Can you really buy a condo with cash?

[BonMot]

2 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

cash to cover transfer taxes

So, any fees going to land office can be paid cash and do not need FTE letter?

 

How would one go about finding a sympathetic banker to give you an FTE with money legitimately earned in Thailand and taxes paid?

[tomazbodner]

4 minutes ago, BonMot said:

So, any fees going to land office can be paid cash and do not need FTE letter?

 

How would one go about finding a sympathetic banker to give you an FTE with money legitimately earned in Thailand and taxes paid?

Only the entire cost of the condo purchase (the unit price) needs to be transferred from abroad. The transfer fees, taxes, agent commission, etc. are excluded from this requirement, which makes sense, since they could be paid by either buyer or seller. Often 50:50 but not always.

 

Taxes/fees at land department should be paid in cash as there is a clearing charge for cashier's cheque. For the rest it's better to do cashier's cheque and get seller to sign that they received funds to prevent challenges later. You never know...

 

As for finding sympathetic banker... they would have to fake the transfer or documentation, which could get them in significant amount of trouble. There are UOB and Bangkok Bank which offered housing loans to some foreigners in Thailand to bypass the laws, issue them in SGD and then transfer funds to Thailand from Singapore. That wasn't open for everyone, though, and had minimum property price and maximum tenure. It was considerably worse deal than local offerings.

 

I guess a plane ticket to a nearby country and transferring funds back could get around this problem easier than trying to corrupt a banker.

Edited June 5, 2022 by tomazbodner

[scubascuba3]

12 minutes ago, BonMot said:

So, any fees going to land office can be paid cash and do not need FTE letter?

 

How would one go about finding a sympathetic banker to give you an FTE with money legitimately earned in Thailand and taxes paid?

I see someone's answered, i vaguely remember that if you've earned in Thailand you can buy in foreign name, hopefully someone will confirm and provide detail

[BonMot]

3 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

I see someone's answered, i vaguely remember that if you've earned in Thailand you can buy in foreign name, hopefully someone will confirm and provide detail

Thanks. I think it's only if you have PR. It's absolutely ridiculous when you can prove income with tax records.

[scubascuba3]

2 minutes ago, BonMot said:

Thanks. I think it's only if you have PR. It's absolutely ridiculous when you can prove income with tax records.

True, so maybe best to send out, deemoney is popular and transfer back in

[ChaiyaTH]

So I assume that many people, specially down south, buy the property as a company? Often it is a company already when they want to buy it too. In that case it could be in cash perhaps, as it technically will be a 51% owned Thai company? Makes sense for the posts before talking about some 'Russian realtor'.

 

In terms of crypto, obviously it could be accepted somehow in the above scenario then too, if the realtor for example offers the switch to Thai baht to settle the purchase. But not sure why one would do that.

 

Practically speaking it seems as the usual nonsense, I could imagine one could have lived here for 10-15 years and made profit on previous properties, who you then sell to rebuy another. They have to send money out and back in as well?

 

Pretty sure there are plenty of land offices too who forget to look at that paper requirement for a donation.

Edited June 5, 2022 by ChaiyaTH

[Bluespunk]

39 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

I was referring to OP wanting to pay for it in cash without bringing funds in from overseas. Please consider the context and don't only copy half of one sentence in entire post, taken completely out of context. Without PR or being Thai, you cannot walk to land department and do transfer of property under your name without having proof that funds originated outside the country and were legally transferred to a Thai bank, which issues a form to confirm just that.

I quoted a sentence that was neither correct nor clear within the context of the post.

[The Hammer2021]

38 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

That is absolutely correct. You can buy a condo, or even a house in your own name **** (rules apply), but not the land.

However the whole topic was on OP walking to land department without any paperwork, and just paying cash for the condo, without having proof of transferring funds from abroad, having no PR and not being Thai citizen. Land department will not allow him to do transfer without this paperwork.

I'm glad  someone  understands the whole topic! The OP talked about his mother sending 'cash' from Europe to his Thai  bank account and he also referenced digital currency. The issue of stacks of notes being taken anywhere was not clarified.

Attempts  to clarify we're met with ageist and ableist insults about fogies and retards - not helpful

[BonMot]

Per crypto I could have sworn I read something about it not being legal as medium of transaction and exchange in Thailand. Possibly even that there is no mechanism to even go to thb from crypto direct in Thailand. I'm sure they'll sell it to you all day long.

[Aussieroaming]

On 6/5/2022 at 9:56 AM, parafareno said:

yes i can bring any kind of ammount in paper cash from my country but I need to declare it....

but still can I put that paper cash in thai bank and then buy condo? Or it needs to come to thailand only as transfer? 

Because some russian realtor agent said people pay with BTC too.....

who to believe....

I dont want to be shoocked that when I come to the land department they will decline me

When I bought my condo I already had 100% of the funds in a bank account in Bangkok. I still had to provide evidence that the money had been incrementally transferred to Thailand, as I was being paid my monthly salary from abroad into my Thai bank account over a period of a few years.