buying a house in Thai name but from a farang that used company to own land and house

[Justanotherone]

Any information available about buying a house in Thai name 

 

but from a farang that used a company structure to own land and house.

 

Any special taxes or are those for the seller anyway ?

 

 

 

[Peterw42]

Depends, are you buying the house from the company or changing who owns the company.

Changing the company directors doesn't involve the land office so no transfer fees and taxes.

 

A straight house purchase from a company has the usual 2-3% transfer and taxes, usually shared between buyer and seller, and a 3% business tax paid by the seller

 

[Swiss1960]

5 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

Depends, are you buying the house from the company or changing who owns the company.

Changing the company directors doesn't involve the land office so no transfer fees and taxes.

 

A straight house purchase from a company has the usual 2-3% transfer and taxes, usually shared between buyer and seller, and a 3% business tax paid by the seller

 

Correct. In the second case however, the seller will then sit on an empty shelf company, for which he still has to pay annual taxes, or dissolve it (not cheap) or sell it to somebody else. The seller might not want to sit on these costs while having to share the land office taxes with the buyer (well... I would not want to do that), so this scenario might bring some discussion with it.

[scubascuba3]

7 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

Depends, are you buying the house from the company or changing who owns the company.

Changing the company directors doesn't involve the land office so no transfer fees and taxes.

 

A straight house purchase from a company has the usual 2-3% transfer and taxes, usually shared between buyer and seller, and a 3% business tax paid by the seller

 

Is there no other taxes to be paid by the company? CGT?

[crazykopite]

I have purchased and sold properties by the company route never ever had a problem split the costs between buyer and seller as it only a matter of changing directors 

[Antonymous]

The company structure for the sole purpose to purchase a property is illegal. The fact that it has been widely used by foreigners to circumvent the law is certainly no guarantee that it won't come back to bite at some time in the future.

 

As a Thai, there is no reason to purchase a property with a company structure, unless perhaps they actually wanted to have a limited company to operate a legitimate business from that property. In which case they would need to change the Articles, change the shareholders. With a company they would then have to pay for an annual audit and follow other company laws.

 

So if your Thai buyer does not want a company, he/she absolutely must insist on buying the property from the company without any encumbrances associated. In that case it is usually a 50/50 split of transfer tax and stamp duty at the Land Office. The seller always pays the business and other tax. There may have been a capital gain (profit) on the sole asset of his company that will be subject to tax.

 

What the seller then does with his shell company is up to him. It has nothing to do with the Thai buyer of the property. Perhaps he'll try to buy another property with it for example.

[khunPer]

Just buy the house with land; agree on paying transfer fee and eventual stamps, or share stamps 50/50, when transferring the title deed to the Thai name takes place. Let seller boxing with taxes and how to close a company, it's nothing you, or the new Thai owner, needs to worry about...????

PS: Don't buy a company, it can be costly to move the property out, and it's costly to continue to run a shell company without any other purpose than being property owner.