Getting Land To Build On

[unforgiven]

I'm not married yet and no children. Is there a way I can aquire land and build on it (I know I can lease it for 30 years) and still leave it to my half thai children without my wife or her family involved?

[g00dgirl]

I am looking for a solution to the same problem. People will reply, you can not own land here, rent here and buy land in another country where you can own it in your name.

But what if you do not want to waste money on rent anymore at all, don't want to pay money to someone else, you want something here that will be yours and later belong to your child?

Some people will reply, better waste money on rent than on buying land here, once you get ripped off or the country denies you entry/visa or the country becomes impossible to live in due to politics/economy or once the Thai(s) who really own your land don't agree with you anymore, you would have wasted much more than just rent.

But what if you are willing to take those risks, have some money to part with and want to give it a try anyway, what is the best way to do it?

What if you don't want to travel to another country to buy something there, don't want to own anything in another country be it just for tax reasons, or already know you will inherit property in another country eventually.

There have been many conflicting posts about putting land in a half Thai babies name, I am still not sure of all the details. It was posted that it is possible at any age, but then since the baby can not sign anything before being of legal age it would be impossible to sell, rent out or do anything else with the land, maybe even getting building permits? It was said that the only way would be do get a court ruling for everything once it's known its in the best interest for the child. If that is true that one could put the land in the babies name but then possibly not build on it, it would not be practical? I don't know if the above is true or not. In another post someone said only a child over 6 can own land. Does anyone know what is true and how it really works?

Then there are the other options, lease, usufruct or both combined. Then I saw someone posted that some land office declined to issue an usufruct. Usufruct, lease, still no really the same as owning, having land stay in the family in the long term unless you trust your Thai partner enough, put the land in her/his name, register a lifetime usufruct in your name, or a 30 year lease, what would be better? Usufruct because if you ever leave you would have the right to rent your property out and get some money from it?

In the end, if you have had it with Thailand and you decide to leave, you are having a hard time to sell the land and get your money back because that right to sell is what you did not get with your lease or with your usufruct. You probably have a Thai person owning the land who might not agree to sell it and give you the money back.

You can't take land / house with you, immovable property. So you should be as sure as possible that you will be happy living on your land for a long time to come or that you would be ok with renting it out if you are no longer there.

[chiangmaibruce]

I'm not married yet and no children. Is there a way I can aquire land and build on it (I know I can lease it for 30 years) and still leave it to my half thai children without my wife or her family involved?

The short answer to your question is NO. Your only option is the 40 million baht investment option (refer another current thread). If you don't have a lazy 40 mill in your drawer, then rent until you father a child and then buy land in their name

[chiangmaibruce]

GG, Reading your post, you have pretty much answered your own questions. There is no magic solution, you either accept the significant risks and/or downsides of the current Thai regulatory regime or you don't proceed. I will just comment on one point in more detail:

There have been many conflicting posts about putting land in a half Thai babies name, I am still not sure of all the details. It was posted that it is possible at any age, but then since the baby can not sign anything before being of legal age it would be impossible to sell, rent out or do anything else with the land, maybe even getting building permits? It was said that the only way would be do get a court ruling for everything once it's known its in the best interest for the child. If that is true that one could put the land in the babies name but then possibly not build on it, it would not be practical? I don't know if the above is true or not. In another post someone said only a child over 6 can own land. Does anyone know what is true and how it really works?

No, not that many "conflicting posts" on this issue. What there have been are accounts of discrepancies of how the issue is interpreted/handled by different individual staff of different regional land dept offices. Ditto for usufructs, for visa, for opening bank accounts and so on. The law is the law, you yourself can look this up in sites like thailawonline.com. Read sections 1574, 1575, 1577 of the Thai Civil and Commercial Code. BUT it is a fact of life here that officer discretion is liberally applied (for various reasons) and subsequent enforcement is selective and patchy. Short answer is that you can do it, but there are downsides and risks .... as per the multitude of other 'solutions' to the Thai property laws you can read about elsewhere in Thaivisa.

To the extent that there might be one best way to buy/hold/inhabit Thai land, then this would be largely specific to each individual based on their particular individual circumstances ... as might be confided to, and considered by, a professional advisor.

Edited June 21, 2009 by chiangmaibruce

[Artisi]

I'm not married yet and no children. Is there a way I can aquire land and build on it (I know I can lease it for 30 years) and still leave it to my half thai children without my wife or her family involved?

I think the easy answer is NO - you aren't married, you don't have any children with Thai nationality, you can't own land so who would be the owner?

[geordie]

Just to comment on the age of the child before they can own land. My daughter will be 6 in October, i bought some land for her before i divorced her mother so the land went into her mothers name as is the usual. We made a contract out with my lawyer that if we ever divorced the land would solely go into my daughters name.

I divorced her last September so my daughter was only 4 at the time of the divorce, i showed the Amphur where we were getting divorced the contract, they would not sign the divorce papers until the land had been put into my daughters name. The land office was in the next building so off we went. The land was put into my daughters name and because she could not sign the title deed her finger print was used instead.

Geordie

[FlavesEnt]

So the child does not need to reach a certain age before the land can be in there name?

[thaiwanderer]

The key problem for the OP is the acquisition of the land in the first place, you can only pass on what is yours. You can lease land for 30 years and own the building upon it. This you can leave to your children. Problems arise when you are hoping to circumvent and or stretch your legal rights of ownership in the first place.

Where there are Thai children you can have them as land owners etc. and then use any or a combinaton of lease, superficies and or usufruct. However whilst this may take care of the inheritance aspect it may equally weaken the farangs own security of tenure.

An appropriately constructed corporate structure with thai and offshore elements together with a lease can probably best take care of the farang and the children's inheritance if it is robust enough.

Or people could just get real and understand exactly what real estate they are being offered in the first place and make their decisions accordingly (a villa on land with a 30 year lease is not the same as with freehold ownership) and not dream that they can pass on what is not rightfully theirs in the first place (just because you want it to be yours doesn't mean it is).

[samILO]

How it normally would work is that your wife would buy the land and gifts the land to the child of yours and hers, this is recorded at the land department and thus your child is the owner but can not legally yet sell or buy or lease out property or sign any agreements, thus the parents (as legal guardians) would have to administer such property, but in order to sell for example a judge would have to decide on behalf of the child and approve any such sale. As stated before no wife and no child, not possible to do such transaction.