Illegal land occupation

[george]

Clearer guidelines could attract more Scandinavians to invest in Thailand

BANGKOK: -- The Thai-Swedish Chamber of Commerce hopes its best-practice guidelines for the Thai property industry will help Scandinavian buyers gain more understanding about legal and ownership issues in Thailand.

There are approximately 25,000 Scandinavians currently holding properties in Thailand and about 10,000 of them are Swedish.

The chamber found that many Scandinavian buyers were confused about legal issues and also reported some cheating by both local and foreign developers.

Best Practices Guidelines within the Thailand Property Market, launched yesterday and available at 2,500 baht a copy, is intended to help educate foreigners interested in buying second homes in Thailand in all related aspects from legal issues to visa regulations, purchase or lease of land, home or condominium, checklists, due diligence, finance, currency, taxation, building construction and insurance.

Lennart Linner, the Swedish ambassador to Thailand, said the health-care business should have potential in the future as Thailand is known for medical treatment and surgery but the country still lacked facilities to support post-surgery patients during their rehabilitation.

He said Sweden was still confident in the fundamentals of Thailand and it did not issue a security warning for its travellers during the recent airport seizures because it did not consider the problem extreme enough to initiate such an announcement.

John Svengren, the chamber's executive director, said the property market in Thailand was still good, so everyone in the industry should help restore confidence among foreign buyers. He said the chamber would extend its support to both sellers and buyers and promote networking.

"We still have an optimistic outlook and believe in Thailand. What we need is stability and practicability in order to restore the confidence in the property market for Thailand," he said.

Mr Svengren said that Scandinavian tourists still fell good about Thailand and he was confident that the market would come back.

"The turning point that brought more Scandinavian tourists to Thailand was the tsunami," he said, adding that second-home areas that appealed to Swedes included Hua Hin, Bang Saen, Koh Chang, Koh Samui and Ranong.

Ole Fredrik Hamre, general manager of private banking wealth management of teh Swedish bank SEB, which helps foreigners buy property overseas, agreed with the idea of a guidebook as Thailand was popular among Scandinavians.

In his experiences, he found that language was the first barrier to owning a property in Thailand while confusion about ownership was the second issue.

-- Bangkok Post 2008-12-09