Thia Company To Buy House

[pointofview]

I have recently transfered my thai company (used to buy a house) to the complete control of my wife:

Well, she is 94% with 6 nominees of 1%. I am sick to death of all the bull~~~~ so thats that.

However, my first thought was to actually transfer the house to my wife and close the company untill i was made aware of the tax costs etc. - related to land registry. The company transfer was quite simple and cost a nominal fee. The only down side is my wife has to pay for a balance sheet each year - and when she decides to close the company she will have to transfer the property to herself and pay all the relevant land registry taxes etc.

Having went this route i realized that ferangs owning property using a thai company can be a bad thing for the land registry, with regard to collecting transfer and sales tax : If a ferang wants to sell his house held in a company name to another ferang then he just needs to transfer the shares to the buyer - this could go on and on therefore denying the land registry their cut. Of course most, if not all ferangs would prefer to buy without all the company bull. Is this not why the thais are looking at the company route of buying propertys?

[dsfbrit]

However, my first thought was to actually transfer the house to my wife and close the company untill i was made aware of the tax costs etc. - related to land registry. The company transfer was quite simple and cost a nominal fee. The only down side is my wife has to pay for a balance sheet each year - and when she decides to close the company she will have to transfer the property to herself and pay all the relevant land registry taxes etc...

...

Is this not why the thais are looking at the company route of buying propertys?

Agreed, it is very expensive, Taxes on transfering, taxes on lease, shutting down the company etc... making a will for the wife to say if she dies the place is yours etc... I estimated on my place which is only 'worth' about 5-6 Million Baht I would need to pay in total 300,000 - 400,000 Baht.

It makes no difference if she shuts the company down now or in 10 years time though - there is no 'tapering' relief to these taxes.

So I have left my home in my name for now and will pay the 15000 baht a year for the balance sheet(s).

I did not know the Thais were looking into this method to own land - your wife now owns the company/land and can do what she wants with it. I suppose if she sells the land/house in the coming years then it may be cost effective. I would need to sell the house within the next 20 years or so for it to be cost effective ie: 15000 * 20 years = 300,000 baht as a rough calculation.

[tjo o tjim]

I was curious about a similar type of arrangement-- more of a land trust that land owners can transfer their property into and lease back to improve liquidity but still take advantage of appreciation of the land through increased land trust value. Could even be friendly to farang "ownership" with stipulations that leases must be renewed for shareholders...

Is this done in Thailand at all? I know the trust would need at least 51% thai ownership; I'd expect it to be more like 80%.