My Thai wife and I purchased a home in Pattaya almost two years ago. We had purchased two pieces of property adjacent to each other for which to build our house. The two properties are located in a compound and had been deeded separately. As part of our contract agreement, the seller/developer had agreed to bear the expense of merging the two deeds into a single deed, but was first told by the land office to first register both deeds separately then they would address the merger of the two deeds into a single one. To date, the two deeds have yet to be merged into one.

Upon contact today with our seller/developer today, we were told that they would indeed take care of merging the two deeds into one, but at the moment they are experiencing difficulty with the registering of any properties that were purchased by Thai women who have previously changed their family name (last name) to that of their Farang husbands. Are they blowing smoke up my ass or is the new Thai government reopening this issue. It was my understanding that the previous law that prevented the ownership of land in Thailand by Thai women who had taken the last name of their Farang husbands had been rescinded or ruled unconstitutional some years ago.

Can anyone shed any light on this subject?

Pattaya Dave

It should in no way be a problem.

Yo do however need to sign a paper stating that the funds used to acquire the land are your wife's, and that you in no way can lay any claim on the land.

This system was introduced a couple of years ago to allow women married to foreigners to acquire land.