Investment Visa

[percy2]

A friend of mine (under 50 , British passport holder), really not me, bought a condo in '97/8 for around B8 mil.

It was bought from a foriegn national.

The condo is now worth B20 mil +.

The condo is registered in their name , so money was imported for the purchase and paper work is on hand.

As of now he is employed by a very large company and enjoys a (completey legit) visa provided by them.

In the near future they would like to retire here but with the changing visa conditions they are worried about whether that will be practicable.

The question is will the B3mil investment scheme be available in this situation (before 1st Oct.) or will they face having to sell the condo , expatriate over US$500k and relocate to say Malaysia?

[jbaldwin]

Sunbelt will be able to tell you how the rule have been apply in practice. However, as the rule are written, only a new condo purchased from the developer is eligible for an investment visa

[Thaiquila]

They definitely cannot use that condo for the investment visa.

All I can think of is to sell the condo, export the money, then import the money and go for the 10 million baht investment visa based on a fixed asset investment. Not sure if one such visa would cover a farang spouse. Last I heard spouses can be covered with one retirement visa, but there was some controversy about that for awhile.

Edited September 19, 2006 by Thaiquila

[Firefan]

2 counts against it; not bought from Thai(was the first change) and not bought from developer(2nd change). It can not be used(for a new appplication I mean).

As for the 10 M Baht investment visa, nothing official have come out on that - so we will see. Currently it does not exist.

Cheers!

Edited September 19, 2006 by Firefan

[Thaiquila]

Sounds like y'all can afford to retire lots of places, including Australia.

Another case where these visa rules are making it too difficult for the kind of people you would THINK Thailand would really want to stay!

[Firefan]

Thaiquila; good point. On a good expat package he probably also have good offshore savings/pensions so lets say a total net worth of $1M but still no way to really get a long term visa legally. Cheers!

[Sunbelt Asia]

Sorry it does not qualify for the reasons that Firefan stated... as it was not bought from a developer.

However, if they have 3 million Baht in a fixed deposit acct. We still can get them in by Oct 1st. to qualify.

www.sunbeltasiagroup.com

[Dazzler]

Sorry it does not qualify for the reasons that Firefan stated... as it was not bought from a developer.

However, if they have 3 million Baht in a fixed deposit acct. We still can get them in by Oct 1st. to qualify.

www.sunbeltasiagroup.com

Does this have to be with any Thai bank? What about HSBC for example?

[Firefan]

Thai gov. bank only. Time deposit only. Cheers!