Ownership of property

[steevjee]

I understand that a foreigner can legally own a condo in his/her name but what about Villas and/or ground floor Condos?

[Whale]

To cut a long story short ....

 

Land (you can own the villa per se but not the land) - buy outright in your name NO. Rent on multi-year rental/lease contract YES. There are legal contracts offered to lease the land in your name over for periods of 30 years (fully legal) with agreed extensions of 30 years. It'd done by many and some lawyers back it (the extensions over 30 years that is) BUT some say if it has a risk factor because it may be construed as circumventing another law in certain circumstances. 

So yes you can "buy" a villa with land under certain circumstances. 

 

Ground floor condo. The Condo Juristic Enterprise owns the land not you.

[smutcakes]

Ground floor condos you can own same as any other unit in a registered condominium.

[lopburi3]

2 hours ago, Whale said:

BUT some say if it has a risk factor because it may be construed as circumventing another law in certain circumstances. 

Not all condos can be owned by foreigners and always less than 50% of a property.  Long term lease is subject to being declared illegal if authorities determine it was done to circumvent foreign land ownership laws - has not been a big issue in the past but as more of country is bought up by neighbors expect issues likely will appear and a lot of people may be out in the cold legally.

[Peterw42]

The definition of a condo block allows for the land under the condo block to be owned collectively by all the owners of the block. A ground floor condo does not individually own the land it sits on. If a block has 500 condos, then 500 people jointly own the land. 500 people jointly own the common property, swimming pool, carpark etc. There is a provision in the condo act, if a block is demolished etc, then each owner gets back a share of the land sale equal to there condo share.

A villa, townhouse, shop house is no different to a house, they sit on individually (Thai) owned land.

[smutcakes]

18 hours ago, lopburi3 said:

Not all condos can be owned by foreigners and always less than 50% of a property.  Long term lease is subject to being declared illegal if authorities determine it was done to circumvent foreign land ownership laws - has not been a big issue in the past but as more of country is bought up by neighbors expect issues likely will appear and a lot of people may be out in the cold legally.

What condos cannot be owned by foreigners if the foreign ownership is below 50% and that wont be breached?  How can a long term lease circumvent foreign ownership laws? A lease is a lease by its definition, there is no ownership. Any landowner is free to lease out their land as they see fit.

[Sparktrader]

3 minutes ago, smutcakes said:

What condos cannot be owned by foreigners if the foreign ownership is below 50% and that wont be breached?  How can a long term lease circumvent foreign ownership laws? A lease is a lease by its definition, there is no ownership. Any landowner is free to lease out their land as they see fit.

No farangs can only own up to 49% of the units.

[smutcakes]

3 minutes ago, Sparktrader said:

No farangs can only own up to 49% of the units.

Yes- correct.

[Whale]

18 hours ago, lopburi3 said:

has not been a big issue in the past but as more of country is bought up by neighbors expect issues likely will appear and a lot of people may be out in the cold legally.

Agree 100%, I would not put my own money into it.

[Delight]

On 5/5/2022 at 7:11 AM, Sparktrader said:

No farangs can only own up to 49% of the units.

 Not quite understand this statement.

Just to clarify - 49 % of the saleable area in a condo can be freehold in a foreign name.

The remaining 51% can only be sold to Thai people.

Historically  some of this 51% can be also owned by a company. A foreigner has control of this Thai company.

I say historically because this arrangement is not cast in stone. 

Local land officers can refuse to accept this arrangement.

I believe that this company route is not acceptable when a new  house/land is involved.

Which I assume will increase the prices of existing houses. Houses which are company owned