Looking To Rent Land For Sugarcane

[jamescollister]

Personally, I have passed on buying non chanote titles. Land "ownership" is risky enough here as it is without throwing in other variables.

Personally I would rather buy land [ now that I think I understand how it works ] with no title, possession land only. Wife can own more than the 50 rai of low title allowed. As the land has not been zoned for farming only you can change the usage.

So in theory you can buy untitled land, not zoned for a use [farming] and get planning permission to another use. No other Government agency controls the usage, no objections.

That's how we got planning permission for the factory and industrial title, no Government department had control of the usage. Jim

[Canada]

Personally, I have passed on buying non chanote titles. Land "ownership" is risky enough here as it is without throwing in other variables.

Personally I would rather buy land [ now that I think I understand how it works ] with no title, possession land only. Wife can own more than the 50 rai of low title allowed. As the land has not been zoned for farming only you can change the usage.

So in theory you can buy untitled land, not zoned for a use [farming] and get planning permission to another use. No other Government agency controls the usage, no objections.

That's how we got planning permission for the factory and industrial title, no Government department had control of the usage. Jim

No title would be about as cheap as it gets too...correct? Thats always a good thing. Especially when you are running a crop that takes 6-7 years to produce. BTW...how long does it take Oil Palm to produce...any idea??

D

Edited February 2, 2013 by Canada

[jamescollister]

Personally, I have passed on buying non chanote titles. Land "ownership" is risky enough here as it is without throwing in other variables.

Personally I would rather buy land [ now that I think I understand how it works ] with no title, possession land only. Wife can own more than the 50 rai of low title allowed. As the land has not been zoned for farming only you can change the usage.

So in theory you can buy untitled land, not zoned for a use [farming] and get planning permission to another use. No other Government agency controls the usage, no objections.

That's how we got planning permission for the factory and industrial title, no Government department had control of the usage. Jim

No title would be about as cheap as it gets too...correct? Thats always a good thing. Especially when you are running a crop that takes 6-7 years to produce. BTW...how long does it take Oil Palm to produce...any idea??

D

Did know about palm oil years ago, but Malaysia has developed some super clones now that grow fast and produce more.

Think I am a dinosaur and should crawl back into the tar pit, things change fast. Jim

[IsaanAussie]

The present problem with sugar cane farming is the, NOW, high cost of cutting and transportation to the sugar mill. Yes, yield is also important but until mechanical harvesters are used and the short cut pieces are able to be transported more efficiently a huge chunk of profit is gone.

The future may see smaller crushing mills set up locally and the juice transported by tanker to the sugar or ethanol factories. The baggase will be used to generate electricity and fed into the national grid.

This is actually a very interesting point. I recently found out that Thailand is the second largest producer of electricity using bagasse in the world, over 5 million tonnes per year. Thailand also rates very highly as a nation where a lot of power is produced by industry itself, for its own use, about 7th of the world.

The issues of transport cost, decreased ability of labour, increased labour costs and the need for more mechanisation are all heading farming here in one direction, modernisation. Pity the village co-operative schemes have decayed now it is as dependant on money as in the West.

I have to question the future viability of the OP's laughing farmer. I also wonder what the original scheme of single agents in each district, controlling and co-ordinating the flow of each commodity, will transform into. God knows we do not need more clagged out sugarcane trucks on route 24!

What has happened generally is acreages per crop type have slowly reduced, outputs are slightly up with little better yields, but Thailands farming performance lags well behind that of its neighbours in these terms.

Could it be,the mobile biodiesel plant or oil extraction plant and the like could work here when they have largely failed in other places?

What we can see is the spread of processing plants into Eastern Isaan, corporate agriculture is spreading out.

Any ideas on the future?

[klubex99]

Klubex99

[Why didn't the Thai owners upgrade to full chanote?..... They didn't want to waste the 3000 THB which just about reinforces my opinion of the laughing farmer.]

Please enlighten me as how you were able to up grade the title. One title is an aerial survey or map deed, the other is a ground survey with concrete markers in the ground.

A few years ago I paid 30,000 to get some land surveyed by the charnote people. As it was not in the areas that the charnotes were being issued [ main road ] it may be 10 years before the title gets issued. Charnotes are not issued by the local land office, but come from BKK.

Charnote upgrades are free, part of the Thai Government plan to allow farmers to borrow money on low title land and are issued where the charnote survey team is working. You just don't go to the land office and pay 3,000 Baht.

Thais are not that stupid, if they could up grade titles easily and double or triple the land value, there would be a line a mile long at the land office. Jim

Hi Jim.

just had a word with the wife, I conveyed your enquiry, and here is actually how it stands.

Obviously wifey has been handling all of this, not me, i can't do it I am not allowed to own it. Anyway, she has explained it all to me in detail. Here is what she said.

We actually have the deeds on 6 rai plus another 6 rai, this is because the person we bought from split the land into 4 x 6 rai plots and gave them to her 4 children who are in their 20s living in BKK.

I have been told the actual price for the rai for upgrade, and it was 2166 baht for each of the 2 plots. This is actually for the land survey fee, and that is done this coming Thursday, this is when they bash in the concrete markers.

The wife said that after Thursday within one week we will get the fully surveyed title, and that we have to go back to the office and they will have it upgraded to full chanote, and the fee is 15 baht. They said this will only take about a week to complete, but at the land office there was a room upstairs that we definitely went into for the express purpose of upgrading to chanote and they looked in the files and even explained it fully that if this file says no, then you can't have it, but if it says yes, then you can have it (chanote) the guy opened the file and it said YES.

So as far as i am concerned we will have that fully upgraded within 2 weeks. That's what the guy in the office said. I have no reason to think my wife would be mistaken about it. She is a very intelligent woman. Sharp as a tack.

It was my misunderstanding of what she was explaining last week that made me think we already have it, but we as good as do have it.

The land office for that area is actually very fast, and there are hardly any people there when we go, and that is why everything is fast for us. In town aparently it takes a whole lot longer. I will be happy to scan the chanote and post it here for you to see. (when i get it).

Edited to add.

Sorry for the inacurate information regarding the 3000 baht fee, it was a misunderstanding because the wife did say that it is less than 3000 baht. That is what stuck in my mind...... hey, its money, I always remember those bits

Edited February 3, 2013 by klubex99

[jamescollister]

Klubex99

[Why didn't the Thai owners upgrade to full chanote?..... They didn't want to waste the 3000 THB which just about reinforces my opinion of the laughing farmer.]

Please enlighten me as how you were able to up grade the title. One title is an aerial survey or map deed, the other is a ground survey with concrete markers in the ground.

A few years ago I paid 30,000 to get some land surveyed by the charnote people. As it was not in the areas that the charnotes were being issued [ main road ] it may be 10 years before the title gets issued. Charnotes are not issued by the local land office, but come from BKK.

Charnote upgrades are free, part of the Thai Government plan to allow farmers to borrow money on low title land and are issued where the charnote survey team is working. You just don't go to the land office and pay 3,000 Baht.

Thais are not that stupid, if they could up grade titles easily and double or triple the land value, there would be a line a mile long at the land office. Jim

Hi Jim.

just had a word with the wife, I conveyed your enquiry, and here is actually how it stands.

Obviously wifey has been handling all of this, not me, i can't do it I am not allowed to own it. Anyway, she has explained it all to me in detail. Here is what she said.

We actually have the deeds on 6 rai plus another 6 rai, this is because the person we bought from split the land into 4 x 6 rai plots and gave them to her 4 children who are in their 20s living in BKK.

I have been told the actual price for the rai for upgrade, and it was 2166 baht for each of the 2 plots. This is actually for the land survey fee, and that is done this coming Thursday, this is when they bash in the concrete markers.

The wife said that after Thursday within one week we will get the fully surveyed title, and that we have to go back to the office and they will have it upgraded to full chanote, and the fee is 15 baht. They said this will only take about a week to complete, but at the land office there was a room upstairs that we definitely went into for the express purpose of upgrading to chanote and they looked in the files and even explained it fully that if this file says no, then you can't have it, but if it says yes, then you can have it (chanote) the guy opened the file and it said YES.

So as far as i am concerned we will have that fully upgraded within 2 weeks. That's what the guy in the office said. I have no reason to think my wife would lie to me about it. She is a very intelligent woman. Sharp as a tack.

It was my misunderstanding of what she was explaining last week that made me think we already have it, but we as good as do have it.

The land office for that area is actually very fast, and there are hardly any people there when we go, and that is why everything is fast for us. In town aparently it takes a whole lot longer. I will be happy to scan the chanote and post it here for you to see. (when i get it).

Edited to add.

Sorry for the inacurate information regarding the 3000 baht fee, it was a misunderstanding because the wife did say that it is less than 3000 baht. That is what stuck in my mind...... hey, its money, I always remember those bits

Get back when it;s all done and give us the out come.

Question has near by land been already converted to charnote, if so your land was just missed or bypassed for some reason. That will make a difference, A small dispute between land boundaries and the charnote guys just move on to the next block Leaving the parties to sort it out. Jim

[IsaanAussie]

And who can blame them!

The wifes father died with a chanote for 28 rai held jointly with his deceased first wife. There were surviving children and grandchildren from that marriage. The second marriage also had generations of descendants. To get the land divided between the two "families" proved impossible. They all had to be at the land office at the same time and all agree to the split up. False markers, markers moved, false chanotes drafted and somehow officially stamped, legal proceedings held by one side without the other aware or present. Not once did they sit down to talk it through.

Still the old chanote prevails, original document well hidden.

[Issangeorge]

Getting back to the OP's original post. All I can say about farming is any farming my wife has done has cost me money, all out nothing in. My wife has got some money from it, but when I ask her about it and we review the figures, it is always either less or so little more than what she put in, that it's not worth the aggravation and labour. This year she rented 10 rai to a sugarcane company for 2 years for 20,000 baht. The best deal yet, 20,000 cash money in, none out.

[somo]

We just had a nice surprise. The land registry guy turned up in our village and converted all land holdings to chanote. Just had to show a grubby receipt for original land purchase and get the nod from the poo yai ban. Chanote will be in the post shortly! Apparently our land is now worth 10 times what it was last week which means SFA to me as we are living on it and aint going nowhere. Still it made lots of people happy and sales of whiskey were brisk as celebrations of this new artificial wealth went on through the night.

[jamescollister]

We just had a nice surprise. The land registry guy turned up in our village and converted all land holdings to chanote. Just had to show a grubby receipt for original land purchase and get the nod from the poo yai ban. Chanote will be in the post shortly! Apparently our land is now worth 10 times what it was last week which means SFA to me as we are living on it and aint going nowhere. Still it made lots of people happy and sales of whiskey were brisk as celebrations of this new artificial wealth went on through the night.

Once that real title comes, people just see dollar signs. They can now go borrow money to buy a car etc.

Little do they realize that their kids and their kids kids will be getting mortgages to build a house. When once it was free or dirt cheap.

Our factory land, bought for 25,000 Baht a rai, no title, main road frontage. We got industrial title, then the charnote people came. 3 years ago checked with the land office about sales tax. 1 Mil per rai valuation.

No poor rice farmer will ever get that kind of money, in the end they will all work for someone else, big players.

Just the westerner system coming, 25 year mortgage and work for the man, just life. Jim

[somo]

Once the paperwork arrives there will be a long queue at the bank.

Maybe SIL can make some dosh selling cold drinks and drop a few hints to those that owe me money

[jamescollister]

Once the paperwork arrives there will be a long queue at the bank.

Maybe SIL can make some dosh selling cold drinks and drop a few hints to those that owe me money The way I see it, if I am smart and play the game well. I will be the riches man in the Wat. Will have a nice big hole where my bones will rest.

Life is fun, enjoy what you have, F k tomorrow enjoy today. Jim

[klubex99]

Well we had the guys come to do the land survey yesterday. They bashed in the concrete markers and even put in flags for us so we could see them all from a single view. Nice of them I thought.

The neighbours had to all be there to confirm their boundaries with the guys. There were no disputes. There was a hell of a lot of paper signing from a hell of a lot of people. Quite a long winded and convoluted process.

One thing I found strange was that the surveyors didn't even bring a spade or post holer to make the hole for the markers, they said we were supposed to supply it... Weird. So the MIL had to go into the village and borrow one, which the owner came over to help us out for 100 baht and do all the digging required... How sweet of him. He looked a bit astonished at the end when the surveyor boss handed him a file of paperwork and 200 baht and told him to go to the village elder and some other guy and get the papers signed and then to take the file to the land office... One minute he is lending a shovel out, the next he is doing clerical administration. Strange place Thailand. But anyway, he ended up with over 500 baht for his 2 hours labour. Not a bad score in those parts.

Anyway, we were told that we will receive the chanote in less than a month. So smiles all round. We can go ahead and put the teak in now. That's the future secured for wifey and my kids.

Don't know what sort of value it adds to the land, but I am not worried about that, the trees will take 20 years, by then the village may have expanded and consumed the land, and so may be worth a small fortune, but to us, the value is in the fact that we have undisputable ownership and nobody can take it away.

[IsaanAussie]

OK,now be careful. Ask the wife about the need for spirithouses, pigs head kit and monks, maybe a few drinks inthe village. Gotta keep the locals happy!

Oh, by the way, let herdo all that, your job is to smile and have empty pockets!

[klubex99]

OK,now be careful. Ask the wife about the need for spirithouses, pigs head kit and monks, maybe a few drinks inthe village. Gotta keep the locals happy!

Oh, by the way, let herdo all that, your job is to smile and have empty pockets!

Haha.. You obviously know how it works around here. Yes, the MIL has already told me I need a spirit house, and the monks and the party, so I might as well go along with it (again).

The pockets will be getting drained once again, but all in a good cause. At least these country types will be happy with Hong Thong, not like my wedding where the city types rejected it and demanded Johnny Walker.

On a slightly different note, but just as relevant.

Just goes to show that no matter how much work you put in and fail to find what you are looking for, as you give up and stop looking, you end up tripping over it.....

My FIL had been talking to one of his friends the other day, and telling him about our projects and the land we were looking for to rent or buy to accommodate these projects. This guy just happens to own hundreds of rai all over Korat. He said that he has a lot of land he doesn't use and asked us if we wanted to look at it. So he sent his wife over yesterday and she took us literally 10 minutes from our house to a 30 rai parcel of land with a small mango orchard, 3 large ponds and lots of spare land. It also has 2 buildings on it, one I would say was a classic cinder block outbuilding/workshop type structure about 35 x 15, the other a very large barn with 2 floors approx 40 x 20.

This land is perfect for my wife's mushroom and fish project and the buildings will save us a fortune in building mushroom houses. We only need to have half a dozen more ponds dug out and we are pretty much up and running, although there is no electricity on site, I will bring in a dozen solar panels and hook them up with an inverter to give us all we need.

The land is also fenced and gated and there is an old woman that lives there taking care of the place. She lives in a small hut, I have to look at putting up something a bit better than that and getting her a TV and decent bed.

I asked how much to rent, he said he did not want any money and we were welcome to use the land for 10 years if we wanted, I had to insist that we pay him rent and get a contract together so he said "fine.... pay me 10 baht per rai per year". Totally shocked.... But the guy is minted after all. He has known my wife since a baby, and wants to look after her and make sure she is ok.

What a nice fella.

Edited February 9, 2013 by klubex99

[IsaanAussie]

OK,now be careful. Ask the wife about the need for spirithouses, pigs head kit and monks, maybe a few drinks inthe village. Gotta keep the locals happy!

Oh, by the way, let herdo all that, your job is to smile and have empty pockets!

Haha.. You obviously know how it works around here. Yes, the MIL has already told me I need a spirit house, and the monks and the party, so I might as well go along with it (again).

The pockets will be getting drained once again, but all in a good cause. At least these country types will be happy with Hong Thong, not like my wedding where the city types rejected it and demanded Johnny Walker.

On a slightly different note, but just as relevant.

Just goes to show that no matter how much work you put in and fail to find what you are looking for, as you give up and stop looking, you end up tripping over it.....

My FIL had been talking to one of his friends the other day, and telling him about our projects and the land we were looking for to rent or buy to accommodate these projects. This guy just happens to own hundreds of rai all over Korat. He said that he has a lot of land he doesn't use and asked us if we wanted to look at it. So he sent his wife over yesterday and she took us literally 10 minutes from our house to a 30 rai parcel of land with a small mango orchard, 3 large ponds and lots of spare land. It also has 2 buildings on it, one I would say was a classic cinder block outbuilding/workshop type structure about 35 x 15, the other a very large barn with 2 floors approx 40 x 20.

This land is perfect for my wife's mushroom and fish project and the buildings will save us a fortune in building mushroom houses. We only need to have half a dozen more ponds dug out and we are pretty much up and running, although there is no electricity on site, I will bring in a dozen solar panels and hook them up with an inverter to give us all we need.

The land is also fenced and gated and there is an old woman that lives there taking care of the place. She lives in a small hut, I have to look at putting up something a bit better than that and getting her a TV and decent bed.

I asked how much to rent, he said he did not want any money and we were welcome to use the land for 10 years if we wanted, I had to insist that we pay him rent and get a contract together so he said "fine.... pay me 10 baht per rai per year". Totally shocked.... But the guy is minted after all. He has known my wife since a baby, and wants to look after her and make sure she is ok.

What a nice fella.

To quote Gold Tooth Tony from Snatch, "You lucky bastard"

[klubex99]

OK,now be careful. Ask the wife about the need for spirithouses, pigs head kit and monks, maybe a few drinks inthe village. Gotta keep the locals happy!

Oh, by the way, let herdo all that, your job is to smile and have empty pockets!

Haha.. You obviously know how it works around here. Yes, the MIL has already told me I need a spirit house, and the monks and the party, so I might as well go along with it (again).

The pockets will be getting drained once again, but all in a good cause. At least these country types will be happy with Hong Thong, not like my wedding where the city types rejected it and demanded Johnny Walker.

On a slightly different note, but just as relevant.

Just goes to show that no matter how much work you put in and fail to find what you are looking for, as you give up and stop looking, you end up tripping over it.....

My FIL had been talking to one of his friends the other day, and telling him about our projects and the land we were looking for to rent or buy to accommodate these projects. This guy just happens to own hundreds of rai all over Korat. He said that he has a lot of land he doesn't use and asked us if we wanted to look at it. So he sent his wife over yesterday and she took us literally 10 minutes from our house to a 30 rai parcel of land with a small mango orchard, 3 large ponds and lots of spare land. It also has 2 buildings on it, one I would say was a classic cinder block outbuilding/workshop type structure about 35 x 15, the other a very large barn with 2 floors approx 40 x 20.

This land is perfect for my wife's mushroom and fish project and the buildings will save us a fortune in building mushroom houses. We only need to have half a dozen more ponds dug out and we are pretty much up and running, although there is no electricity on site, I will bring in a dozen solar panels and hook them up with an inverter to give us all we need.

The land is also fenced and gated and there is an old woman that lives there taking care of the place. She lives in a small hut, I have to look at putting up something a bit better than that and getting her a TV and decent bed.

I asked how much to rent, he said he did not want any money and we were welcome to use the land for 10 years if we wanted, I had to insist that we pay him rent and get a contract together so he said "fine.... pay me 10 baht per rai per year". Totally shocked.... But the guy is minted after all. He has known my wife since a baby, and wants to look after her and make sure she is ok.

What a nice fella.

To quote Gold Tooth Tony from Snatch, "You lucky bastard"

[jamescollister]

OK,now be careful. Ask the wife about the need for spirithouses, pigs head kit and monks, maybe a few drinks inthe village. Gotta keep the locals happy!

Oh, by the way, let herdo all that, your job is to smile and have empty pockets!

Haha.. You obviously know how it works around here. Yes, the MIL has already told me I need a spirit house, and the monks and the party, so I might as well go along with it (again).

The pockets will be getting drained once again, but all in a good cause. At least these country types will be happy with Hong Thong, not like my wedding where the city types rejected it and demanded Johnny Walker.

On a slightly different note, but just as relevant.

Just goes to show that no matter how much work you put in and fail to find what you are looking for, as you give up and stop looking, you end up tripping over it.....

My FIL had been talking to one of his friends the other day, and telling him about our projects and the land we were looking for to rent or buy to accommodate these projects. This guy just happens to own hundreds of rai all over Korat. He said that he has a lot of land he doesn't use and asked us if we wanted to look at it. So he sent his wife over yesterday and she took us literally 10 minutes from our house to a 30 rai parcel of land with a small mango orchard, 3 large ponds and lots of spare land. It also has 2 buildings on it, one I would say was a classic cinder block outbuilding/workshop type structure about 35 x 15, the other a very large barn with 2 floors approx 40 x 20.

This land is perfect for my wife's mushroom and fish project and the buildings will save us a fortune in building mushroom houses. We only need to have half a dozen more ponds dug out and we are pretty much up and running, although there is no electricity on site, I will bring in a dozen solar panels and hook them up with an inverter to give us all we need.

The land is also fenced and gated and there is an old woman that lives there taking care of the place. She lives in a small hut, I have to look at putting up something a bit better than that and getting her a TV and decent bed.

I asked how much to rent, he said he did not want any money and we were welcome to use the land for 10 years if we wanted, I had to insist that we pay him rent and get a contract together so he said "fine.... pay me 10 baht per rai per year". Totally shocked.... But the guy is minted after all. He has known my wife since a baby, and wants to look after her and make sure she is ok.

What a nice fella.

Let me take a guess here, land is of low title, use it or lose it. He's not using it and may lose it.

Wife hand some type of Aunt in Krabi, wanted to give us 50 rai for free. No good to us live in Issan, Land Department gave the land to a landless family.

Wife's Grandfather gave her 25 rai, I didn't know about the use it or lose it at the time. [ Land can be seen on you tube, river picnic ] Army came, a bit of wating and smiling and took the land. When they leave if ever we may get it back, or it may be given to someone else. Jim

[Gary A]

It's not always use it or lose it. Near my favorite watering hole up the mountain, an old man farmed a small flat piece of land for many years. The Forestry officials came and decided to build an office there. The old man and the locals fought it but there is now a Forestry office there. The old man did finally win and the generous government gave him a whopping 10,000 baht.

[klubex99]

OK,now be careful. Ask the wife about the need for spirithouses, pigs head kit and monks, maybe a few drinks inthe village. Gotta keep the locals happy!

Oh, by the way, let herdo all that, your job is to smile and have empty pockets!

Haha.. You obviously know how it works around here. Yes, the MIL has already told me I need a spirit house, and the monks and the party, so I might as well go along with it (again).

The pockets will be getting drained once again, but all in a good cause. At least these country types will be happy with Hong Thong, not like my wedding where the city types rejected it and demanded Johnny Walker.

On a slightly different note, but just as relevant.

Just goes to show that no matter how much work you put in and fail to find what you are looking for, as you give up and stop looking, you end up tripping over it.....

My FIL had been talking to one of his friends the other day, and telling him about our projects and the land we were looking for to rent or buy to accommodate these projects. This guy just happens to own hundreds of rai all over Korat. He said that he has a lot of land he doesn't use and asked us if we wanted to look at it. So he sent his wife over yesterday and she took us literally 10 minutes from our house to a 30 rai parcel of land with a small mango orchard, 3 large ponds and lots of spare land. It also has 2 buildings on it, one I would say was a classic cinder block outbuilding/workshop type structure about 35 x 15, the other a very large barn with 2 floors approx 40 x 20.

This land is perfect for my wife's mushroom and fish project and the buildings will save us a fortune in building mushroom houses. We only need to have half a dozen more ponds dug out and we are pretty much up and running, although there is no electricity on site, I will bring in a dozen solar panels and hook them up with an inverter to give us all we need.

The land is also fenced and gated and there is an old woman that lives there taking care of the place. She lives in a small hut, I have to look at putting up something a bit better than that and getting her a TV and decent bed.

I asked how much to rent, he said he did not want any money and we were welcome to use the land for 10 years if we wanted, I had to insist that we pay him rent and get a contract together so he said "fine.... pay me 10 baht per rai per year". Totally shocked.... But the guy is minted after all. He has known my wife since a baby, and wants to look after her and make sure she is ok.

What a nice fella.

Let me take a guess here, land is of low title, use it or lose it. He's not using it and may lose it.

Wife hand some type of Aunt in Krabi, wanted to give us 50 rai for free. No good to us live in Issan, Land Department gave the land to a landless family.

Wife's Grandfather gave her 25 rai, I didn't know about the use it or lose it at the time. [ Land can be seen on you tube, river picnic ] Army came, a bit of wating and smiling and took the land. When they leave if ever we may get it back, or it may be given to someone else. Jim

Wifey said it is full Chanote, all the land along there is chanote. He is sitting on it and waiting for it to be bought off him by developers. It is about 1.5KM from the the perimeter of all the current development and is moving out in his direction. Moo baans, commercial developments and the like. I seen a lot spring up over the past 3 years. When I bought our house we were right on the very edge of the city, we are about 400 meters in now. Every available scrap of land is being built on. Much faster than I seen any town expand in the UK.

When I look on Google maps, our house is not there, it is a pond surrounded by fields, now it is in the middle of an urban sprawl. The owner reckons about 10 years and he will be approached by a developer. He paid 2000 B a rai for it years ago, and he is hoping it will be worth between 2.5 and 3 million pr. Nice investment. He has other brown belt land all around the outskirts of Korat city.

He is one of your mob Jim.... A big rubber guy.

[klubex99]

It's not always use it or lose it. Near my favorite watering hole up the mountain, an old man farmed a small flat piece of land for many years. The Forestry officials came and decided to build an office there. The old man and the locals fought it but there is now a Forestry office there. The old man did finally win and the generous government gave him a whopping 10,000 baht.

Yes, I have heard similar stories. It's a big shame, and a form of bullying. The government has huge swathes of idle land they could build offices on. I doubt very much that the old chap's land was an absolute last resort. Doesn't appear to have stopped them though.

[IsaanAussie]

So one day it will be gone, in the meanwhile you get to get your projects happening without land purchase or much infrastructure cost. Smile all the way....

[jamescollister]

klubex99

Guy may be rich, but doesn't sound to smart.If he lets you use the land for 10 years and no lease agreement. By right of use in the civil code you [wife] then own it. Jim

[klubex99]

klubex99

Guy may be rich, but doesn't sound to smart.If he lets you use the land for 10 years and no lease agreement. By right of use in the civil code you [wife] then own it. Jim

Which is obviously why up until now, he hasn't let just anyone work it apart from the daughter of one of his best friends. Maybe he feels he can trust us to step aside as and when he requires it back again.

I don't really want to be on it in 10 years anyway. I would much rather transfer to my own land eventually. I really want to live on one of the farms. Living in the city is driving me nuts. I have been a country dweller for 10 years prior to moving to LOS, and I really miss the peace and quiet. Where we live used to be a nice quiet area, but it is getting more and more noisy. when someone walks down the road it sparks a barking contest between about 20 dogs and they don't stop for about 5 minutes. Hardly anyone had a dog in this street until a family moved in with 4 of them, and for some reason, everyone started getting dogs. Wifey says it is for security, we have an alarm system, cost 2500 baht and don't have to feed it or clean up after it.