Perhaps a daft question, but just to put my mind at rest, is it necessary to do a title deed search when the property is owned by the bank? Wouldn't have thought so but Muang Thai has a tendency to surprise when one lets one's guard down

Cheers

My experience has all been in one village and has all been with undeveloped land and all have had chanote titles....and my observations and experience are that at least with these plots of land a title search is not needed at all. All of the key issues that you would want to find out about are contained right on the deed itself and the land office has a copy of the official deed so you need to go see their copy and see what is there. I'm not sure about any issues related to back taxes so you might want to check with the tax people to see if they are all paid or not.

I may be wrong on this so if anyone knows of some issue that a title search would uncover that are not on the chanote or at the tax office then I would be most appreciative is they would post here as I would be interested to learn about these so that I can be more prepared for future purchases (if any).

Chownah

I'd check. This is the single most important aspect of info on a piece of property. I'd rather be satisfied that the check turn out no defect. It is relatively easy to get this done anyway, so why not?

I'd check. This is the single most important aspect of info on a piece of property. I'd rather be satisfied that the check turn out no defect. It is relatively easy to get this done anyway, so why not?

What things get checked in a title search? How much does it cost? How long does it take? What happens if the information they come up with is wrong and it causes a problem?

Chownah

Thanks for the replies. Straightforward and quick enough to have the search done through the lawyers - see below from Sunbelt, chownah.

"Our professional fee is 6,500 Baht for the title deed search and to check the percentage of foreign ownership is not more than 49%. We check the details of the land with the Land Office to verify if the land for the project actually belongs to the developer as well as any mortgage on the land. We also do a due diligence search for the corporate and financial information of the company who is the developer of the project. In this regard, we check the corporate documents and balance sheets. We as well verify who are the shareholders and directors. If the development project has a loan with a bank or financial institution, we will point this out to discuss this with the bank or finance company concerned. We also check if the developer of the project has applied for the construction permits with the “Civil Works Office” and also check with the Office of the Environmental Protection, to check if these permits have already been granted to the developer."

While I'd be happy to go this route, if indeed the banks can't be trusted; if it's simply a case of nipping into the land office (5 mins from here) and looking at the Chanote with them to reveal all then that could be even easier. Would still be interested to know if the bank would/could actually sell a property on knowing that monies were owed on it...