With all the raids and purges on foreign property investors and nominee shareholders being reported almost daily, does anyone know what the status is at the moment? Have legal firms stopped setting up Thai companies with nominee shareholders for the time being, and if so are they likely to ever start again? Or is it still business as normal, just being done more discreetly and with a few more padded envelopes?

I still think they're only after the big fish who are abusing the system, like the Russians in Chonburi and their 5 billion Baht of property, but there's a small number of potentially worrying stories of what appear to be individual house owners being hauled off and their house confiscated. Hard to be certain from the reports, though.

Just trying to plan for the future: in the worst case that the company route closed down permanently it's going to make it hard for anyone owning a house that way at the moment to sell it (I'm one of them). I guess you could transfer it into your partner's name and then get a usefruct for your own security? Not feasible for loners who don't have a partner, though. What other routes are there? I have no interest in renting and even less in living in a glorified flat.

My cleaner has a farang friend he panicked and transferred his house to her, better gamble. I wouldn't touch thai company name houses or condos

2 hours ago, Guderian said:

With all the raids and purges on foreign property investors and nominee shareholders being reported almost daily, does anyone know what the status is at the moment? Have legal firms stopped setting up Thai companies with nominee shareholders for the time being, and if so are they likely to ever start again? Or is it still business as normal, just being done more discreetly and with a few more padded envelopes?

I still think they're only after the big fish who are abusing the system, like the Russians in Chonburi and their 5 billion Baht of property, but there's a small number of potentially worrying stories of what appear to be individual house owners being hauled off and their house confiscated. Hard to be certain from the reports, though.

Just trying to plan for the future: in the worst case that the company route closed down permanently it's going to make it hard for anyone owning a house that way at the moment to sell it (I'm one of them). I guess you could transfer it into your partner's name and then get a usefruct for your own security? Not feasible for loners who don't have a partner, though. What other routes are there? I have no interest in renting and even less in living in a glorified flat.

I have not heard of any individual company owner with just one property being prosecuted. Do any AN readers know of any? And the outcome? I have never used company ownership and have no information on those two questions.

A couple weeks ago I posted some information from a Thaiger article showing that there are about 47,000 flagged cases right now, each case has to go through investigation, then through the court system individually, taking 1 to 3 years, with lengthy appeals on top of that if found guilty, and it was their estimate that it would take 50 years to get through the current cases. Whether that is true or not, I don't know. But, I still think that their focus right now is on the really big, hard to ignore, company abuses, of which there seem to be plenty to keep them busy.

My guess is that it depends largely on geography. If we're talking about Phuket, Pattaya, Koh Samui, Koh Phangan, and apparently Chiang Mai, all bets are off. There seems to be a lot of transnational crime going on in those areas in addition to their being a heavy concentration of Israelis, and Russians, and that seems to be where the focus is right now.

If you're in Bangkok or Hua Hin, I think you're quite safe. I don't think they're going to go after really affluent expats as there is just simply too much to lose, and Thailand really needs the money. I have friends there who are preparing for the worst but I don't think it's going to touch them.

I think it's also a matter of how many individual homes or how much land a particular nominee company owns, what percentage ownership the foreigner has, whether or not the nominees within the company have the means to carry out the endeavor, in addition to whether or not he is bold enough or perhaps willing to take the risk to remain the director of the company, which I think is ill advised.

Edited July 23Jul 23 by spidermike007

Yes, in America, the UK & Australia you can buy a house through a business.

But if you live in it, you may legally lose your tax benefits to deter tax cheats.

You're welcome 🤗

10 hours ago, newnative said:

I have not heard of any individual company owner with just one property being prosecuted. Do any AN readers know of any? And the outcome? I have never used company ownership and have no information on those two questions.

A couple weeks ago I posted some information from a Thaiger article showing that there are about 47,000 flagged cases right now, each case has to go through investigation, then through the court system individually, taking 1 to 3 years, with lengthy appeals on top of that if found guilty, and it was their estimate that it would take 50 years to get through the current cases. Whether that is true or not, I don't know. But, I still think that their focus right now is on the really big, hard to ignore, company abuses, of which there seem to be plenty to keep them busy.

Probably true, my lawyer friend said there's 50k new cases a year, so that's 136 a day would need to be seen so can take years

2 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

Probably true, my lawyer friend said there's 50k new cases a year, so that's 136 a day would need to be seen so can take years

Anyway, why risk it?

12 hours ago, SiSePuede419 said:

Yes, in America, the UK & Australia you can buy a house through a business.

But if you live in it, you may legally lose your tax benefits to deter tax cheats.

You're welcome 🤗

In USA, if you use your home as part of your business, if self employed. as I did, office space, strorage, garage, showroom (if having), that square footage, along with part of your utilities and phone used as tax deductions.

Of course if rental property, all aspects of ownership is deductible.

@Guderian your individual house may not be noticed by anyone, but, if they are investigating the law office or agency that set up your fake business, because some other fake business of theirs got noticed, then surely they will be auditing all the accounts of said office / agency, to see which are fake.

If you set up as a retail or manufacturing business, simply driving by would be enough to realize you're a scam. So yea, I'd be worried.

If set up as online, drop shipment business, then they may not look very hard. But the more the catch, the better the headline, so they'll be looking at every account, so again, I'd be worried.

They may not need to peek very hard, just compare you business name and address, to TRD tax records, to see your taxes paid, or lack of payments/filings, would simply expose the scam.

Since they realize it's a great money and or asset grab, I would think, they'd be auditing every law office or business agency that sets up business licences eventually, as too easy for them to find people scamming. Don't even have to do leg work, just look at their paperwork, especially if they use the same nominees. All a bit too obvious.

That's the problem with most foreigners, they think Thais are too stupid ... oops.

In the USA, I think the IRS uses a 5 yr window of losses, if no profits recorded and income taxes generated / received, then you can probably expect an IRS audit. I know, as I've been audited as a business owner, when living in USA.

Edited July 24Jul 24 by KhunLA

On 7/23/2026 at 6:54 PM, newnative said:

I have not heard of any individual company owner with just one property being prosecuted. Do any AN readers know of any? And the outcome? I have never used company ownership and have no information on those two questions.

A couple weeks ago I posted some information from a Thaiger article showing that there are about 47,000 flagged cases right now, each case has to go through investigation, then through the court system individually, taking 1 to 3 years, with lengthy appeals on top of that if found guilty, and it was their estimate that it would take 50 years to get through the current cases. Whether that is true or not, I don't know. But, I still think that their focus right now is on the really big, hard to ignore, company abuses, of which there seem to be plenty to keep them busy.

I saw an article last week, I think showing a single homeowner in the Chonburi area being led away from his house by the RTP, with the usual clickbait headline. It was in one of the ฿5 billion Russian places that made the news, so from the information given it was impossible to tell if the guy had bought the house from the Russians using the usual Thai company/nominee shareholder route or if he was using a different scheme which kept the original Russians who were arrested in the picture.

I saw the10-part Thaiger series you mention on FB. One of the news sources there also mentioned a case of an individual house owner in Koh Samui who'd been arrested, but I missed the actual story so have no idea of the details.

I have the option of 'selling' my house to the TGF and getting a usufruct so that I can retain control (at least until Anutin learns about usufructs and decides to ban them, lol), but don't want to go down that route unless I really have to. The GF's pregnant and the plan was to buy a larger place out of town a bit so that she and her dogs (she has a dozen large dogs so they can't live in the well-run village where my house is) and the sprog could move in with me, but obviously that's on the back burner now if I have no hope of selling my own gaff while it's in a company name. Great move, Anutin, I was going to bring in another 6 million Baht and house some poor Thais, but now the money will stay invested in an offshore tax haven instead.

1 hour ago, Guderian said:

I saw an article last week, I think showing a single homeowner in the Chonburi area being led away from his house by the RTP, with the usual clickbait headline. It was in one of the ฿5 billion Russian places that made the news, so from the information given it was impossible to tell if the guy had bought the house from the Russians using the usual Thai company/nominee shareholder route or if he was using a different scheme which kept the original Russians who were arrested in the picture.

I saw the10-part Thaiger series you mention on FB. One of the news sources there also mentioned a case of an individual house owner in Koh Samui who'd been arrested, but I missed the actual story so have no idea of the details.

RealEstate

I have the option of 'selling' my house to the TGF and getting a usufruct so that I can retain control (at least until Anutin learns about usufructs and decides to ban them, lol), but don't want to go down that route unless I really have to. The GF's pregnant and the plan was to buy a larger place out of town a bit so that she and her dogs (she has a dozen large dogs so they can't live in the well-run village where my house is) and the sprog could move in with me, but obviously that's on the back burner now if I have no hope of selling my own gaff while it's in a company name. Great move, Anutin, I was going to bring in another 6 million Baht and house some poor Thais, but now the money will stay invested in an offshore tax haven instead.

Thanks for the info. Yes, really an ill-advised, short-sighted move by Anutin. As I've said several times, the housing industry, and all its many related businesses, is a big driver for many economies, Thailand included.

We'll soon start to see the result, as lots of builders who depended on foreign buyers for their product begin to scale back--I've seen that already with some builders I know. That means lots of workers no longer working, lots of building supplies of all sorts no longer purchased, and fewer jobs for built-in furniture makers, wallpaper and drapery companies, window fabricators, electricans, plumbers, painters, landscapers, and so on. Not good.

On 7/23/2026 at 9:58 PM, scubascuba3 said:

Probably true, my lawyer friend said there's 50k new cases a year, so that's 136 a day would need to be seen so can take years

Not so difficult, or time consuming, given computers will do the heavy lifting.

If the company does absolutely nothing except own a property, job done. Next.

14 minutes ago, KhunHeineken said:

Not so difficult, or time consuming, given computers will do the heavy lifting.

If the company does absolutely nothing except own a property, job done. Next.

It's slow work, everyone involved is slow, lawyers, admin

21 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

It's slow work, everyone involved is slow, lawyers, admin

As another member point out, they would only need to look at the companies tax submissions, or lack thereof.

The company makes nothing, sells nothing, does nothing, but owns an asset, being a parcel of land. Gotcha.

I would think data bases in Thailand are starting to talk to each other, which is similar to my home country, and will start catching a lot of people out.

12 minutes ago, KhunHeineken said:

As another member point out, they would only need to look at the companies tax submissions, or lack thereof.

The company makes nothing, sells nothing, does nothing, but owns an asset, being a parcel of land. Gotcha.

I would think data bases in Thailand are starting to talk to each other, which is similar to my home country, and will start catching a lot of people out.

Obviously need to trace shareholders, if it was a quick job they would have seized thousands of properties already

It has been illegal for some time to use a shell company to own land as a foreigner in Thailand.

Under the ⁠Thai Land Code Act, foreigners are prohibited from owning land. While a company with 51% Thai ownership is technically a "Thai entity", using proxy or nominee Thai shareholders to hit that threshold violates both the Land Code Act and the Foreign Business Act. The government made it explicitly illegal.

So the question is now one of enforcement. As is obvious cracking down and penalizing foreigners in this way is cumbersome, slow and difficult. It is being tackled, but it is like immigration, a box of chocolates where you never know what you're gonna get. Phuket seems to be a real focus though.

To the actual question — yes, firms will still set companies up, but the smart money has stopped, and the more useful thing to plan is your exit, since you already own one.

On the panic: I'd agree with the earlier post that a single-property owner with a genuinely run company isn't where the attention is right now. The vulnerable structures are the paper-only ones — Thai "shareholders" who put in no capital, no real filings, no activity. So step one, whatever you decide, is make the company boringly legitimate on paper now: real annual accounts filed, AGM minutes, shareholders who can actually be shown to have contributed. A defensible company buys you time to restructure calmly instead of under a raid.

Realistic exit routes for an existing company-owned house:

• Sell the company (share transfer). Fastest paperwork, but you're handing the next foreigner the same problem — the buyer pool is shrinking and they'll expect a discount for the risk. This is the route that's getting harder to move.

• Sell the land + house freehold to a Thai buyer. Cleanest, widest market. You take the "foreigner sells low" hit, but it's a clean break and it actually closes.

• Restructure to leasehold. Wind the company down and have the landowner grant you a registered 30-year lease plus a right of superficies over the house, so you legally own the building and hold a registered lease on the land. Costs money and legal work, but it converts a fragile structure into two real, registrable rights.

• Usufruct via a partner — as you say, it's personal security of use, not ownership, and it evaporates without a partner. Fine as a supplement, not a solution.

On geography — the earlier point about Phuket/Pattaya/Samui getting more scrutiny than Bangkok/Hua Hin matches what I see. Practical upshot for selling: in the hotspots a clean freehold-to-Thai or a properly-registered leasehold will move far faster than trying to pass on a nominee company. Get your own lawyer (not the one who sold you the structure) to map the restructure before you're forced to.

The real mystery is.......why the hell would anyone buy in Thailand?........politically unstable, facing financial difficulties, corruption is endemic, laws are applied, not applied, misapplied......????

7 minutes ago, MIke B Bad said:

The real mystery is.......why the hell would anyone buy in Thailand?........politically unstable, facing financial difficulties, corruption is endemic, laws are applied, not applied, misapplied......????

Because "rent is dead money" and their Thai missus says it's a good "investment" right? 😂😂

On 7/31/2026 at 7:26 AM, scubascuba3 said:

Obviously need to trace shareholders, if it was a quick job they would have seized thousands of properties already

Not difficult to locate shareholders.

Perhaps it's set to become a quick job.

If I owned a property under these circumstances, I would take what's currently going on as a warning and liquidate whilst I still could.

13 minutes ago, MIke B Bad said:

The real mystery is.......why the hell would anyone buy in Thailand?........politically unstable, facing financial difficulties, corruption is endemic, laws are applied, not applied, misapplied......????

Buying in foreign quota makes sense, the guys who say rent don't buy usually stay in a fan room

3 minutes ago, KhunHeineken said:

Not difficult to locate shareholders.

Perhaps it's set to become a quick job.

If I owned a property under these circumstances, I would take what's currently going on as a warning and liquidate whilst I still could.

How would you liquidate a house or condo bought in thai company name?

Edited August 2Aug 2 by scubascuba3

1 minute ago, KhunHeineken said:

Because "rent is dead money" and their Thai missus says it's a good "investment" right? 😂😂

Ha! I'm sure she does.

My take is my capital is invested ......

🏠 Option 1: Buy the condo

• Purchase price: 6,000,000 baht

• Annual appreciation: 2%

Future value after 5 years:

6,624,480*

*This ignores all other costs associated with buying

---

🏡 Option 2: Rent + Invest

• Rent cost: 20,000 baht/month = 240,000 baht/year

• Total rent over 5 years: 240,000 × 5 = 1,200,000 baht

• Capital invested in stock market: 6,000,000 baht

• Annual return assumed: 8%

Future value after 5 years:

7,615,800

2 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

Buying in foreign quota makes sense, the guys who say rent don't buy usually stay in a fan room

My take is my capital is invested ......

🏠 Option 1: Buy the condo

• Purchase price: 6,000,000 baht

• Annual appreciation: 2%

Future value after 5 years:

6,624,480*

*This ignores all other costs associated with buying

---

🏡 Option 2: Rent + Invest

• Rent cost: 20,000 baht/month = 240,000 baht/year

• Total rent over 5 years: 240,000 × 5 = 1,200,000 baht

• Capital invested in stock market: 6,000,000 baht

• Annual return assumed: 8%

Future value after 5 years:

7,615,800

22 minutes ago, MIke B Bad said:

The real mystery is.......why the hell would anyone buy in Thailand?........politically unstable, facing financial difficulties, corruption is endemic, laws are applied, not applied, misapplied......????

Everyone's circumstances are different. AND, if you do it legally, then you shouldn't need to worry.

Politically unstable - BS / coups aside, that had no effect on expats, or Thais

Financial difficulties - BS / every country has

Corruption endemic - yea, so what, every country has, just hidden better

Laws are what they, for Thais, and expats protection.

I've avoided renting most of my life, as some stated, dead & wasted money. As I posted before, age and your finances should dictate if buy in to a foreign country.

At 66 yrs old (retirement age for normal folks (USA), then no, house would be out of the question, probably even a condo, since they don't really appreciate much, and I've no desire to be a landlord in TH.

Retire at 45, with enough money, and those circumstances are completely different, so yea, buy in was best choice for me. Has worked great, basically lived here rent free. On 3rd & last house, since 71 now.

Edited August 2Aug 2 by KhunLA

20 minutes ago, MIke B Bad said:

1. Capital invested in stock market: 6,000,000 baht

2. Annual return assumed: 8%

Every rent don't buy falang thinks they are George Soros 🤣🤣

4 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

Every rent don't buy falang thinks they are George Soros 🤣🤣

Yea, if they were that smart, they'd have invested wisely, before retiring, and have no money issues to worry about. Plenty of condos in the 2M price range, and if live in for 10 years, that certainly beats rent @ 20k a month.

End of 10 yrs, sell, and probably for same purchase price, if less, who cares, at least it's in you pocket, not the landlord's. Of course, you need to decide, if you want to live there for 10 yrs, but assuming you've visited enough and know the area beforehand.

Can even do it on the cheap ...

Edited August 2Aug 2 by KhunLA

25 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

Yea, if they were that smart, they'd have invested wisely, before retiring, and have no money issues to worry about. Plenty of condos in the 2M price range, and if live in for 10 years, that certainly beats rent @ 20k a month.

End of 10 yrs, sell, and probably for same purchase price, if less, who cares, at least it's in you pocket, not the landlord's. Of course, you need to decide, if you want to live there for 10 yrs, but assuming you've visited enough and know the area beforehand.

Can even do it on the cheap ...

Yeah, If they were that successful they wouldn't worry about 800k for retirement extension and a few million for a condo

12 minutes ago, MIke B Bad said:

My take is my capital is invested ......

🏠 Option 1: Buy the condo

• Purchase price: 6,000,000 baht

• Annual appreciation: 2%

Future value after 5 years:

6,624,480*

*This ignores all other costs associated with buying

---

🏡 Option 2: Rent + Invest

• Rent cost: 20,000 baht/month = 240,000 baht/year

• Total rent over 5 years: 240,000 × 5 = 1,200,000 baht

• Capital invested in stock market: 6,000,000 baht

• Annual return assumed: 8%

Future value after 5 years:

7,615,800

Spouse and I do Option 3: Buy property and also invest in the US stock market. So far it is working well. We don't have all our financial eggs in one basket, which we like. We know we are in Thailand long-term, like to own our own space to do what we want with it, and have our own furnishings, art, appliances, electronics, etc. Life is short and we just don't want to live in someone else's space--ever. Owning works for us but for others renting could certainly be the better option. There's no one size fits all.

Buying real estate--here and in the US--has been both a place to live in and also an investment, as we have sold up in both places numerous times and made a profit every time. We get the advantage of living in our own space, the advantage of saving on rent, and the advantage of our property appreciating while we are enjoying it.

We buy even if it's short-term. For example, last July, after we sold the house we were living in, we bought a new 3-bedroom pool villa, in Thai name, to live in for a year while we were planning and building a larger new house on the Darkside of Pattaya. We got a good buy and negotiated the builder to make some house changes to the house, itself, plus adding a separate laundry room and a saltwater pool. We did all the furnishings, art, and decoration.

The new house is done and we put the 3-bedroom on the market for sale at the beginning of July, got lucky, and it sold on the 31st, to a Thai buyer. Being such a short period, we only netted a modest profit but we did save about the same amount, 500,000 baht or so, in rent for the year, had we rented a similar 3-bedroom/3 bath pool villa in that area. And, we had the enjoyment of living in our own space--important for us.

1 hour ago, MIke B Bad said:

Option 1: Buy the condo

• Purchase price: 6,000,000 baht

• Annual appreciation: 2%

Future value after 5 years:

6,624,480*

No guarantee of an appreciating market. There's that much oversupply here it's a depreciating market over 5 years, and I haven't touched on any future government policy surrounding visas and foreign ownership of property laws.

It may appreciate over the longer term, say 20 years, but TiT, and we don't know what will happen next year, let alone 20 years from now.

1 hour ago, MIke B Bad said:

*This ignores all other costs associated with buying

These can not be ignored. They are real, and ongoing. They should be factored in.

1 hour ago, MIke B Bad said:

Option 2: Rent + Invest

• Rent cost: 20,000 baht/month = 240,000 baht/year

• Total rent over 5 years: 240,000 × 5 = 1,200,000 baht

• Capital invested in stock market: 6,000,000 baht

• Annual return assumed: 8%

Future value after 5 years:

7,615,800

That's why I chose Option 2.

There are condo's in my block that are similar to the one I live in. I know how much they sold for. I ran the numbers and the purchase price cash, left back in my home country, at 5%, more than covers the rent, with no ongoing costs, and no risk, with my money at call. Why would I bother buying here?

52 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

Every rent don't buy falang thinks they are George Soros 🤣🤣

ANZ bank is one of "The Big 4" banks in Australia, so they are going no where, and the Australian government still guarantees deposits up to a certain amount. They currently offer 5.30% in a term deposit.

Scroll down.

https://www.anz.com.au/personal/bank-accounts/

My fund makes more than 5.30%, but that's a rock solid guaranteed 5.30%.

The other thing to consider is the time line of life expectancy. One would need to live X amount of years before the buy v rent goes financially in the buy favor, and at 5.30% interest, and with associated proper costs, those amount of years one must live to see a financial reward between buy v rent pushes out past the average life expectancy.