I have a legal question for you specialists:

When land is sold, the transfer has to be legalized at the Land Office, right?

AFAIK, buyer and seller have to come and sign.

Can the seller appoint an attorney to sign in his name and place?

The owner can get someone to act for him ( power of attorney ) but, the document has to be notarized by either a Thai embassy or notary public along with certain forms which can be downloaded or obtained from a Thai lawyer or real estate office and notarized as well . To be a power of attorney the person has to present a valid passport and have some forms filled out and be present at the land office to make the transfer to the purchaser.

Thank you - excellent information that matches my research on the matter.

Has the attorney to be Thai person?

Legally all attorneys in Thailand are Thai, any westerner saying that he is working as an attorney is either lying or working without a valid work permit

You don’t legally need a lawyer or a Thai person to do this but you would not be smart if you chose someone who was not absolutely 100% fluent in reading and writing Thai, not to mention speaking Thai of course. I must also strongly recommend that you do use a (Thai) lawyer if you are not going to be there in person

Sorry, I misphrased my last question...

The "attorney" was meant to be the person mentioned in the power of attorney, i.e. the legal representative of the seller.

There is no legal requirement that person holding power of atterney must be Thai but if he is not, then you are creating problems for yourself

I am not exactly sure what papers the land office require (and it probably varies between some of them) but whatever the do want must be translated to Thai and legalised either by the legalisation department, department of commence, foreign affairs office at Cheang Wattana Rd or possibly by a Thai embassy. Why create problems?

we arranged for my MIL to be the POA at the land office itself, they did it , notarized it, etc....

bina

israel