House V Company Or Thai Wife

[Rob5060]

I know both ways of buying a house are possibly under threat but what do you Guys think is the safer option

Cheers

[CWMcMurray]

From my understanding, there is no threat to making it illegal for a Thai women married to a foreigner to buy a home.

The only rumors I have heard is based upon using a "nominee" to buy land would be investigated. To me, that means company with nominee shareholders... but I could be wrong.

[Arkady]

A lot of nationalistic noise is being made about foreigners buying land through nominees, both corporate shareholders and Thai wives, mainly in the context of beach front land in Phuket and rice farming in other parts of the country. The company route which was easily done for decades has been under scrutiny since 2006 and is much more difficult to do now and probably quite risky, even if you can. Added to that is the obligation to file accounts and tax returns with the associated costs and hassle involved. If they ever really crack down, companies set up obviously just to hold land for foreigners will be very easy to spot and will be sitting ducks. So not to be recommended these days.

The Thai wife route is much less clear cut, since Thai women married to foreigners had their right to own land restored in 1999 as the previous ban on them (and their children) owning land was deemed to be sexual discrimination under the 1997 Constitution. Of course there are a lot of recidivists who would like to effectively revert to the opre-1999 status quo by classifying purchases of land by Thai wives married to foreigners as illegal nominee purchases, unless the Thai women can prove they earned or inherited the money used to buy the land or it was a gift from another Thai national. This view is, however, contradicted by a ministerial regulation of 1999 that requires Thai and foreign couples to sign a declaration that the money used for land purchase is the Thai spouse's alone and the land will not form part of the conjugal property. The ministerial regulation was issued expressly to save Land Department officials from having to examine the Thai spouse's source of funds and ensure that the foreign spouse cannot get access to the land, even in the event of divorce.

In view of this latest outburst of mindless nationalism the question now is whether the ministerial regulations will be amended to require examination of the Thai spouse's source of funds and the preventation of transfers in the event that the evidence points to a gift by as foreign spouse. This seems quite hard to do, since it cuts into the rights of Thais married to foreigners to receive a gift from their spouse and spend it to the benefit of their families in the same way as Thais married to Thais can. Since this would affect almost exclusively women, it would be seen by women's groups as discriminatory, as was the pre-1999 ban on women married to foreigners. If you ask me, it is unlikely to happen as it would be a can of worms for any government that tried it due to the sexual discrimination angle in a society where women are now more vocal than they used to me. Farmers probably wouldn't actually like it much as many hope either to sell their land for a good price to some one with a foreign husband or that their daughters will marry foreigners and buy them land and in many rural districts foreign spouses seem for better or for worse to be the almost the sole source of liquidity. However, nothing is impossible in Amazing Thailand.

Actually conducting a witch hunt against Thai-foreign couples who have already purchased land and signed the declaration seems even less likely to me. Apart from anything else they would be penalized for having meekly complied with ministerial regulations and signed the declaration which would make them the easiest to spot. I would guess that the worst case would be that it would be made impossible for the Thai spouses to register future purchases if they can't prove they used their own funds and that those who purchased land without signing the declaration would be at risk, although it would be hard to track them all down.

I would conclude that it is still OK to give your Thai wife to buy land, if you both sign the declaration. Although this might not continue to the case in the future, it seems to me extremely unlikely that purchases legally made this way will somehow be decalared illegal in future, whatever else changes.

Edited September 8, 2009 by Arkady

[thaiwanderer]

I know both ways of buying a house are possibly under threat but what do you Guys think is the safer option

Cheers

Buy (at the right price!) a house in your own name on a 30 year lease in your own name

(by all means include an option to renew etc. but do not rely on them and do not factor that in when deciding if the price is right).

Other ownership options (company, thai wife, other nominee etc.) are more expensive due to the false illusion of greater ownership / closer to 'freehold' but are in fact less secure. So you would be paying more for less and have less peace of mind (and breaking the law obviously).