Change Land Title To Chanote Help Please

[Sontaya]

Hello

My husband is Thai and he owns some land in Udon Thani. To be honest this land has been nothing but a headache but it is important to him. His family have now been told that we have until April to change the registration of the land to Chanote or the government will claim the land. This sounds a bit far fetched to me but what do I know? Presuming this is true how can we go about changing the registration to Chanote without being there in person? We live in England and can not afford to fly out to do this. Can someone else do this on our behalf? Maybe a lawyer? Also does anyone know how much this could cost?

Any advice would be much appreciated

Thank you

[OKF]

What is the current land title?

I remember 2 years ago when I asked a builder how much it would cost to change from Nor Sor3 to chanote he quoted approx. 50.000 Baht

[ZOOKA]

Hi

Check out

www. isaanlawyers.com

Im sure they can assist and have a good reputation with Ex pats.

If you give them the power of attorney Im sure they can change it for you.

Good Luck

[jamescollister]

Hi

I'm afraid you will not be able to change the title to Chanote in your husbands name. I have just completed a change of titile. but the wife and I were in OZ when the paper work had to be signed and she had to be there in person with ID and house book etc. Ended up having her father sign in his name. Maybe a lawyer can think of a way around the system, but that will cost more money. Jim

[gamini]

something sounds wrong here. You can only turn a Nor Sor 3 into a chanote. But you must have owned the land 10 yeaRS. iF you do it yourself it should cost only a couple of thousand baht. If you do have a Nor Sor 3 you are under no obligation to change it to a chanote, but most people do because they can use it for collatreral to borrow money. If you have any other deeds than the above, the situation is very tricky. People might tell you that you can get a chanote for a certain "fee" but after spending a lot of money you still won't get one. It is also possible that someone in the land department is pulling something on you. We have 25 bacres and have been trying to get a chanote for 15 years and have forked out about 100,000 baht to people who said they can do it. But we still have no chanote.

[Sontaya]

Hi

Thanks for all your posts and the recommendation for Isaan Lawyers. I am so confused and frustrated about this as I feel so helpless being over here. I wish the information was available on the internet like it is in the west. I don't know what to believe anymore. My sister in law said that the governement were going to take the land if we didn't change the title by April. We phoned another sister who said it was true as her husband has had the same threat from the land department. But I am reluctant to believe anything without hearing it from the horses mouth.

We have had the land in our name for 8 years but before that it was in my father in laws name for almost 20 years.

We hardly paid anything for the land and it seemed like a good investment and a good source of income for the family. But actually it has been nothing but trouble and I would be quite happy for the government to take it off us at this point. Obviously my husband doesn't share this view and is pushing for us to borrow money from the bank to sort it all out.

Thanks again for taking the time to help me

[donx]

I understand your difficulty in getting a clear answer. I found the same to be the case many times whenever I asked for details about almost anything associated with my in-laws. My recommendation to you is find out (if you can) what type of land title the land has. Much of the land where my wife is from is basically some form of squatters rights. Thais buy and sell this land amongst themselves all the time. Recently, the local land department has been working on issuing Chanote land titles for all of this mostly agricultural land. A few years ago my sister-in-law said someone came around to upgrade one of my wife's properties. Because she wasn't around it was not upgraded. But it also wasn't taken away from her. I remember my wife sending some money, a copy of her Thai ID and maybe some other documents to her sister, but I never found out if that did any good. My guess is that the land was put on the back of the list of those properties that need to be upgraded.

Knowing how all of this goes, my advice is leave this to your husband to deal with. All you can do is make him upset. Let him try to find a way to upgrade the land. If he fails then he can't blame you. If you try to get involved, you are going to be the one blamed.

My gut feeling is your husband is going to find a way to go back home to get this taken care of. I suggest you prepare yourself for this probability and make the best of it. Land to rural Thais is very important to them, especially if it has been in the family for generations.

[bina]

sor kor 1 must be filed by february 8! to start the chanote process and after that, there wont be any more chances (although , this being thailand, things change along with changes in governament) and from what ive read, and what has been discussed on the forum, its going to be a long long long ride .......do as i did, go to the thairath newspaper and do a search for sor kor 1 (got hubby to do that) and there is a good answer there...in thai.

im figuring that hubby's' siblings got the better deal as they got the land thats been mortgaged out but with chanote already, we go ta good piece of sor kor1 land but never may get the chanote, and may have to go back to growing rice in it.....

bina

israel

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Chanote-Sale...me-t325807.html

[Changian]

OP - If you are getting conflicting info from various secodn hand sources. Why not just get your husband to phone the local Land office and check direct with them what the procedure is . . . as they are the ones in the know.

[MikeyIdea]

OP, bina is a serious poster so check up what she writes immediately!

As to the cost... My wife's father (in Loei) got his land upgraded about 6 months ago, can't remember which title he had before but it was one that could not be sold on, and he got it upgraded to a chanote tii dinn. I remember him saying that it needs to be done anyway, they will lose the land otherwise. Now it seems that that's the same situation as the OP's husband.

My wife's father paid very little money to do this, less than a few thousand bath even and it was not difficult at all, no lawyer needed. I recommend calling the land office in the morning, they're normally pretty knowledgeable there so they should be able to tell.

The land may not have been anything but trouble in the past, but a chanote of the right sort will make it a valuable problem... A gift to your kids when they turn 18 maybe

Act quickly!

[bina]

this latest decision comes as a followup from land problems in the higher echelons and thailand is interested in changing the rules, so has given feb. 8 this year as the final date for changing certain types of land over to chanote ti din... and from the article in thai, there are thousands and thousands of people waiting alreadyw ith applications in place and they are way way behind in processing.... but as long as the applications and land fees/taxes etc are paid, the applications are being processed, albeit slowly. we've been waiting for 9 mnths, we gave MIL power of attorney for this specific purpose...

wait and see

bina

israel

and heads up to tod-daniels that sent me the link to the article in english

thanx mikeyidea

[Sontaya]

Thank you so much for all your kind replies. I feel much calmer today than I did yesterday! Bina certainly does know what she is talking about and pointed me in the direction of information published in Bangkok Post last week. It states that the government may take your land if the registration is Por Bor Tor but not if it is Nor Sor 3 so it looks like we are safe. We did look up the Land department website for some information and that stated that it coss 50 baht per Rai to transfer the title deed.

Donx - thank you for your wise words but unfortuantely I don't get off that easily! If ever I try to just let my husband deal with things in his own way he gets upset with me for not helping him. We have a 7 year old son and for all my efforts not to spoil him and to teach him to look after himself I accidently turned my husband in to a spoilt brat!

My father in law phoned the other month to ask my husband when he was going to come back to thailand to put the farm in the names of his brothers and sisters. This upsets my husband as he wants to keep the land for our son or sell it in our old age etc. We give all the proceeds from the farm to the family plus send them money every month but the problem is that they are a little bit jealous which I guess is understandable.

Thanks again

Edited February 1, 2010 by Sontaya