Thai Govt Urged To Be Lenient With Innocent Intruders: Land Encroachment

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Govt urged to be lenient with innocent intruders

CHANIKARN PHUMHIRUN

THE NATION

BANGKOK: -- The Office of the Ombudsman has recommended the Cabinet review the true intentions of people accused of encroaching on land first before it takes any legal action.

The ombudsman suggested that officials be lenient with those who are honest and strict with those who are deliberately encroaching upon state property. According to the recommendations, people who were living in national forests well before the land law took effect on December 1, 1954 should not be seen as encroaching.

"They should be allowed to continue living there," Ombudsman Siracha Charoenpanij said yesterday.

He was disclosing details of the recommendations submitted to the Cabinet on April 27. The Office of the Ombudsman has spent about eight months looking into the alleged encroachment on forest reserves as well as land plots allocated to landless farmers in Nakhon Ratchasima's Wang Nam Kheow district.

Siracha said those who had unknowingly settled down in areas marked out as forests or farmers-only zones should be dealt with leniently.

"Give them time, perhaps 15 years, to adjust and relocate," he said, adding that those who are allowed to stay should not encroach into other areas.

Siracha said the Office of the Ombudsman believed that people who started encroaching on forestland after the Cabinet issued a widely-publicised resolution barring encroachment on June 30, 1998 should be punished.

He said harsher punishment would be meted out to investors who had bought encroaching land because they clearly had a dishonest intent.

Siracha said the main principle was that the government should check on how people came to encroach upon state land.

"Launch an investigation to determine their intention," he advised.

He said he had been asking chiefs of the Department of Special Investigation and the Royal Forest Department to suspend legal proceedings against those suspected of encroaching at least until the Cabinet takes a clear stance on his office's recommendations. Though he admitted it was not mandatory for the Cabinet to follow the recommendations.

-- The Nation 2012-05-04

[David48]

According to the recommendations, people who were living in national forests well before the land law took effect on December 1, 1954 should not be seen as encroaching.

At face value that might seem appropriate, if say they were 20 when they 'nicked' a bit of State forest they would be 78 years old now.

But when they turned large tracts of state owned land into commercial enterprises or farmland, maybe not so appropriate.

They have, in effect become 'squatters'.

So let the older generation live out their last days ... but don't let there be an assumption that their children or grandchild have a presumptive right to occupy that land.

15 years is to long a time is maybe too long a time to allow them to stay and maybe 5 years maybe closer to a fair compromise between a humane compromise and the removal of squatters.

Edited May 4, 2012 by David48

[pipo1000]

Is that "innocent" as in " connected"?

[Pib]

A slippery slope approach the ombudsman is proposing.

[ratcatcher]

Is that "innocent" as in " connected"?

In a word YES!!!

[belg]

haha... encroch rights from grandfather upon the son and grandson, sure they will stop... but people who lived there 50 years before the law, should indeed get the right to stay there, unless they build a whole resort on it, than government officials should get a free pass for live to stay there any time of the year with extended family and friends

[jamescollister]

They have to have some leeway in this. Where I live the whole village is probably in the national park. Though no one is sure where the park starts as the area has yet to be surveyed. Wifes Grandfather was born here and he is 83 years old and we are not the only village along the Lao border in the same boat. A lot of people to relocate. Jim

[pisico]

Innocent squatters? Do they know it is their property, do they have a tittle to the land they encroach?

I know better than trying to enter a house that is not mine. Read this account of my real life experience with Third World mentality.

I lived in Brazil during the years that it was a Third World Country with likewise mindset. In the North East, South of Natal, I bought about 2,000 square meters of land overlooking the ocean. I had about 15 different people signing the deed as It had been inherited. I put up a barbed wire fence around it and signs in Portuguese stating that it was private property and to keep out. I went back to Rio de Janeiro where I lived and began reorganizing my life to go back to the land I owned and built a summer house. When I arrived 4 months later, a guy calling himself a native, had erected a house taking about 3 linear meters of the front road of my property. When I confronted him, his response was simple: "you are rich, you have more land than I." I asked why he had torn down the fence I erected. He just smiled and said nothing. I called a friend who was a lawyer and friend in Rio de Janeiro and asked about my available recourse. He said: none. But I am going to help you out. He called another judge in the region where my land was and told him to help me out. No problem. Days later an army detail was paying a visit to the encroach-er. He was told in no uncertain terms that 2 days later a bulldozer would come and raze the house he had built on my property. Needless to say that the mayor was on the side of the squatter but he knew better than to rile up the regional judge so he stayed out of the picture. Short story, the squatter offered me land in back of his property and promised to pay for a new fence around that part of the land he had ceded me: about 100 square meters. If I had gone down the path of the law, the case would still bogged down in court thanks to the intervention of local and nationals ombudsmen.

That is a common place situation in Third World countries.

It is very easy for those bleeding hearts to ask for leniency when it is a clear case of take over, squatting or encroachment. Why don't they make restitution to the affected out of their own pockets? The intention does not change the fact that someone has taken something that is not theirs. Before squatting on land why couldn't they have asked the local authorities or the village head about ownership of the land they intended to trespass? To tolerate without boundaries without accountability whatsoever leads to a state of chaos and anarchy that as time goes by becomes nearly impossible to root out. Just look at the motorcycle traffic on footpaths of the land. Look at the buildings erected on sois that are less than 10 meters wide. Entire building encroaching on canals, vital to the drainage of rain water in a city like Bangkok, built on marshland. But TIT and the rule of law is a concept alien to the people living in this latitude and... if one is connected, one would have the best justice that money can buy. TIT.

Edited May 4, 2012 by pisico

[dominique355]

There is a legal construct called "acquiescence", meaning if the initially rightful owner knowingly tolerates a situation for an extended period of time, he may loose his right altogether.

If the government knew and tolerated use of its land for 60 years, I would believe it has lost all right to it.

It is grossly unfair to let people believe that they are entitled to this land for 60 years and then all of a sudden treat them as criminals.

So, anyone who has been using a piece of land since before a law transferred this land to the government, should be able to keep it. As a matter of fact, transitional regulations in this 1954 law should have dealt with that situation, if the law was halfway intelligent.

Too much asking?

[Thai at Heart]

Thorny problem.

To grandfather "innocent" stayers but gauge the intent of investors is very subjective (subject to submission of brown envelope of course). Investors who have put up resorts knew exactly what they were doing, but then again, so essentially did many other smaller residents. At the end of the day, it isn't land meant to be available for habitation, and to make decisions like this on a case by case basis is very very difficult i.e. open to massive corruption, which is what allowed the resorts to be built in the first place.

Confiscate the resorts, nationalise them, and make a government company out of them???????

[Tanaka]

It is grossly unfair to let people believe that they are entitled to this land for 60 years and then all of a sudden treat them as criminals.

Let us say you laid your hands on some land 60 years ago and you built houses and your family homes there. No one came to tell you it was n ot your land to build on although you had not bought it or paid anything for it. So in due course you felt it was in fact your land and you were entitled to it. Althought you still did have any deed on it or paid taxes for it.

Now a government says it is government land and you have noi right to it or to live there. You will start scream that you are entitled to it because you have lived on it for a long time. That is what you say in your post.

Now another example. A long time ago someone broke into your house and stole some very valuable things. Some forty odd years later you come upon those very things in someones house. Will you start yelling that are your things adn you want them back. And you call the police to tell them the house owner is a thief who stole your valuable things.

If you agree with this, you are contradicting yourself from your posting. If you follow your post and do not agree with the second example, you are obviously ok with people who want to take possesion of any valuables you may have.

[udonguy]

Is that "innocent" as in " connected"?

exactly what I was thinking

[udonguy]

There is a legal construct called "acquiescence", meaning if the initially rightful owner knowingly tolerates a situation for an extended period of time, he may loose his right altogether.

If the government knew and tolerated use of its land for 60 years, I would believe it has lost all right to it.

It is grossly unfair to let people believe that they are entitled to this land for 60 years and then all of a sudden treat them as criminals.

So, anyone who has been using a piece of land since before a law transferred this land to the government, should be able to keep it. As a matter of fact, transitional regulations in this 1954 law should have dealt with that situation, if the law was halfway intelligent.

Too much asking?

wrong - they stole it knowingly and farmed it/lived there knowingly - it's Thais land they will only lie and cheat and say they have been there 100 years to get the rights don't be so naive

[udonguy]

Thorny problem.

To grandfather "innocent" stayers but gauge the intent of investors is very subjective (subject to submission of brown envelope of course). Investors who have put up resorts knew exactly what they were doing, but then again, so essentially did many other smaller residents. At the end of the day, it isn't land meant to be available for habitation, and to make decisions like this on a case by case basis is very very difficult i.e. open to massive corruption, which is what allowed the resorts to be built in the first place.

Confiscate the resorts, nationalise them, and make a government company out of them???????

no but make them purchase the land over, say, a ten year period at so much per year from undoubted profits then, and only then, do they get the Chanod

[jamescollister]

It is grossly unfair to let people believe that they are entitled to this land for 60 years and then all of a sudden treat them as criminals.

Let us say you laid your hands on some land 60 years ago and you built houses and your family homes there. No one came to tell you it was n ot your land to build on although you had not bought it or paid anything for it. So in due course you felt it was in fact your land and you were entitled to it. Althought you still did have any deed on it or paid taxes for it.

Now a government says it is government land and you have noi right to it or to live there. You will start scream that you are entitled to it because you have lived on it for a long time. That is what you say in your post.

Now another example. A long time ago someone broke into your house and stole some very valuable things. Some forty odd years later you come upon those very things in someones house. Will you start yelling that are your things adn you want them back. And you call the police to tell them the house owner is a thief who stole your valuable things.

If you agree with this, you are contradicting yourself from your posting. If you follow your post and do not agree with the second example, you are obviously ok with people who want to take possesion of any valuables you may have.

Don't think you can look at it that way, developers who move in and took advantage of the situation, off to jail. Different story for .Thais that have lived for generations in a place. Years ago all land was crown land and administered by local leaders, representing the crown. People build homes and farms to live, then along comes the Governtment and tells you to move. There forefathers settled in good faith all those years ago. Not there fault or there childrens or grandchildrens fault. The world is just catching up in some places in Asia, could you throw native Americans, Australians etc of their land just because the Government made a line on a map. Jim

[Tanaka]

It is grossly unfair to let people believe that they are entitled to this land for 60 years and then all of a sudden treat them as criminals.

Let us say you laid your hands on some land 60 years ago and you built houses and your family homes there. No one came to tell you it was n ot your land to build on although you had not bought it or paid anything for it. So in due course you felt it was in fact your land and you were entitled to it. Althought you still did have any deed on it or paid taxes for it.

Now a government says it is government land and you have noi right to it or to live there. You will start scream that you are entitled to it because you have lived on it for a long time. That is what you say in your post.

Now another example. A long time ago someone broke into your house and stole some very valuable things. Some forty odd years later you come upon those very things in someones house. Will you start yelling that are your things adn you want them back. And you call the police to tell them the house owner is a thief who stole your valuable things.

If you agree with this, you are contradicting yourself from your posting. If you follow your post and do not agree with the second example, you are obviously ok with people who want to take possesion of any valuables you may have.

Don't think you can look at it that way, developers who move in and took advantage of the situation, off to jail. Different story for .Thais that have lived for generations in a place. Years ago all land was crown land and administered by local leaders, representing the crown. People build homes and farms to live, then along comes the Governtment and tells you to move. There forefathers settled in good faith all those years ago. Not there fault or there childrens or grandchildrens fault. The world is just catching up in some places in Asia, could you throw native Americans, Australians etc of their land just because the Government made a line on a map. Jim

The 1950¨s is not that long ago. Developers are a different story from those who stole the land in the fifties, how? And don¨t talk about good faith. They knew perfectly well it was not their land. And your comparison with native Americans and Aborigenees has nothing to do with this. They were there eons of time before any white man came and it was not they who stole the land!

[jamescollister]

It is grossly unfair to let people believe that they are entitled to this land for 60 years and then all of a sudden treat them as criminals.

Let us say you laid your hands on some land 60 years ago and you built houses and your family homes there. No one came to tell you it was n ot your land to build on although you had not bought it or paid anything for it. So in due course you felt it was in fact your land and you were entitled to it. Althought you still did have any deed on it or paid taxes for it.

Now a government says it is government land and you have noi right to it or to live there. You will start scream that you are entitled to it because you have lived on it for a long time. That is what you say in your post.

Now another example. A long time ago someone broke into your house and stole some very valuable things. Some forty odd years later you come upon those very things in someones house. Will you start yelling that are your things adn you want them back. And you call the police to tell them the house owner is a thief who stole your valuable things.

If you agree with this, you are contradicting yourself from your posting. If you follow your post and do not agree with the second example, you are obviously ok with people who want to take possesion of any valuables you may have.

Don't think you can look at it that way, developers who move in and took advantage of the situation, off to jail. Different story for .Thais that have lived for generations in a place. Years ago all land was crown land and administered by local leaders, representing the crown. People build homes and farms to live, then along comes the Governtment and tells you to move. There forefathers settled in good faith all those years ago. Not there fault or there childrens or grandchildrens fault. The world is just catching up in some places in Asia, could you throw native Americans, Australians etc of their land just because the Government made a line on a map. Jim

The 1950¨s is not that long ago. Developers are a different story from those who stole the land in the fifties, how? And don¨t talk about good faith. They knew perfectly well it was not their land. And your comparison with native Americans and Aborigenees has nothing to do with this. They were there eons of time before any white man came and it was not they who stole the land!

We have Wats around here that are 100s of years old, these people have been living along the mountains along the Lao border for a long time. Jim

[OzMick]

Thorny problem.

To grandfather "innocent" stayers but gauge the intent of investors is very subjective (subject to submission of brown envelope of course). Investors who have put up resorts knew exactly what they were doing, but then again, so essentially did many other smaller residents. At the end of the day, it isn't land meant to be available for habitation, and to make decisions like this on a case by case basis is very very difficult i.e. open to massive corruption, which is what allowed the resorts to be built in the first place.

Confiscate the resorts, nationalise them, and make a government company out of them???????

no but make them purchase the land over, say, a ten year period at so much per year from undoubted profits then, and only then, do they get the Chanod

You miss the point - National Park is not for sale.

[pisico]

There is a legal construct called "acquiescence", meaning if the initially rightful owner knowingly tolerates a situation for an extended period of time, he may loose his right altogether.

If the government knew and tolerated use of its land for 60 years, I would believe it has lost all right to it.

It is grossly unfair to let people believe that they are entitled to this land for 60 years and then all of a sudden treat them as criminals.

So, anyone who has been using a piece of land since before a law transferred this land to the government, should be able to keep it. As a matter of fact, transitional regulations in this 1954 law should have dealt with that situation, if the law was halfway intelligent.

Too much asking?

I am not aware that Real Estate or property laws in Thailand stipulate the circumstances when acquiescence or adverse possession can be deemed to be a viable instrument to obtain legal right on property not owned by trespassers and/or squatters.

Who is letting those people believe that they own the land because they have lived/worked it? They themselves adjudicate that right based on their physical presence on that land. The government, for the most parts, has eminent domain. It is liable to be abused in order to favor well liked and/or connected parties to the administration in power. The government can kick out anybody even from private property using eminent domain.

However, in either case, adverse possession or not, if the occupiers paid tax to the government on the land (which in the case of Thais would be shear utopia), that in itself can be a deciding factor in adjudicating ownership (if there is another private party involved who never paid tax although has possession of a deed), whether adverse possession or acquiescence.

There is always the humane side in all of us that presupposes that the encroach-er is a poor soul who only wants a patch of land to pitch his hut. They know very well the land is not theirs. It just the fact that, in their parochial minds, if the land is not being lived in or used, the land is up for grabs. Big wigs, developers and the very rich are a different bunch. They know better.

Anybody has a couple of million Bahts is not using in the bank? Would you let me take them when you are not looking? You are not using that money, right?

Apply that reasoning to this situation and you will suddenly will come to the realization that what is yours belongs to you. Whether you use it or not.

Edited May 4, 2012 by pisico

[hellodolly]

They have to have some leeway in this. Where I live the whole village is probably in the national park. Though no one is sure where the park starts as the area has yet to be surveyed. Wifes Grandfather was born here and he is 83 years old and we are not the only village along the Lao border in the same boat. A lot of people to relocate. Jim

Seems to me that if the "people who were living in national forests well before the land law took effect on December 1, 1954 should not be seen as encroaching."

Whatr kind of a moron would think they were encroaching if they were living on property they owned and all of a sudden it was declared to be a National Forest. And they were given nothing for the land.

In my opinion if they die and hand it down to their children it is still not encroaching. The Government may is be corrupt but to steal there homes with no money for the property is beyond them. I think hope.

[noitom]

This is the Thai way. Leave it up to "subjective" case by case. Work it out on the fly to maximize opportunity and self interest.

[TeddyFlyfisherDavis]

There is a legal construct called "acquiescence", meaning if the initially rightful owner knowingly tolerates a situation for an extended period of time, he may loose his right altogether.

If the government knew and tolerated use of its land for 60 years, I would believe it has lost all right to it.

It is grossly unfair to let people believe that they are entitled to this land for 60 years and then all of a sudden treat them as criminals.

So, anyone who has been using a piece of land since before a law transferred this land to the government, should be able to keep it. As a matter of fact, transitional regulations in this 1954 law should have dealt with that situation, if the law was halfway intelligent.

Too much asking?

"Half way intelligent...? Remember, this is Thailand...Not Rhode Island...

[udonguy]

Thorny problem.

To grandfather "innocent" stayers but gauge the intent of investors is very subjective (subject to submission of brown envelope of course). Investors who have put up resorts knew exactly what they were doing, but then again, so essentially did many other smaller residents. At the end of the day, it isn't land meant to be available for habitation, and to make decisions like this on a case by case basis is very very difficult i.e. open to massive corruption, which is what allowed the resorts to be built in the first place.

Confiscate the resorts, nationalise them, and make a government company out of them???????

no but make them purchase the land over, say, a ten year period at so much per year from undoubted profits then, and only then, do they get the Chanod

You miss the point - National Park is not for sale.

we are not discussing specific 'parks' just the principal generally - if its national park then kick them off and demolish the resorts