Who owns what? Land / House

[Generalchaos]

Wonder if anyone can clarify something here for me.

Years ago we bought land here, it was in my Thai wifes name. I then built a house on it. There is no lease no mortgage etc. The only formal documents I have ever seen were the plans I had to have drawn up and approved by some officials. The chanotes and the blue tabien baan.

All of these at the time were in my wife's name.

About 5 years ago, I had the chanotes for all of the land transferred into my son's name.

Here is the question - I recall years back enquiring about drawing up a 30 year lease for the house but never bothered, basically the amphur told me that even if you had a lease the house "belonged" to the land.

 

So, now that all of the land is in my Thai son's name, does this then also mean that the house is also his? (I am presuming that it is)

 

Thanks.

[Kwasaki]

Yes.

[Generalchaos]

1 minute ago, Kwasaki said:

Yes.

Thanks!

[Kwasaki]

3 minutes ago, Generalchaos said:

Thanks!

 

It will be OK no worries buddy, many people think falangie's get screwed and in some situations maybe but from what l have witnessed not always the case, Thai courts if it goes that far are fair.

[Generalchaos]

Just now, Kwasaki said:

 

It will be OK no worries buddy, many people think falangie's get screwed and in some situations maybe but from what l have witnessed not always the case, Thai courts if it goes that far are fair.

Indeed, the more I read and the more I actually find out as being the truth, the more faith I have in some of the Thai law, it certainly is not totally unfair to the foreigner. Some past advice from a Thai lawyer (FREE! at that) caused a total arse about face turnaround in one particular situation, in which I really thought I was going to get screwed for a loan taken out by my wife without my knowledge....turns out it is her problem and not mine, and if she was to try to pursue things to try and make me liable, she and possibly even the bank would be up the Sh&t creek without a paddle, for using a chanote of a minor to guarantee a loan!

[Kwasaki]

1 minute ago, Generalchaos said:

Indeed, the more I read and the more I actually find out as being the truth, the more faith I have in some of the Thai law, it certainly is not totally unfair to the foreigner. Some past advice from a Thai lawyer (FREE! at that) caused a total arse about face turnaround in one particular situation, in which I really thought I was going to get screwed for a loan taken out by my wife without my knowledge....turns out it is her problem and not mine, and if she was to try to pursue things to try and make me liable, she and possibly even the bank would be up the Sh&t creek without a paddle, for using a chanote of a minor to guarantee a loan!

 

Sorry you have had all that crap going on,  hope things pan out and you dust yourself off and move on and still get to keep close contact with your son.

Yeah many drag Thailand down only because it's them who have mess up, two sides to every story so to speak.

The Thai law l believe is based shallowly on French law similarly to English law.

Goodluck to you for your future.  

[blackcab]

Yes the house is absolutely his.

[Generalchaos]

1 minute ago, blackcab said:

Yes the house is absolutely his.

Thanks, makes me feel FANTASTIC! I have been told by locals that the wife or the wife's mother can claim everything! Hence why I dragged her down to the Land Registry years back to ensure it was put entirely in his name.

We always had this agreement that the land I paid for (but never owned) would never EVER be used as some guarantee for anything.

 

Luckily, I had it in my son's name 3 years before I found out they had tried to use it as a guarantee with the SCB to bail out another family member that was in the SH*T after defaulting on a car loan.

 

Even the Thai lawyer told me that they and the bank would have been in a big problem for trying to use the chanote to guarantee a loan. It is illegal. Happily it seems they have had to have a family rummage and flog some of their own land to pay off the debt. They were actually really worried that I knew that what they did with my son's chanotes was illegal, especially when the Thai lawyer sent me the specific law written in Thai.....wow, the sound of silence was deafening.

[MikeyIdea]

Hang on, a few things don't match in this story

 

it is possible for legal guardians to give land to their child/children, I and mummy did exactly that (as I don't trust mummy) and I am proud that my daughter owns the land. It is safe until she reaches majority and it's up to me to be a good father so that she won't kick me out

 

If you and the mother have shared custody, then you cannot have done it alone. It must have been the mother and you 

 

Something is wrong with what you write about a debt. It is NOT possible to give a liability or a responsibility to a minor by law. You can only give land = transfer land ownership to a minor if there is no debt. It's the same with taking a loan and registering a loan on land that is owned by a minor 

 

The land office simply won't do it. There is no loan registered on the back of the chanote. Impossible. Whatever there is, it has nothing to do with anything that the child owns and the child is not responsible when he/she reaches majority

 

Edited October 11, 2016 by MikeyIdea

[Generalchaos]

10 minutes ago, MikeyIdea said:

Hang on, it is possible for legal guardians to give land to their child/children, I and mummy did exactly that (as I don't trust mummy) and I am proud that my daughter owns the land. It is safe until she reaches majority and it's up to me to be a good father so that she won't kick me out

 

But something is wrong with your story. It is NOT possible to give a liability or a responsibility to a minor by law. You can only give land = transfer land ownership to a minor if there is no debt. It's the same with taking a loan and registering a loan on land that is owned by a minor. 

 

The land office simply won't do it. There is NO legal loan taken out on the land, there is no loan registered on the back of the chanote. Impossible. Whatever there is, it has nothing to do with anything that the child owns and the child is not responsible when he/she reaches majority

 

Yes, agreed, there was no debt on the land at the time of transfer. They took the Chanotes in my 14 year olds son's name and tried (successfully to guarantee a bankloan with the SCB - which is totally illegal)

They then tried to tell me that because I was married that I would be liable for the debt. They won't get blood from a stone - as I cannot own the land in the first place!

I contacted a lawyer who told me they were acting illegally and so was the bank for accepting it.

Now they have had to sell their land to cover it....not me!

Edited October 11, 2016 by Generalchaos

[Generalchaos]

Here is the basic problem.

The Thai gets a farang husband, she lives in a shit village with a shit family that have scraped most of their lives and actually bought land at maybe 5 baht a rai in 1850.

Now, having a farang they suddenly think they are some sort of royalty.

Royalty have to have status, so in order to prove their level in society they have to own things.

Their bastard children from previous unmarried sex couplings also need to have status and so they need things too...usually a car or something similar.(They never learn either, one sister gets shagged, then the next and the next and on it goes, they all end up with a shoal of bastards that are too lazy to work and suck more money than breast milk)

Maybe some farang don't mind paying for other people's kids....not me!

So it was never part of the deal.

Later along comes a child, in wedlock, totally legitimate, so I need to protect things for his future. Hence the land is in his name (Before he was born it was in her name as it really didn't matter - if I died then she got it, end of story.)

So, fast forward 15 or more years and we find that trying to live like a queen and keeping up appearances costs money....money they never had! So rather than lose face they go and borrow it, then they are up the proverbial SH&T Creek without the paddle. I am not financing their fantasies, not my problem.

I am not financing a thirty five year old bastard love child and his car either so they can go and FO!

Here is where the problems start....they end up having to sell all their land to pay off their HiSo debts, trying to save face. They just keep on borrowing and borrowing with no way of paying it back....then you get the sob stories, how you never really loved them, and if you truly loved them you would help!

 

Well, after all these years, my skin is like buffalo hide, there is no compassion left, they can go and eat sawdust for all I care.

As long as my son has something that I know he will not blow stupidly then I am happy, I am OK if he sells a bit of land and buys himself a Yamaha 300, no problem. But there is no way they are going to rip him off and flog what I paid for and cannot EVEN OWN to pay for some idiots in their family that goes out and spends half a million on a car that they cannot pay for...marriage vows or what..they can go and take the F'ing high road!

 

I might add, there was a verbal agreement (worth diddleyshit) that none of the land I paid for would ever be used as a guarantee. When I found out that this promise had been broken....that was the end of that! All trust is gone and it is pull up the drawbridges and make sure that damage limitation is in order...hence putting the land totally in my son's name. The land office initially tried to talk me out of it, they said he was already named (jointly with my wife), thank god I didn't listen to them or I would have the SCB banging on the door!

 

The really funny thing about all this is how your kids inherit your genes and the way you think....he really surprised me when he came and asked me if when we go to the gun club tomorrow, if we can ask them if we can borrow the Magnum .44 for a couple of days. - A boy after my own heart!

 

Edited October 11, 2016 by Generalchaos

[MikeyIdea]

Officers at amphur and land office are actually afraid of making mistakes, that's the main reason why westerners get different information regarding what paperwork is required to do things. The rules aren't clear and the officers protect themselves. It's not that they want to make westerners life miserable :) A land officer signing to put a mortgage at the back of a chanote owned of a minor would quite likely lose his job when it is found out

 

Something happened I suppose but I bet the mortgage was never registered at the back of the chanote

 

I really doubt that a big commercial bank like SCB would mortgage land without checking if if owner has reached majority either. Could this be loan sharks and not a bank?

 

Regardless, 2 things must happen

1) If somehow chanote has a mortgage, then it has to be removed and it has to be removed before the child turns 20. This would be between you as legal guardian of the child representing the child and the bank. When the mother pays off is a civil matter and has nothing to do with the child. The mother is the banks problem, not yours. 

2) Thai culture will prevail. If the mother is in economic trouble when the child reaches majority at 20, then he will mortgage it to help her. Try to teach him

 

You are not liable for if your mother act with criminal intent but it may still hurt you and at the end of the day probably cost you. If you are still married, divorce. A court case is only 50,000 or so, you have legal reason. Juvenile is there to protect your child so you should request them help protect the childs assets. Probably cheaper to do it that way than other civil or criminal court

 

Good Luck

 

[Generalchaos]

7 minutes ago, MikeyIdea said:

Officers at amphur and land office are actually afraid of making mistakes, that's the main reason why westerners get different information regarding what paperwork is required to do things. The rules aren't clear and the officers protect themselves. It's not that they want to make westerners life miserable :) A land officer signing to put a mortgage at the back of a chanote owned of a minor would quite likely lose his job when it is found out

 

Something happened I suppose but I bet the mortgage was never registered at the back of the chanote

 

I really doubt that a big commercial bank like SCB would mortgage land without checking if if owner has reached majority either. Could this be loan sharks and not a bank?

 

Regardless, 2 things must happen

1) If somehow chanote has a mortgage, then it has to be removed and it has to be removed before the child turns 20. This would be between you as legal guardian of the child representing the child and the bank. When the mother pays off is a civil matter and has nothing to do with the child. The mother is the banks problem, not yours. 

2) Thai culture will prevail. If the mother is in economic trouble when the child reaches majority at 20, then he will mortgage it to help her. Try to teach him

 

You are not liable for if your mother act with criminal intent but it may still hurt you and at the end of the day probably cost you. If you are still married, divorce. A court case is only 50,000 or so, you have legal reason. Juvenile is there to protect your child so you should request them help protect the childs assets. Probably cheaper to do it that way than other civil or criminal court

 

Good Luck

 

The land was never mortgaged by SCB, they just sort of looked at the photocopy of the chanote and gave a guarantee! Crazy I know but totally true, they took it in good faith, bigger fool them (but if you saw our local Hick Branch you may understand - they are incapable after 10 years of writing the bank letter to immigration, every year it is wrong and has to be re-done) They are a bunch of spastics. They used to spend two hours writing garbage like "High 3 Figure Number" or "Mid 5 Figure Number" to guarantee the 400K in the bank....400,000 is six figures! These idiots were clueless, eventually Chiang Mai immigration had a hissy fit and told me to go to the branch in the city where real people worked instead of retards!

Edited October 11, 2016 by Generalchaos

[muzmurray]

11 hours ago, Kwasaki said:

 

Sorry you have had all that crap going on,  hope things pan out and you dust yourself off and move on and still get to keep close contact with your son.

Yeah many drag Thailand down only because it's them who have mess up, two sides to every story so to speak.

The Thai law l believe is based shallowly on French law similarly to English law.

Goodluck to you for your future.  

 

"In the 20th century, Thailand adopted western systems of laws, courts, and legal education, whereupon the Consular and International Courts were gradually phased out and finally dissolved. Because of many legal consultants from various countries, modern Thai laws have characteristics from numerous western countries, including France, Germany, Switzerland, England, Italy, Japan and India. It is thus too difficult to label which legal system is the basis of modern Thai law; instead it is appropriate to include all of these legal systems under the greater category of western legal systems to explain the basic principles of modern Thai laws."

 

http://www.thailawforum.com/articles/reformation1.html

[MikeyIdea]

9 hours ago, MikeyIdea said:

You are not liable for if your mother act with criminal intent but it may still hurt you and at the end of the day probably cost you.

 

Your wife, not mother....

[louse1953]

14 hours ago, Generalchaos said:

Thanks, makes me feel FANTASTIC! I have been told by locals that the wife or the wife's mother can claim everything! Hence why I dragged her down to the Land Registry years back to ensure it was put entirely in his name.

We always had this agreement that the land I paid for (but never owned) would never EVER be used as some guarantee for anything.

 

Luckily, I had it in my son's name 3 years before I found out they had tried to use it as a guarantee with the SCB to bail out another family member that was in the SH*T after defaulting on a car loan.

 

Even the Thai lawyer told me that they and the bank would have been in a big problem for trying to use the chanote to guarantee a loan. It is illegal. Happily it seems they have had to have a family rummage and flog some of their own land to pay off the debt. They were actually really worried that I knew that what they did with my son's chanotes was illegal, especially when the Thai lawyer sent me the specific law written in Thai.....wow, the sound of silence was deafening.

Thais locals know less about Thai law than farangs.I have helped a few Thais out,they just go on gossip and what somebody of rank tell them.

[louse1953]

14 hours ago, Generalchaos said:

Here is the basic problem.

The Thai gets a farang husband, she lives in a shit village with a shit family that have scraped most of their lives and actually bought land at maybe 5 baht a rai in 1850.

Now, having a farang they suddenly think they are some sort of royalty.

Royalty have to have status, so in order to prove their level in society they have to own things.

Their bastard children from previous unmarried sex couplings also need to have status and so they need things too...usually a car or something similar.(They never learn either, one sister gets shagged, then the next and the next and on it goes, they all end up with a shoal of bastards that are too lazy to work and suck more money than breast milk)

Maybe some farang don't mind paying for other people's kids....not me!

So it was never part of the deal.

Later along comes a child, in wedlock, totally legitimate, so I need to protect things for his future. Hence the land is in his name (Before he was born it was in her name as it really didn't matter - if I died then she got it, end of story.)

So, fast forward 15 or more years and we find that trying to live like a queen and keeping up appearances costs money....money they never had! So rather than lose face they go and borrow it, then they are up the proverbial SH&T Creek without the paddle. I am not financing their fantasies, not my problem.

I am not financing a thirty five year old bastard love child and his car either so they can go and FO!

Here is where the problems start....they end up having to sell all their land to pay off their HiSo debts, trying to save face. They just keep on borrowing and borrowing with no way of paying it back....then you get the sob stories, how you never really loved them, and if you truly loved them you would help!

 

Well, after all these years, my skin is like buffalo hide, there is no compassion left, they can go and eat sawdust for all I care.

As long as my son has something that I know he will not blow stupidly then I am happy, I am OK if he sells a bit of land and buys himself a Yamaha 300, no problem. But there is no way they are going to rip him off and flog what I paid for and cannot EVEN OWN to pay for some idiots in their family that goes out and spends half a million on a car that they cannot pay for...marriage vows or what..they can go and take the F'ing high road!

 

I might add, there was a verbal agreement (worth diddleyshit) that none of the land I paid for would ever be used as a guarantee. When I found out that this promise had been broken....that was the end of that! All trust is gone and it is pull up the drawbridges and make sure that damage limitation is in order...hence putting the land totally in my son's name. The land office initially tried to talk me out of it, they said he was already named (jointly with my wife), thank god I didn't listen to them or I would have the SCB banging on the door!

 

The really funny thing about all this is how your kids inherit your genes and the way you think....he really surprised me when he came and asked me if when we go to the gun club tomorrow, if we can ask them if we can borrow the Magnum .44 for a couple of days. - A boy after my own heart!

 

Peer and family pressure will crush your son,he will cave.

[vivasamui]

14 hours ago, Generalchaos said:

Here is the basic problem.

The Thai gets a farang husband, she lives in a shit village with a shit family that have scraped most of their lives and actually bought land at maybe 5 baht a rai in 1850.

Now, having a farang they suddenly think they are some sort of royalty.

Royalty have to have status, so in order to prove their level in society they have to own things.

Their bastard children from previous unmarried sex couplings also need to have status and so they need things too...usually a car or something similar.(They never learn either, one sister gets shagged, then the next and the next and on it goes, they all end up with a shoal of bastards that are too lazy to work and suck more money than breast milk)

Maybe some farang don't mind paying for other people's kids....not me!

So it was never part of the deal.

Later along comes a child, in wedlock, totally legitimate, so I need to protect things for his future. Hence the land is in his name (Before he was born it was in her name as it really didn't matter - if I died then she got it, end of story.)

So, fast forward 15 or more years and we find that trying to live like a queen and keeping up appearances costs money....money they never had! So rather than lose face they go and borrow it, then they are up the proverbial SH&T Creek without the paddle. I am not financing their fantasies, not my problem.

I am not financing a thirty five year old bastard love child and his car either so they can go and FO!

Here is where the problems start....they end up having to sell all their land to pay off their HiSo debts, trying to save face. They just keep on borrowing and borrowing with no way of paying it back....then you get the sob stories, how you never really loved them, and if you truly loved them you would help!

 

Well, after all these years, my skin is like buffalo hide, there is no compassion left, they can go and eat sawdust for all I care.

As long as my son has something that I know he will not blow stupidly then I am happy, I am OK if he sells a bit of land and buys himself a Yamaha 300, no problem. But there is no way they are going to rip him off and flog what I paid for and cannot EVEN OWN to pay for some idiots in their family that goes out and spends half a million on a car that they cannot pay for...marriage vows or what..they can go and take the F'ing high road!

 

I might add, there was a verbal agreement (worth diddleyshit) that none of the land I paid for would ever be used as a guarantee. When I found out that this promise had been broken....that was the end of that! All trust is gone and it is pull up the drawbridges and make sure that damage limitation is in order...hence putting the land totally in my son's name. The land office initially tried to talk me out of it, they said he was already named (jointly with my wife), thank god I didn't listen to them or I would have the SCB banging on the door!

 

The really funny thing about all this is how your kids inherit your genes and the way you think....he really surprised me when he came and asked me if when we go to the gun club tomorrow, if we can ask them if we can borrow the Magnum .44 for a couple of days. - A boy after my own heart!

 

Why marry into that family in the first place??

[MikeyIdea]

16 minutes ago, louse1953 said:

thank god I didn't listen to them or I would have the SCB banging on the door!

 

Your son will have the mother (and behind her SCB) banging on his door the day he turns 20 and he will sell / mortgage the land to help the mother unless this is cleared before he is 20. That is Thai culture

 

There is a Thai saying: It is difficult to lose a little but easy to lose a lot  (sea noi sea yak, sea maak sea ngai)

 

I still think that you should spend 50,000 baht and go to Juvenile and Family court now, it is going to be little money compared to what it will cost the next 7-8 years if you don't go

 

Edited October 12, 2016 by MikeyIdea

[SOTIRIOS]

...after 100-200 years one would hope that they would make the law clear and simple....and fair....

[MikeyIdea]

1 minute ago, SOTIRIOS said:

...after 100-200 years one would hope that they would make the law clear and simple....and fair....

 

The law is already clear, simple and fair

 

The problem here is that the mother has acted fraudulently

[oxo1947]

15 hours ago, Generalchaos said:

he really surprised me when he came and asked me if when we go to the gun club tomorrow, if we can ask them if we can borrow the Magnum .44 for a couple of days. - A boy after my own heart!

.

Yes you must be very proud............................

[blackcab]

Other posters have noted that your son will come under pressure when he turns 20.

 

Perhaps the OP could get in first and get his son to lease or usufruct him the land.

 

When the OP dies the son gets it anyway. In the meantime if the son wants to cash in the land for a good reason he can - the OP just cancels his intetest at the land office.

[MikeyIdea]

1 minute ago, blackcab said:

Other posters have noted that your son will come under pressure when he turns 20.

 

Perhaps the OP could get in first and get his son to lease or usufruct him the land.

 

When the OP dies the son gets it anyway. In the meantime if the son wants to cash in the land for a good reason he can - the OP just cancels his intetest at the land office.

 

I and Mummy tried to register a lease to me on my daughters land. Land office refused to register on chanote as child is minor. They even gave a good explanation: Easy to give to minors but the law says cannot take away without court order  

 

 

[louse1953]

13 minutes ago, blackcab said:

Other posters have noted that your son will come under pressure when he turns 20.

 

Perhaps the OP could get in first and get his son to lease or usufruct him the land.

 

When the OP dies the son gets it anyway. In the meantime if the son wants to cash in the land for a good reason he can - the OP just cancels his intetest at the land office.

I am not sure but i think the usufruct follows on after sale.

[khunPer]

OP asks:
»So, now that all of the land is in my Thai son's name, does this then also mean that the house is also his? (I am presuming that it is)«

 

I will also presume so.

 

Because I've always learned that a new build house cannot get any ownership documentation at the Land Department. To prove ownership the owner of the hose must have the following: Permission from land owner to build, which can be a Superficies Agreement; Architect drawings with future house owners name; building permission from Tessa Ban issued to house owner, i.e. builder, not land owner; all contracts and money transfers to building constructor(s) must carry house owners name, as well as all bills. Otherwise a "permanent house" – not the easily move-able Thai wooden houses – is part of the land.

[Kwasaki]

6 hours ago, muzmurray said:

 

"In the 20th century, Thailand adopted western systems of laws, courts, and legal education, whereupon the Consular and International Courts were gradually phased out and finally dissolved. Because of many legal consultants from various countries, modern Thai laws have characteristics from numerous western countries, including France, Germany, Switzerland, England, Italy, Japan and India. It is thus too difficult to label which legal system is the basis of modern Thai law; instead it is appropriate to include all of these legal systems under the greater category of western legal systems to explain the basic principles of modern Thai laws."

 

http://www.thailawforum.com/articles/reformation1.html

 

Interesting but if I'm right that's the law.  

[Kwasaki]

1 hour ago, louse1953 said:

I am not sure but i think the usufruct follows on after sale.

 

https://www.samuiforsale.com/real-rights/usufruct-property-rights.html

[sometimewoodworker]

2 hours ago, blackcab said:

Other posters have noted that your son will come under pressure when he turns 20.

 

Perhaps the OP could get in first and get his son to lease or usufruct him the land.

 

When the OP dies the son gets it anyway. In the meantime if the son wants to cash in the land for a good reason he can - the OP just cancels his intetest at the land office.

An usufruct does not prevent the sale of the land. Though few people would want to buy land that has an usufruct registered on it, as the can't do anything with it.

All it does is allow the usuftuctee to use the land as if he/she were the owner, who ever is the legal owner.

[blackcab]

6 hours ago, MikeyIdea said:

 

I and Mummy tried to register a lease to me on my daughters land. Land office refused to register on chanote as child is minor. They even gave a good explanation: Easy to give to minors but the law says cannot take away without court order  

 

 

 

Sorry, I worded that badly. I meant when the OPs son turns 20.