Thai wife owning land and leasing it to you

[Suphawk]

Has anyone had any experience trying to buy a house and land where your wife/girlfriend owns the land and leases it to you for a 30 year contract, and you keep ownership of the house itself?

[Mike Lister]

Any contract entered into during marriage can be cancelled on divorce, presumably that means a lease also.

 

Have you looked at superficies. that sounds like what you want.

 

 

[AnotherOneHere]

 Usufruct

 

Provides temporary ownership rights for use and enjoyment of the property along with an advantage of being able to reap the profits from property. A usufruct will be registered in a similar manner to a lease of up to 30 years or until the lifetime of the usufructuary.

[AnotherOneHere]

All you need to do is visit your Land office with the wife and it can be in about a hour. It is written directly on the land title deed so it can't be more official than that. Much better than some random lease.

[Mike Lister]

19 minutes ago, AnotherOneHere said:

 Usufruct

 

Provides temporary ownership rights for use and enjoyment of the property along with an advantage of being able to reap the profits from property. A usufruct will be registered in a similar manner to a lease of up to 30 years or until the lifetime of the usufructuary.

The op wants ownership of the house, an usufruct will not provide that although a superficies will. 

[Celsius]

Incredible.

 

Wife triple dipping on this "deal".

[Chris Daley]

Yes it's Thai scam #233.  Get alien to buy the land in installments.  Divert the money to cars, condos and Shopee.  Make sure the land is far away so he can not dispute it.

[NorthernRyland]

4 hours ago, Suphawk said:

Has anyone had any experience trying to buy a house and land where your wife/girlfriend owns the land and leases it to you for a 30 year contract, and you keep ownership of the house itself?

I just started a topic of this when I saw a YT video of some Finish guy who has done something similar with a usufruct. Maybe to the letter of the law this appears legal but I have no faith this would stand up in court. What he did was buy the land first then marry her and probably did a prenup. It's an obvious attempt to skirt the spirit of the law so I wouldn't trust it in the case of divorce. Just my 2 cents.

[NorthernRyland]

3 hours ago, AnotherOneHere said:

 Usufruct

 

Provides temporary ownership rights for use and enjoyment of the property along with an advantage of being able to reap the profits from property. A usufruct will be registered in a similar manner to a lease of up to 30 years or until the lifetime of the usufructuary.

 

Issuing these to foreigners seems to go against the spirit of the law so my question is has anyone gone to court over their usufruct and won? If you can simply get any Thai person to buy land in their name and sign away the rights to you then foreign ownership is easy and everyone would be doing it. It begs the question too why people setup nominee companies if all you need is the usufruct.

[FritsSikkink]

Everything I give to my wife is to secure my kids future, so I don't care at all.

[AnotherOneHere]

3 hours ago, FritsSikkink said:

Everything I give to my wife is to secure my kids future, so I don't care at all.

 

Until she uses it to buy lottery tickets or to guarantee a mortgage to her deadbeat cousin behind your back.

[Peterw42]

12 hours ago, Suphawk said:

Has anyone had any experience trying to buy a house and land where your wife/girlfriend owns the land and leases it to you for a 30 year contract, and you keep ownership of the house itself?

To answer your original question. You cant just spin off the house ownership from an existing land with a house on it.

Houses don't have a separate title deed, or any title deed. The only way you can own a house is if you build the house hand have the receipts. It doesn't mean much as its still a structure on someone else's land, it cant be bought or sold without the land title.

[Celsius]

7 hours ago, FritsSikkink said:

Everything I give to my wife is to secure my kids future, so I don't care at all.

 

Delusional 

[KhunLA]

12 hours ago, Suphawk said:

Has anyone had any experience trying to buy a house and land where your wife/girlfriend owns the land and leases it to you for a 30 year contract, and you keep ownership of the house itself?

If needing to even ask this query, then you should lease/rent (elsewhere, NOT family owned) or buy a condo.

 

In reality, the lease and any other paperwork is useless, if all goes tits up, and they don't want you living there.  If going forward, with usufruct & POA, then still only invest in what you can walk away with.

 

POA is 'power of attorney' so you can sell the land, without her even at land office, as she has already given you that right.

 

RENT OR BUY CONDO

Edited May 1 by KhunLA

[Hellfire]

8 hours ago, FritsSikkink said:

Everything I give to my wife is to secure my kids future, so I don't care at all.

And it sounds like you already gave her EVERYTHING you had. I keep my fingers crossed for you.

[Sigmund]

The law needs to change fast and enable foreigners who have bought houses to be able to purchase the land and at a decent cost. At least one piece of land would enhance trust in foreign investment. Because with the current leasehold-usurfuit schemes many foreigners do not want to buy a house in Thailand.

[SAFETY FIRST]

8 hours ago, FritsSikkink said:

Everything I give to my wife is to secure my kids future, so I don't care at all.

Sounds nice but are you sure she won't gamble away the funds etc?

 

Its been done before!!!!

[newbee2022]

13 hours ago, Suphawk said:

Has anyone had any experience trying to buy a house and land where your wife/girlfriend owns the land and leases it to you for a 30 year contract, and you keep ownership of the house itself?

It's called usufruct?

[Mike Lister]

4 minutes ago, newbee2022 said:

It's called usufruct?

No it is not!

 

An usufruct does nothing of the sort, only a superficies will meet the OPs requirement as stated.

[newbee2022]

16 minutes ago, Mike Lister said:

No it is not!

 

An usufruct does nothing of the sort, only a superficies will meet the OPs requirement as stated.

Because usufruct is focused on a building only, not only the land?

So OP has to go for a lease?

[FritsSikkink]

53 minutes ago, SAFETY FIRST said:

Sounds nice but are you sure she won't gamble away the funds etc?

 

Its been done before!!!!

My wife owns several businesses, no time to gamble.

[FritsSikkink]

1 hour ago, Hellfire said:

And it sounds like you already gave her EVERYTHING you had. I keep my fingers crossed for you.

I am still working and making a lot more money than 90 + % of the people on this forum.

[FritsSikkink]

1 hour ago, Celsius said:

 

Delusional 

How would you know, you are a tourist how can afford to come here occasionally. We have 5 plots of land, 4 houses and a durian farm.

[FritsSikkink]

5 hours ago, AnotherOneHere said:

 

Until she uses it to buy lottery tickets or to guarantee a mortgage to her deadbeat cousin behind your back.

She makes a lot more money than the economical refugees here.

[Mike Lister]

27 minutes ago, newbee2022 said:

Because usufruct is focused on a building only, not only the land?

So OP has to go for a lease?

"superficies are ownership rights, the superficiary must take care of everything to maintain them and pay all expenses himself.

 

Usufruct is not the right of ownership; therefore, to exercise usufruct, the usufructurist must take as much care of the property as a person of ordinary prudence would take of his property".

 

https://www.golawphuket.com/thai-real-estate/superficies-and-usufruct/

[Thalueng]

1 hour ago, Peterw42 said:

To answer your original question. You cant just spin off the house ownership from an existing land with a house on it.

Houses don't have a separate title deed, or any title deed. The only way you can own a house is if you build the house hand have the receipts. It doesn't mean much as its still a structure on someone else's land, it cant be bought or sold without the land title.

Wrong, you can add ownership of the house on the back of the land title deed. You should also nominate it's value which implies taxes on total value of house and land.

[NorthernRyland]

1 hour ago, Sigmund said:

The law needs to change fast and enable foreigners who have bought houses to be able to purchase the land and at a decent cost. At least one piece of land would enhance trust in foreign investment. Because with the current leasehold-usurfuit schemes many foreigners do not want to buy a house in Thailand.

They're going the opposite direction and taxing you now. Thailand simply isn't a country to invest in.

[Thalueng]

10 hours ago, NorthernRyland said:

 

Issuing these to foreigners seems to go against the spirit of the law so my question is has anyone gone to court over their usufruct and won? If you can simply get any Thai person to buy land in their name and sign away the rights to you then foreign ownership is easy and everyone would be doing it. It begs the question too why people setup nominee companies if all you need is the usufruct.

It's possible and many people do it, but it can only be registered on the land title deed for 30 years. You need a side contract for longer periods which could possibly be debated in court. Setting up a company with the sole purpose of buying land is illegal.

[newbee2022]

14 minutes ago, Mike Lister said:

"superficies are ownership rights, the superficiary must take care of everything to maintain them and pay all expenses himself.

 

Usufruct is not the right of ownership; therefore, to exercise usufruct, the usufructurist must take as much care of the property as a person of ordinary prudence would take of his property".

 

https://www.golawphuket.com/thai-real-estate/superficies-and-usufruct/

Thanks for the link🙏

[NorthernRyland]

1 minute ago, Thalueng said:

It's possible and many people do it, but it can only be registered on the land title deed for 30 years. You need a side contract for longer periods which could possibly be debated in court. Setting up a company with the sole purpose of buying land is illegal.

 

yes I know they'll sign the papers for you but this skirts the spirit of the law and may not hold up in court. Land office may be issuing invalid documents basically.  Usufructs are normally meant so people can have rights to work the land in leu of full ownership, not a backdoor so foreigners can own land.