Thinking Of Buying A House

[chucky66]

As the title suggest Im thinking of buying a house in Thailand but then I suddenly thought...What happens if I want to sell my £50,000 home in a few years time? Would I be able to take the money from the sale out of Thailand and back into my UK bank?

Is repatriation of your money back to the UK difficult or straight forward?

C66*

[pnustedt]

I think that you need to be more explicite on how you will purchase the house - unless you are Thai you cannot own land, but in my experience money and Thailand is one way traffic!

[chucky66]

I think that you need to be more explicite on how you will purchase the house - unless you are Thai you cannot own land, but in my experience money and Thailand is one way traffic!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Okay...sorry. The usual way foreigners in Thailand try to buy more than a condominium in Thailand..... I intend to set up a Thai company and use this to purchase the house/land.

I know that with condominiums foreigners can repatriate their money from the sale but I cant find any information of repatriating money on houses bought via a Thai company. My guess is that there are a lot of foreigners who are buying up real estate in Thailand and not thinking about how they would ever get their money back to their country of origin should they need to!

Any ideas?

[Dragonman]

I think that you need to be more explicite on how you will purchase the house - unless you are Thai you cannot own land, but in my experience money and Thailand is one way traffic!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Okay...sorry. The usual way foreigners in Thailand try to buy more than a condominium in Thailand..... I intend to set up a Thai company and use this to purchase the house/land.

I know that with condominiums foreigners can repatriate their money from the sale but I cant find any information of repatriating money on houses bought via a Thai company. My guess is that there are a lot of foreigners who are buying up real estate in Thailand and not thinking about how they would ever get their money back to their country of origin should they need to!

Any ideas?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Repatriation of money has been made easier over the last decade. As long as you have a thai bank account and can prove the necessary trail for the cash there should be no problems under the Exchange Control Act. It will also be necessary to prove that all taxes have been paid up to the time the transfer will take place. Your lawyer in the Company set up should be able to clarify this as it is likely to be a requirement by Ministry of Finance and Bank of Thailand.

[Sunbelt Asia]

Would I be able to take the money from the sale out of Thailand and back into my UK bank?

Yes. Just to be on the safe side, get a Foreign Exchange Certificate when you transfer the money in. ( As some banks will request this when transferring $ out)

www.lawyer.th.com

[Buff-horns]

yep its usually all one way. kiss your money goodbye but enjoy .

[stevehaigh]

Would I be able to take the money from the sale out of Thailand and back into my UK bank?

Yes. Just to be on the safe side, get a Foreign Exchange Certificate when you transfer the money in. ( As some banks will request this when transferring $ out)

www.lawyer.th.com

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

i think you need to transfer a minimum of $US20,000 to get this document from the bank. you may hear the name "Thor tor 3" which was the old name for the document.

steve

[slimdog]

The answer to your question is Yes, however there are several pitfalls for which you will need some good legal and Proffesional advise.

The biggest pitfall is working on the assumption that you can actually sell your house. Thai's in general, don't buy 2nd hand property, partly because they prefer new, partly because the property companies can either provided or set up a mortgage and lastly because of superstition and the fear the house is haunted or just unlucky. This limits your potential buyers quite considerably to either foreigners or investors.

Because you purchased the property through a Thai company (albeit your own), you are left with really only one option, and that would be to sell the company along with it's assets (House). I am not sure if as a minority shareholder you would even have access to the companies bank account.

What I am trying to point out is that there maybe problems. But, just as there are solutions to purchasing land by a foreigner, there are probably similar solutions to selling such land, but make sure you are fully aware prior to purchase.