Buying Land From The Bank

[DaveD]

Hi guys i know this topic has been discussed and ive searched but cannot find the answers im looking for.

My wife and i are living in europe and she wants to buy land in thailand as part of a future plan.

We found land that we want on a banks website and last time we were in thailand we visited the bank ,got the papers and went for a look.we told the bank we were interested and wanted to buy ,but some problems in the bank prevented sale at that time .

Since then my wife has kept in touch with the bank and the land is now for sale .

They told my wife to bring in 10,000baht with her firm offer(which is the banks asking price anyway),and they would inform the head office.

As we are not in thailand ,we faxed my wifes details to the bank and today her sister went in with the 10,000 baht.

We are now told that in another week we must bring to the bank a further 10%,of the full purchase price if our offer is accepted and then in 45 days to pay the full balance.

This is what cracks me up ,we were not told this ,and still have not been told the exact procedure.

Is there a standard set of rules for this type of deal?

What is the usual timeframe for this?

When does the deal close and is it in the banks office or the land registry office.

Where are the taxes paid?

Is payment to the bank and reristration in my wifes name two seperate events?

Do i have to be present at the land office to declare that the money is my wifes and i have no claim on the land?

I dont want thave to travel to thailand just to do this,is it possible that i can sign a form at some embassy or consulate and if so would the have to subsequently have to be officially legalised at cheang wattana before presentation at the land registry office?

Im sorry to ask so many questions but as many of you will know its hard to get info and ive found that you are only told what will answer your immediate question.You dont get the whole story at once.

So im trying to understand what is happening coming from the bank via my sister in law and my wife aaaarrrrgggghhh!!!

What worries me is that ive heard that banks can make up the rules as they go along,or is that better as you can arrange your own deal and time frame.

I dont want my wife to end up going to the bank to find that she missed a "contract date" that changed !

[backflip]

Is your wife Thai? Is your sister-in-law Thai? Why don't you have your sister-in-law do some legwork and help you out?

[DaveD]

Hi guys i know this topic has been discussed and ive searched but cannot find the answers im looking for.

My wife and i are living in europe and she wants to buy land in thailand as part of a future plan.

We found land that we want on a banks website and last time we were in thailand we visited the bank ,got the papers and went for a look.we told the bank we were interested and wanted to buy ,but some problems in the bank prevented sale at that time .

Since then my wife has kept in touch with the bank and the land is now for sale .

They told my wife to bring in 10,000baht with her firm offer(which is the banks asking price anyway),and they would inform the head office.

As we are not in thailand ,we faxed my wifes details to the bank and today her sister went in with the 10,000 baht.

We are now told that in another week we must bring to the bank a further 10%,of the full purchase price if our offer is accepted and then in 45 days to pay the full balance.

This is what cracks me up ,we were not told this ,and still have not been told the exact procedure.

Is there a standard set of rules for this type of deal?

What is the usual timeframe for this?

When does the deal close and is it in the banks office or the land registry office.

Where are the taxes paid?

Is payment to the bank and reristration in my wifes name two seperate events?

Do i have to be present at the land office to declare that the money is my wifes and i have no claim on the land?

I dont want thave to travel to thailand just to do this,is it possible that i can sign a form at some embassy or consulate and if so would the have to subsequently have to be officially legalised at cheang wattana before presentation at the land registry office?

Im sorry to ask so many questions but as many of you will know its hard to get info and ive found that you are only told what will answer your immediate question.You dont get the whole story at once.

So im trying to understand what is happening coming from the bank via my sister in law and my wife aaaarrrrgggghhh!!!

What worries me is that ive heard that banks can make up the rules as they go along,or is that better as you can arrange your own deal and time frame.

I dont want my wife to end up going to the bank to find that she missed a "contract date" that changed !

Yes my wife is thai and so is her sister.

My sister in law is about to have a baby and i dont want to ask her to do to much ,i was hoping some of the regs here who have been thru this process would have an idea of the time involved to complete the puchase and what ther experiences were with 1: bank,2; Land registry office.

my wife knows people who work in the land office and feels that we wont have problems there .

my big concern is that i dont want to have to go back to thailand just to sign a form stating i have no interest in the land my wife is buying .

i would hope that she can go alone to complete the dael

[GuestHouse]

Dave,

My wife and I bought from the KasikornThai Bank (ThaiFarmer Bank) so what I have to say relates to that purchase, but I believe that the procedure is the same(ish) for all banks.

First you need to understand how the land has come to the bank: There are two ways this happens:

1. Someone defaults on a loan for which the land was being used as collateral and the COURT sells the land in an auction.

This is done by a gradually reducing price in four seperate COURT AUCTIONS. The proceeds of the sale a split between the COURT the BANK, and the Defaulting Lender. (The COURT takes its costs, the BANK gets funds upto the outstanding debt + costs and then if there is anything left this goes to the Defaulting Lender).

Somnetimes the BANK will bid in the COURT AUCTION when the cost of the property falls below what is owed to the Bank and where the BANK believe there is a proffit to be made.

2. Someone who can nolonger afford to maintain a loan, signs the deeds of his Collateral Property to the Bank to close the deal.

When I say BANK I do not mean the BANK BRANCH, but an ASSETS MANAGEMENT COMPANY owned by the BANK (This might have an office/notice board/member of staff working in your local Bank Branch but remains a seperate Business - The Head Office of the Assets Management Company are likely to be in Bangkok).

When you make an offer on a property at the BANK you are making an offer to the ASSETS MANAGEMENT COMPANY, they will check your offer against their own ASSETS ASSESSMENT - This will be done by someone at the ASSETS MANAGEMENT COMPANY HEAD OFFICE ----- Not at your local Bank Branch.

This then explains why there is a delay (not a problem) just a procedure to make sure that no 'local deals are being done'.

How does the offer procedure go?

You will be asked to make a bid with an administration deposit. (I am surprised that you haver been asked to make two deposits).

Your offer will be taken to the ASSETS MANAGEMENT COMPANY (Head Offic) and checked - If your offer has is accepted you will be contacted and asked to go to the Bank with the full payment. We had to go to the Head Office in Bankgok.

A thing to note is the ASSETS MANAGEMENT COMPANY are conducting their own Auction - Each property they have will be offered for sale (usually once per month) - You make a bid and your bid will be considered against other bids.

They may hold your bid over one or two months to see if there are any other intereted parties.

This is quite normal practice - They bought a debt from the BANK and are now trying to sell it on at the highest proffit.

You may find, like we did, that the checking takes ages and ages, and then all of a sudden out of the blue you'll get a message to present the rest of the money at extremely short notice.

Like you, we were overseas when we bought our land and of course this created problems to us of getting to Thailand and (since our money was in the UK, we were in Singapore) we had problems sorting out money transfers too.

My wife explained we were overseas and asked for a two week extension - We also asked for a 'check survey' by the local land office just to confirm that we were buying what we thought we were buying. (The check survey was arranged by a friend who made a 'donation' to the land office to get the survey done).

At the appointed date we turned up at the ASSET MANAGEMENT COMPANY OFFICE (Bank Office in BKK). Paid our money and received a receipt.

I headed back to Singapore and my wife took a flight up North to the local Bank Branch, who then did the land transfer at the local land office.

Taxes

We were asked to pay the transfer taxes in the sale - this was a selection choice in the 'Online Bid' (I'll explain our bid price and how we decided on the price below).

The taxes where paid to the ASSET MANAGEMENT COMPANY in BANGKOK.

Make sure you find out about who is paying taxes, where and when they are being paid.

Be aware that because the Chanote has recently changed registration (in the Court/Bank) there will be taxes.

What Price to Offer - What's it worth Gov?

This is a bit tricky. The bids are blind and you only get one crack of the whip, so you need to get the right price.

We bought after the ecconomic crash at the time when the banks where stuffed full of seized property and not many buyers, but still, it turned out we had some competition in the bid.

What you need to do is have a look and see how much you are willing to pay for the land. What is a good price for you?

If you can, and this will be difficult from overseas, try to find out what price the ASSETS MANAGEMENT COMPANY paid for the property and better still, if you can, what the debt was when the land was lost to the COURT.

This seemingly impossible to find information may be common knowledge in the Thai neighbourhood where you are hoping to buy.

It took my wife and I a few hours to find out, even getting sight of the court ruling and a member of the family of the guy who lost the land telling us how much he had borrowed.

We offered over 20% below the asking price - but you need to look at the local market to assess if you have any competitors.

As it happened we did and in the end won our bid by a hair's breadth (The competitor in our bid later told us how much he had offered).

Things to be aware of are, if the land is in an ideal location/size for building a number of houses in a development and there is a lot of building going on you may wind up competing against small developers - Perhaps if reports of stagnation in the building market are true this may not be a problem.

Documents

Your wife will need her ID Card, an up to date house registration in which she is names (has to match the ID Card) and under the new rules she may need proof of where the money came from.

She can get proof of transfer from the Bank when you transfer the money over. To make this seemless, transfer the cash to an account in her name.

I made a transefer of £ Sterling (exchanged in Thailand) and I kept a very close watch on the exchange rates at - Even so on the day of making the payment I had to do a second transfer becausee I had forgotten we had agreed to pay taxes _ I actually drew BHt600K on my Visa Card (not recommended unless in an emergency).

So as soon as you hear your bid has been accepted, make the transefer and then check the amount that has arrived against what you need to pay.

(Confirm the full price + taxes with the bank)

Anyway, best of luck with the bid. Keep a steady nerve and be prepared to have to fly over to Thailand at a moments notice with cash in hand to make the purchase.

As for signing to say you have no interest in the land.

If you don't show your face at the land office they will most likely not know you exist (depending on your wife's ID Card etc).

Alternatively just go along and sign like you are required to do.

Final Word

We are delighted with our purchase, not only did we get a beautiful piece of river front land on the edge the town we dream of living in, but we got it at a bargain basement price.

Later when doing some legal work relating to the land, our BKK lawyer commented that we had been very wise to buy from the bank because since the land had been siezed by the court there was a clear and unequivical exchange of title.

Again, very best of luck and let us know how it goes.

GH

[DaveD]

Dave,

My wife and I bought from the KasikornThai Bank (ThaiFarmer Bank) so what I have to say relates to that purchase, but I believe that the procedure is the same(ish) for all banks.

First you need to understand how the land has come to the bank: There are two ways this happens:

1. Someone defaults on a loan for which the land was being used as collateral and the COURT sells the land in an auction.

This is done by a gradually reducing price in four seperate COURT AUCTIONS. The proceeds of the sale a split between the COURT the BANK, and the Defaulting Lender. (The COURT takes its costs, the BANK gets funds upto the outstanding debt + costs and then if there is anything left this goes to the Defaulting Lender).

Somnetimes the BANK will bid in the COURT AUCTION when the cost of the property falls below what is owed to the Bank and where the BANK believe there is a proffit to be made.

2. Someone who can nolonger afford to maintain a loan, signs the deeds of his Collateral Property to the Bank to close the deal.

When I say BANK I do not mean the BANK BRANCH, but an ASSETS MANAGEMENT COMPANY owned by the BANK (This might have an office/notice board/member of staff working in your local Bank Branch but remains a seperate Business - The Head Office of the Assets Management Company are likely to be in Bangkok).

When you make an offer on a property at the BANK you are making an offer to the ASSETS MANAGEMENT COMPANY, they will check your offer against their own ASSETS ASSESSMENT - This will be done by someone at the ASSETS MANAGEMENT COMPANY HEAD OFFICE ----- Not at your local Bank Branch.

This then explains why there is a delay (not a problem) just a procedure to make sure that no 'local deals are being done'.

How does the offer procedure go?

You will be asked to make a bid with an administration deposit. (I am surprised that you haver been asked to make two deposits).

Your offer will be taken to the ASSETS MANAGEMENT COMPANY (Head Offic) and checked - If your offer has is accepted you will be contacted and asked to go to the Bank with the full payment. We had to go to the Head Office in Bankgok.

A thing to note is the ASSETS MANAGEMENT COMPANY are conducting their own Auction - Each property they have will be offered for sale (usually once per month) - You make a bid and your bid will be considered against other bids.

They may hold your bid over one or two months to see if there are any other intereted parties.

This is quite normal practice - They bought a debt from the BANK and are now trying to sell it on at the highest proffit.

You may find, like we did, that the checking takes ages and ages, and then all of a sudden out of the blue you'll get a message to present the rest of the money at extremely short notice.

Like you, we were overseas when we bought our land and of course this created problems to us of getting to Thailand and (since our money was in the UK, we were in Singapore) we had problems sorting out money transfers too.

My wife explained we were overseas and asked for a two week extension - We also asked for a 'check survey' by the local land office just to confirm that we were buying what we thought we were buying. (The check survey was arranged by a friend who made a 'donation' to the land office to get the survey done).

At the appointed date we turned up at the ASSET MANAGEMENT COMPANY OFFICE (Bank Office in BKK). Paid our money and received a receipt.

I headed back to Singapore and my wife took a flight up North to the local Bank Branch, who then did the land transfer at the local land office.

Taxes

We were asked to pay the transfer taxes in the sale - this was a selection choice in the 'Online Bid' (I'll explain our bid price and how we decided on the price below).

The taxes where paid to the ASSET MANAGEMENT COMPANY in BANGKOK.

Make sure you find out about who is paying taxes, where and when they are being paid.

Be aware that because the Chanote has recently changed registration (in the Court/Bank) there will be taxes.

What Price to Offer - What's it worth Gov?

This is a bit tricky. The bids are blind and you only get one crack of the whip, so you need to get the right price.

We bought after the ecconomic crash at the time when the banks where stuffed full of seized property and not many buyers, but still, it turned out we had some competition in the bid.

What you need to do is have a look and see how much you are willing to pay for the land. What is a good price for you?

If you can, and this will be difficult from overseas, try to find out what price the ASSETS MANAGEMENT COMPANY paid for the property and better still, if you can, what the debt was when the land was lost to the COURT.

This seemingly impossible to find information may be common knowledge in the Thai neighbourhood where you are hoping to buy.

It took my wife and I a few hours to find out, even getting sight of the court ruling and a member of the family of the guy who lost the land telling us how much he had borrowed.

We offered over 20% below the asking price - but you need to look at the local market to assess if you have any competitors.

As it happened we did and in the end won our bid by a hair's breadth (The competitor in our bid later told us how much he had offered).

Things to be aware of are, if the land is in an ideal location/size for building a number of houses in a development and there is a lot of building going on you may wind up competing against small developers - Perhaps if reports of stagnation in the building market are true this may not be a problem.

Documents

Your wife will need her ID Card, an up to date house registration in which she is names (has to match the ID Card) and under the new rules she may need proof of where the money came from.

She can get proof of transfer from the Bank when you transfer the money over. To make this seemless, transfer the cash to an account in her name.

I made a transefer of £ Sterling (exchanged in Thailand) and I kept a very close watch on the exchange rates at - Even so on the day of making the payment I had to do a second transfer becausee I had forgotten we had agreed to pay taxes _ I actually drew BHt600K on my Visa Card (not recommended unless in an emergency).

So as soon as you hear your bid has been accepted, make the transefer and then check the amount that has arrived against what you need to pay.

(Confirm the full price + taxes with the bank)

Anyway, best of luck with the bid. Keep a steady nerve and be prepared to have to fly over to Thailand at a moments notice with cash in hand to make the purchase.

As for signing to say you have no interest in the land.

If you don't show your face at the land office they will most likely not know you exist (depending on your wife's ID Card etc).

Alternatively just go along and sign like you are required to do.

Final Word

We are delighted with our purchase, not only did we get a beautiful piece of river front land on the edge the town we dream of living in, but we got it at a bargain basement price.

Later when doing some legal work relating to the land, our BKK lawyer commented that we had been very wise to buy from the bank because since the land had been siezed by the court there was a clear and unequivical exchange of title.

Again, very best of luck and let us know how it goes.

hi and thank you for you very detailed post It seems there are no set rules for this and the bank can set their own terms as they see fit .i see you were able to ask for extra time and that is reassuring .

I gather that you bought from kasikorn bank via the online bidding system.we are buying from scb by tender .tis land has been on their site for a very long time and they have had no offers yet.

my wife changed her id when we married 5 years ago and now has my surname ,so it is obvious she has a farang husband .Its amazing but yesterday she went to a birthday party for a thai woman who live not far from us and she asked people there about this precedure .Everyone of them told her that she cannot buy any land if she has a farang surname.

i was amazed at their ignorance of the system in their own country,no wonder its hard to get genuine info.

I need tio find out more about the need for me to sign a document stating that i have no interest in the land and tht the money is my wifes.

Ill ring the consulate here and see if they have any info .

cheers

GH

[Shoho]

Using an existing company, I've purchased both land from the Thai Housing Bank and repo'ed land (rice farm) from the bank where the owner had died in prison and defaulted. Generally you will submit a bid and a security deposit. The bid I submitted on the repo was less than the asking price but the dealer did give a suggested amount on what he thought would be accepted. The land bank was a full price offer but it was a goodly deal also. My money was paid in several stages as they asked. They sent a rep to the land office on the day it was transferred. The repo buyout took about three months to complete the outright purchase from the housing/land bank about 1 month. I managed to pull this off without the use of of lawyer but later used a lawyer on my company restructure.

Edited August 6, 2007 by Shoho

[DaveD]

Hi guys ,

i have done the job now so i can answer my own questions.

my wife bought land from siam commercial bank that we had found on their website.

The price was agreed and the bank faxed us a contract here ,that basically said we had one month to turn up and pay the balance after my wifes sister had gone and paid 10% for us.

We few back to thailand anticipating a raft of problems.

My wife had previously gone into the land office to check their valuation of the land we wanted to buy.whilst there she got friendlt with some of the staff ,and maintained contact with them when we came back home.(please note this paid dividends)

We made an appointment with the bank to pay the money and the day before that my wife called the land office to see if anyone could come out with us and do a quick check of the chanoot markers and the area .within 30 mins we had two guys and tapes etc on the way with us.When we dropped them back to the office we tipped them.My wife went to see the people inside and was asked if she wanted an express service to which she agreed and was asked to bring in copies of id card,tabien bann,marriage cert ,my passport.that afternoon ,in advance of our meeting with the bank.

The following morning ,we met with the bank official and the money was transferred from our account to theirs .Areceipt was issued ,then it was acroos town to the land office.

My wife went in first with the bank offial and soon called me inside ,i was called to the desk and aske dto sign a copy of our marriage cert,a copy of my passport and the relevant form stating that this deal did not form part of the marital joint possessions

i left again and my wife paid the taxes ,based on the offices valuation of the land we had bought.

my wife emerged from the office 15 mins later with her chanoot ,with her name registerd on the rear .

The whole process from the time we met with the bank ,until she had her chanoot was 1 hour,even the bank official couldnt believe it.

so it was a job well done ,i believe due to "homework"

i expected a long drawn out stressful day but it in fact turned out to one of my most enjoyable days

this is a shortened version of the whole story from when we first found the land on the banks website,if there are any questions ,ill enlarge as we go along