My Thai wife owns a company, which in turn owns two properties. We would like to transfer one property (land) out of the company and into wifes direct ownership with seperate chanote. Were told by the land office that it's illegal and were advise to sell it to a third party first so later the third party could sell it to my wife. She would have to pay all the fees and taxes twice! It all makes no sense.

An advice as to legality of such a transaction is appreciated.

Edited September 10, 200916 yr by somtamman

I believe that you were told the truth. Others here that have transfered land from a company to their wife's name reported having issues when their wife was also one of the shareholders (or officer?) of the company. In those cases I believe that their wife had to withdrawal ownership/officership of the company before the land could be sold to their wife.

My Thai wife owns a company, which in turn owns two properties. We would like to transfer one property (land) out of the company and into wifes direct ownership with seperate chanote. Were told by the land office that it's illegal and were advise to sell it to a third party first so later the third party could sell it to my wife. She would have to pay all the fees and taxes twice! It all makes no sense.

An advice as to legality of such a transaction is appreciated.

Dear Donx,

It is not illegal to sell property from a company to its director, the problem though is that the director of the company can not sign property transfer to herself as she would sign in the position as seller and buyer, though being one time a juristic person the land officers sees such as conflict of interest. Therefore a simple transaction of change or adding a director with full signatory power could do the trick after which you should be able to trasnfer ownership from the company to your wife as private person as a transfer of ownership (sale) as a company only.

Sunbelt Asia, one of the sponsors of TV, sent me this when I was moving the land/house into a Usufruct. I decided not to make the Usufruct and to leave the house and land in the company name for several reasons. One reason being the fact I would have to put everything in the name of a Thai for about a month whilst the Usufruct was set up. This meant the company was not mine and I had to trust the Thais to sign the Usufruct paperwork

I paid Sunbelt to do some other work for me, so I know the information they provided was well researched and is correct.

Anyway, this is part of the email that Sunbelt sent me:

Link topic : in order to transfer the house and land, you and your wife must be removed from the company (you would have to be removed from the directorship and the shareholder and your wife would have to be removed from the shareholder status - as the land office would interpret that there is a conflict of interest). Therefore, you must find yourself a Thai who you could trust to temporary succeed you and your wife in the company.

Then later on you and your wife would be place back into the company.

Edited September 13, 200916 yr by dsfbrit

IMHO there would be no problem if its a genuine transaction, market value actually paid and in the best interests of the company (which itself is a genuine trading company).

So, on that basis is there a problem?