Borrowing some money

[AlfHuy]

Good afternoon,

 

I know what most of you will now say.

Don't do it. 

Stupid thing to do.

etc

 

I have a friend. She has land in her village. Rubbertrees, land to build her house, land used as rice plantation.

Now, her sister needs some money. My friend would like to pay sister's 3 rai of land, actually with rubber trees for 100.000.

 

She has not the money for the moment. I know, we can't own any land.

I would borrow her the money.

How could I protect myself?

 

Sorry if this thread or a similar one came already up somewhere.

 

Regards,

[worgeordie]

10 minutes ago, AlfHuy said:

How could I protect myself?

Don't do it, it's that simple, you could lose a friend and a very good chance

your 100,000 too. 

regards Worgeordie

[baansgr]

If you want to make a gift of 100,000 do it, as a loan, you won't see one centavo back and will loose a friend. Its that simple

[Odysseus123]

21 minutes ago, baansgr said:

If you want to make a gift of 100,000 do it, as a loan, you won't see one centavo back and will loose a friend. Its that simple

Yes-a gift is the best way to do it.

 

It is (generally speaking) a cause of much angst and grief if you do it any other way.

 

In my wife's case (restaurant) it was;

1.Loan-never repaid.

2.Gift

3.Polite but adamant refusal to part with a single baht.

 

[blackcab]

23 hours ago, AlfHuy said:

How could I protect myself?

 

You're not asking the right question. What you need to ask is how will I get my money back.

 

A loan agreement will protect you to some extent, but if the money is not repaid then it will cost you more money in legal costs, and several years to get repaid. Possibly.

 

This is all assuming the land has a title deed that can be sold. It might be "family" land that cannot be given to non-family members.

 

You also need to consider if the borrower has any credible way of making repayments. No matter how sincere they are, if they don't have regular work and a disposable income then they will never be able to repay you.

 

Realistically, you probably can't protect yourself.

 

I'll move this to the Real Estate forum.

[Lacessit]

What is the OP getting in return? A warm glow, a friend with benefits, or someone who promises to look after him in old age? May be worth it, maybe not.

When my GF asks to borrow 1000 baht, we look at each other, and laugh. We both know it's a gift.

Thais tend to treat any loan that is not from a financial institution as a gift. Perhaps the OP should be asking his friend why she can't get a bank loan.

[AlfHuy]

thanks a lot guys.

No, I don't expect anything in exchange. She is a good, hard-working girl, supporting her family. Sister made some debts and now my friend wants to pay it off and get sisters land in exchange.

I thought of helping her until she saved up to repay me.

I am not thinking of gifting anything.

Yes, it is family land.

A shame that foreigners can't buy any land in Thailand (maybe through a company).

 

Hope she gets the funds together.

[rvaviator]

14 minutes ago, AlfHuy said:

thanks a lot guys.

No, I don't expect anything in exchange. She is a good, hard-working girl, supporting her family. Sister made some debts and now my friend wants to pay it off and get sisters land in exchange.

I thought of helping her until she saved up to repay me.

I am not thinking of gifting anything.

Yes, it is family land.

A shame that foreigners can't buy any land in Thailand (maybe through a company).

 

Hope she gets the funds together.

I have no idea of your personal financial situation - But you would it be an option to say you give her 1/2 if she is able to save up the other 1/2 ?

 

If you want to help her ... Help her in any way you can ... ?

[poohy]

If the land has chanote could you not lease for say 15 years for 100k Lease must be registered at and office

Although Don't know how much you would make of the rubber...coconut land is much more profitable

 

If land has no title or is rented government land obviously a no go 

[Ireland32]

Ripped off by Farangs and Thais , Never one baht , returned and Dutch guy reported me to police , Italian First name , tried to get me blacklist So I not sue him, Don’t trust Anyone

[cracker1]

You can not protect yourself with this type of loan in this country.

Most Banks will take the Chanote (Property Title Document) for this land and lend possibly 70% of it's value to the owner.

Keep out of it yourself.

[crazykopite]

Dont do it this coming from a person who got stitched up. You will never see it back trust me it happened to me “ my child is dying she needs a major operation and I have no money “ please help me I will pay it all back .

[maprao]

Dont

Run

You can buy loan contract papers in book stores in Thai. As a farang hard to enforce after non payment.

[Pedrogaz]

If I had a dollar for every village sister's sob story I would be a millionaire. You won't see the girl or the money again unless you are very lucky indeed. Ask yourself have you ever won the lottery.....if yes, loan her the money....if not, chances are you are like every other sucker.

[SteveK]

Tell her to go to a bank.

[rwill]

Perhaps if she has a paid off vehicle worth something have her change ownership to you with the agreement you will change it back to her after loan is repaid.

[AlfHuy]

Good afternoon.

News about the story.

My friend, believe or not, she is a good girl.

She comes from Isaan, owns land and invests there. 

Her sister, who lives close to mum went to a bank (apparently a farmers bank) and with house ownership papers (house belongs to mother), she got 80000baht bank loan.

I asked how she got money if papers are in her mom's name. She told, that the husband of  sister's best friend is the bank manager.

My friend went up to visit mum and knows about the debt. She went to the bank and now loan is at 106000.

She wants to pay off this debt, get papers back and is not risking that mom loses her house.

 

How on earth a bank can take a house as collateral to give money to someone who even isn't the owner?

 

I would be straight talking to manager, papers back and writing of the loan, otherwise, social media and head-office of bank involved.

I thought she was telling me a nice story but she comes across to be very honest and concerned.

If she pays off the debt, mom would give her land, which would go to her sister.

Some land will soon be divided but mom wants to give the land which would be given to her sister, directly to my friend.

 

What to do?

[jimn]

In this country cant protect yourself, its as simple as that. You could end up getting your money back but it is a 50/50 call. Listen to the people telling you not to do it, ignore and you will just have to accept the outcome. 

[khunPer]

23 hours ago, AlfHuy said:

I have a friend. She has land in her village. Rubbertrees, land to build her house, land used as rice plantation.

Now, her sister needs some money. My friend would like to pay sister's 3 rai of land, actually with rubber trees for 100.000.

 

She has not the money for the moment. I know, we can't own any land.

I would borrow her the money.

How could I protect myself?

Your Thai friend can own land, however in a village it might be low title deeds with restrictions – the are numerous class of titles, some are limited as more like land on loan for farming, often only with tax receipt as only deed, other types can be transferred within family, whilst the highest classes like "Nor Sor 3" and "Chanute" can be owned and sold – any legal occupied land with a title deed can normally be transferred within family.

 

Your friend's sister could give the deed for the 3 rai as security to your friend. The way to do it, is to make the agreements in front of head-of-village (poo yai ban) where a loan document is signed, and a power of attorney for land transfer is signed; head-of-village should sign both as witness. Both documents are standard forms, which can bought locally in a paper shop or book store. Signed photo-copies of ID-cards are needed. The locals might know the procedure well, as it's often used.

 

If you are the one supplying the 100,000 baht, you cannot have any land as guaranty – unless chanute, or eventually nor sor 3, title deed – but you can have a signed loan document in your name, instead of your firend's name. That is only worth that much, that in case of missing payment you can have a Thai lawyer to write a letter to debitor, and later open a civil court case based on the loan document. This will cost you some money in salary for the lawyer and court fee. You might win in the court, and will then be paid the court fee back, whilst lawyer costs might not be added to the debt, neither much interest, if any. This don't give you money, if debitor cannot pay, so next step will be to follow-up with legal actions to claim any property for re-sale, which will cost additional fees to a lawyer.

 

However, your friend might be able to take possesion of the land used as guaranty in case of faulty payments; so it's merely a question of your friendship with your friend is stronger, than her relation to her sister...

 

This brings me to recall the often mentioned advise: Don't "invest" more in Thailand, than you can afford to loose.

 

Looking at the bright side of life, I have borrowed money to my Thai girlfriend's family, and always got them back; no security, no documents, no interest, just plain gentleman agreements...????

 

However, my Thai girlfriend has a few times borrowed some smaller amounts of her own money to family and lost them; seems like they think it's "farang-money", so she can just ask for some more...

[khunPer]

5 minutes ago, AlfHuy said:

Good afternoon.

News about the story.

My friend, believe or not, she is a good girl.

She comes from Isaan, owns land and invests there. 

Her sister, who lives close to mum went to a bank (apparently a farmers bank) and with house ownership papers (house belongs to mother), she got 80000baht bank loan.

I asked how she got money if papers are in her mom's name. She told, that the husband of  sister's best friend is the bank manager.

My friend went up to visit mum and knows about the debt. She went to the bank and now loan is at 106000.

She wants to pay off this debt, get papers back and is not risking that mom loses her house.

 

How on earth a bank can take a house as collateral to give money to someone who even isn't the owner?

 

I would be straight talking to manager, papers back and writing of the loan, otherwise, social media and head-office of bank involved.

I thought she was telling me a nice story but she comes across to be very honest and concerned.

If she pays off the debt, mom would give her land, which would go to her sister.

Some land will soon be divided but mom wants to give the land which would be given to her sister, directly to my friend.

 

What to do?

Sounds like there might be even more to that story, than told here...????

[SoonOh]

Up to you and it is your money. Are you the first and only farnag she told the story 

[AlfHuy]

2 minutes ago, SoonOh said:

Up to you and it is your money. Are you the first and only farnag she told the story 

I Know her for a while and never saw her with a farang. Who knows. I feel for the woman. 

Maybe she tells the story to many men but I quite believe her. I have now to make my own judgement.

Thanks for all the input.

A shame that we can't buy legally anything here apart from a condo or through a company.

 

[SteveK]

If you can afford to write the money off completely, then lend it. Anything you get back will be a bonus, but I wouldn't count on it.

[KhaoYai]

I'm not sure about other types of title but with a channote, you can take a legal charge/mortgage out on the land to secure your loan.  You would need to check with the land office if they accept foreign names on such charges - some don't. If you are able to do this, it must be registered on the title or you have no protection at all.

 

For it to work properly, the agreement must state that you can force a sale of the land in the event of none payment. If the land office won't accept such a clause then an alternative would be a standard forfeiture clause where you take the land and sell it in the event of default. However, to do that you would need to join a trusted Thai in as Mortgagee because as a foreigner you can't take possesion of the land.

[LEZZA]

You have to weigh up what you VALUE most the friendship or the money if it's  the friendship don't  do it 

Old saying never lend money to friends it never ends well

[scorecard]

On 2/5/2020 at 8:39 PM, baansgr said:

If you want to make a gift of 100,000 do it, as a loan, you won't see one centavo back and will loose a friend. Its that simple

Or put that another way 'can I borrow some money' always really means 'please give me a non repayable gift of money'.  

[kingstonkid]

GF got <deleted> at me a couple of months back.  Wanted to borrow money.  I trust her but again you never now what is going to happen been burnt before.  Told her NO i would not lend her the money.  Then after she got all upset I sat her down and told her i would give her the money as a gift.  The benefits of gift giving are far superior to loans.  In the end she came back and put the money away telling me she did not need it after all.

 

 

[orchis]

On 2/5/2020 at 4:20 PM, AlfHuy said:

Don't do it. 

Stupid thing to do.

 

[realviking48]

Remember,  if somebody owes you money,, you are more worth dead than alive

[Elkski]

Story sounds so similar to the man who has big money but it's on hold  and he needs a loan so he can get big money freed up and pay you back. 

If its 2% of your net worth maybe buy this lottery ticket.   But I think you need to learn about  sister.   Sister is not going to be happy to lose her future inheritance.   We have enough hatred when in Thailand.  Dont create a vengeful woman who will blame you for all her poor choices.   Dont be wirth more dead than alive.  Is sister  cute?

Also much land has little  real value in Thailand because  who will want to live in her family circle with  resentment or worse?  It may not even be ok to farm.  The family may boycott  working this land.   It is nice your lady friend thinks smart about financial  matters.  Tell her you like her but dont get involved.