Ownership By Affidavit

[ade100]

My Thai girlfriend and I are in the process of buying a house. I will pay 50% in cash and she will be getting a mortgage for the remaining 50%. But then I will pay the mortgage repayments.

My lawyer has advised that because there is a mortgage involved, the 30 year lease option will not be viable. Instead she has suggested using a legal agreement between my girlfriend and I,an affidavit. This will mean that my girlfriend will own the house on my behalf. She can't sell it and if I choose to sell it, the proceedings will revert back to me

I haven't heard much about this solution on the various websites and forums. Anyone any experience of it?

Thanks

[MeaMaximaCulpa]

Since nobody else has offered any advice, I shall do my best (just to up my post count. Ha-ha, just joking!).

But if I were you, I would get some competent legal advice before proceeding, for instance Sunbelt seems to know a lot about these issues.

The affidavit you mention will most probably not hold up in a court of law, since it is obvious the you own the house/land via your g/f acting merely as a proxy. Therefore I believe this will be illegal.

I have heard that one can jointly own a property with a Thai spouse, but this is also not a straight forward way. Check it out.

You can of course own the house, and she can own the land. But a bit messy, if she would want to sell the land, or you want to sell the house.

The 30 year lease or usufruct problem with morgage could be that until the morgage is paid back, the bank is the formal owner (not your g/f), and will be holding the chanote. And would probably not want to be a lessor...

Just my two cents worth.

Good luck!

[ade100]

Thanks for the advice. Yes I will get advice from another lawyer.

[sleepyjohn]

Thanks for the advice. Yes I will get advice from another lawyer.

How about finding a girlfriend with a house?

[ade100]

Darn! Why didn't I think of that?

[Maestro]

Thanks for the advice. Yes I will get advice from another lawyer.

When talking to the lawyer, ask him about usufruct (right to use) for life, with the right to transfer the usufruct without requiring the owner’s permission.

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Maestro

[Thailand Tiger]

My Thai girlfriend and I are in the process of buying a house. I will pay 50% in cash and she will be getting a mortgage for the remaining 50%. But then I will pay the mortgage repayments.

My lawyer has advised that because there is a mortgage involved, the 30 year lease option will not be viable. Instead she has suggested using a legal agreement between my girlfriend and I,an affidavit. This will mean that my girlfriend will own the house on my behalf. She can't sell it and if I choose to sell it, the proceedings will revert back to me

I haven't heard much about this solution on the various websites and forums. Anyone any experience of it?

Thanks

Having someone hold an asset on your behalf comes under trust law which Thailand does not have (though it does seem to be quite a common practise amongst Thais where it really does rely on trust as there would be no legal recourse if the legal owner decided to deprive the beneficial owner of the asset).

As mentioned by a previous poster, Thai law does not allow a Thai to hold land on behalf of a foreigner. All this being the case, any document you have will not be enforceable in the courts.

It might however be viable to register a charge over the property (in the same way that a bank does). You might not be able to do this whilst the bank holds a charge, but it might be possible to have a contract whereby the legal owner acknowledges the charge (effectively an unregistered charge) and register it once the bank no longer has a charge. You might of course have to consider using an entity other than yourself in order to make the charge enforceable and be able to take possession of the property. Just a thought...good luck finding a lawyer who understands it...!