Divorce, Land Vauations And Mortgages

[James53]

I am currenty divorcing my Thai wife in the UK. We have a business running a resort and we are arguing about what it is worth. At the land registry the value is what we paid for it but a year ago somebody made an unsolicited offer to buy it for far more than we paid for it.

Now in the court here my wife is saying it is worth the lower land registry figure.

The court wants a valuation but how do you get a valuation in Thailand. I have phoned the real estate agents but they are only interested in Pattaya, Samui and Phuket.

I don't know who to approach to get this valuation.

Now further to that the soon to be ex's barrister comes up with what seems to be a surreal offer that if I pay the ex a fraction of the money that the land is worth she will just walk away and hand the business to me, well I put her share in another Thai person's name.

I can't think what the catch is. Mayber she has mortgaged it so how do I find this out? I was in the land registry in December ensuring that she couldn't get duplicate deeds and there was nothing there about a mortgage.

What is worring is that I learnt today that 3 bungalows caught fire. Now that smacks of intimidation so what is going on.

[quiksilva]

Only ever use an SEC licensed valuer, and remember that even then not all are equally capable.

There's a link on the front page of the Stock Exchange Commission of Thailand's website:

http://www.sec.or.th/view/view.jsp?lang=en

This is a useful site too:

http://www.thaiappraisal.org/English/Practices/Default.htm

Edited January 22, 2009 by quiksilva