to do so because they feared it would scare off foreign investors.  To now suddenly change the law to provide that foreigners cannot have the economic and voting control, which the law has allowed for decades, is an expropriation of property.  Its not closing a loophole.  Its taking investments away from foreigners that were legal when they made them.  

 

3.  When a company is registered, its articles of association set out the economic and voting rights of the different classes of shares.  The Department of Business Development reviews the articles of association when a company it is formed and the nationality of its shareholders.  If they now change law so that companies that were approved and registered by the Department of Business Development are now illegal, the government is taking away investments from foreigners that it had approved.  How can any foreign investor ever trust the Thai government again?  And what about Thailand's obligations under bi-lateral investment treaties and the WTO?  Are they going to thumb their nose at them?

 

4.  Several Directors General of the Department of Business Development have spoke before foreign chambers of commerce saying that companies with different different classes of shares with different voting and economic rights are allowed under Thai law.  Such companies are not "Alien" (foreign) companies if foreigners have superior voting rights and economic rights.  Were they lying to entice foreign investors to invest in Thailand?

 

Putting aside these matters of principle, there is a major practical problem.  The biggest investors in Thailand are the Japanese.  The Japanese are responsible for over 50% of the investment in Thailand.  When there was talk about changing the rules that allow for different classes of shares with different voting rights and economic control, the Japanese forcefully spoke out against this proposal at a meeting of the foreign chambers of commerce following the Coup in 2014.  The Japanese Chamber was backed up by the Japanese Embassy, which said that if these changes were enacted, it would warn Japanese companies to not invest in Thailand and that many Japaneses companies already in Thailand would withdraw from Thailand.  Hundreds of thousands of Thais would lose good paying jobs.  The Thai government backed down and said it had no plans to change the rules.

 

Maybe this law firm was sloppy.  But if there is a plan to change the laws here to criminalize legal structures that are currently legal, it will be an economic catastrophe for Thailand.  Every senior Thai financial officials has acknowledged this, including Korn and Somkid.

 

We need to understand exactly what is happening here.  Did this law firm use a structure that is obviously illegal (such as having Thais sign documents acknowledging they are not real investors but are instead nominees) or is there a real change in government policy.  If its the latter, its not only contrary to international legal norms and standards of fairness, but it will also make Thailand's financial collapse in 1997 look like a small blimp compared to what will occur if these sorts of changes are made.

[IamNoone88]

Whats the word? Shakedown .... ?

[wombat]

pmsl...''There is absolutely no way the would take your property away from you''
how long have you been here?

[jvs]

11 minutes ago, Tchooptip said:

Three years ago a couple of Frenchmen real estate agents in Samui laugh at me in public at a reunion at the French consulate, telling me how on earth dare you to tell everyone it is dangerous to buy land in Thailand and own a house, when nothing is more easy with a Thai company, we sold dozens of houses like that for years so we know better than you.!

But it is illegal I answered, those are not real companies, one day or another in the future the owners could face a real problem if there would be any serious checking by the land department, so an old couple of French retired who did buy a house and a land to those people came to their rescue telling me I that  know nothing because probably I was jealous not to be able financially  to buy a house myself and how they were very happy in their new house. And for everyone, present, tourists or expats  I look like the fool that knows nothing while the real estate agents were giggling. 

So you are right and all the Frenchmen lost their properties?

[Horace]

11 minutes ago, xylophone said:

AFAIK the law states that any Thai director/holder of shares in a company which owns a house in "conjunction" with a foreigner has to be able to show the amount of funds they personally invested,

This is not a law.  The Department of Business Development stated that, going forward,  if a company is investing in area restricted to Thais, the Thai shareholder must show that he or she has sufficient funds to pay for the shares he or she is buying. 

 

Directors don't have to own shares.  They don't have to invest in anything.  So what amount funds does this non-existent law require them to show?  They are not investing anything.

[overherebc]

1 hour ago, robblok said:

That depends a bit I have gone though a divorce.. with a Thai lady in Thailand.. I came out with the car and the house. You just have to make good choices. 

Speak softly and carry a big stick.

[anon789561]

10 minutes ago, yellowboat said:

Can't say if this is a real problem or not.  I get the feeling there are more serious investigations than this that needs their attention.  

i'd agree with that but a law firm involved in fraud is serious in any country and i know back in the UK they will happily bang up an old dear for not paying her poll tax when there are much more serious issues at hand. same kind of thing. or is it? i don;t know. hopefully you get my point