1 Rai Of Residential Land For Permanent Resident Holders

[aacetase]

The laws of Thailand have for many decades said that PR holders are allowed to buy one rai of land for residential purposes however when reaching the Land Department this law is ignored and the PR holder is not permitted to register the one rai in his/her name??? Has anyone been able to actually buy and own the property?

[chownah]

About ten years ago when I was sizing Thailand up to see if I wanted to make a long term move here I met a man who at that time had spent about 20 years in Thailand working for a major international corporation in a high level management position and he seemed to know alot about business in Thailand and owning land also....he told me about all the categories of land ownership and as it turned out, over the years I found out that he was correct in all that he said. At the time I asked him about the one rai allowance for foreigners and his reply was that the law indicated that certain officials had to approve the purchase and it was entirely up to their judgement to approve or deny so without reason any application could be denied.....he also said that he had never heard of any foreigner who had successfully purchased any land this way....the officials simply refused to approve the application....which is entirely left to their discression....he told me to forget about this possibility because it was only a theoretic one and in practice never works.

[torrenova]

I heard a few years ago on a different forum that there was a westerner who, after the Vietnam war, had settled here and did indeed own some land in his name. The story sticks in my mind because he recounted that he wanted to sell his house, on his land, and buy another, larger house. The officials would let him sell his land but would not let him register the new property in his name even though the net effect would be zero. He built a larger house on his original plot.

There was a guy on here not long ago who actually got a Thai passport. Perhaps one of the reasons why he did so was to circumvent that "rule" via another method.

[quiksilva]

Sure torrenova back then it wouldn't have been a problem, that's why some 100% foreign owned firms who have been here for decades (like Diethelm for example) have considerable land banks here. They can't buy any more because different rules apply today.

and to the OP in my ten years in this business here I have never heard of anyone successfully going down that ownership route either.

[1Rai.com]

My advice is the same as usual - get advice from a lawyer or three. It would surprise me greatly if there were none who could help out on this.

I'm not 100% on Permanent Residents but I was under the impression that, if a foreign company has Board of Investment approval and have 40 million Baht of listed capital, then that company is legally entitled to own a plot of land (maximum 1 Rai) to build residence for the director. I'm pretty sure my lawyer says the same.

However, I have just checked this with a friend who has a foreign BOI-approved company with only 2 million of listed capital and this is what he had to say:

- He is allowed to buy up to 10 rai of land in his company's name for employees' residences.

- He is allowed to buy he-doesn't-know-much more land in his company's name for commercial premises - however, each purchase must be approved separately by the BOI and scrutinized against the company's business plan which the BOI originally approved (e.g. a software company requesting approval to buy land for a luxury villa project is unlikely to be approved; if the land was to be used for a company HQ, it most likely will be approved).

I asked him if he knew of people who had purchased land through this route and he said he knew many; none have had any problems as the BOI approval supercedes whatever the Land Office has to say. Of course, he added, the purchases were facilitated by lawyers who may well have paid small administrative charges or what-have-yous to make the purchase go smoothly.

[thaigene2]

While not meaning to dismiss 1Rai.Com's points on BOI approved companies, this seems like more of the "you can buy land in a company name" routine. And of course not many want to go that route any more. The difference in the BOI route is that the stakes are so much higher too.."Invest 780-trillion baht and you can buy a residential property, as long as you are the director, and as long as we don't change the rules on ya again sucker.."

TG2