Land Prices Back To Pre-scam Level

[Rooo]

Very interesting article in Samui Express.

http://www.samuiexpress.net/node/291

Edited January 6, 2007 by Rooo

[Pilchard]

Quote from express article

Most of the companies that registered are property and real-estate firms dealing with land brokerage and villa- and land-project development. According to statistics from the commercial department, 292 companies were registered by foreign investors on Samui and Phangan and the remaining 33 by Thais. On Koh Samui alone there were 259 foreign companies registered and 21 Thai companies, and on Koh Phangan 33 foreign companies and 12 Thai.

So there is now another 259 foreing companies that can't own land !

As for prices still rising, everyone i've talked to say they are waiting to see the outcome of the nominie issue.

If the government goes ahead and uses voting rights instead of share % to decide if a company is to considered foreign or not, then lot of people who have already bought with companies will be holding land illegaly.

[womble]

Not sure if I buy that.........

From what I see demand is vertually non existant at present, dunno where they get the idea of 20% rises in price when nothing much is selling.

[tornado40]

So there is now another 259 foreing companies that can't own land ! (quote)

With the uncertainty of the new policy - why do the land offices still register property to foreign companies!

Surely, they must take some of the blame - and in the event the govt. wishes to take back all the properties - although unlikely imho - farangs should put forward that as the land office allowed the transactions, then considered all to be ok

Especially for those now already set up

[mark lamai]

fortunately i never did 'buy" land.

on tuesday the cabinet will discuss the issue.

tricky coz they dont wanna make the big boys (tesco, toyota etc) lose control of their investments.

seems that there will be exclusions for certain types of business.

and land development and ownership wont be one of them i bet.

companies may have to transfer voting rights back to directors on % shareholding basis.

so 49% shareholding farang will not have control by voting rights.

i.e. the other directors (thai nominees supplied by your friendly lawyers office)

will then be able to call a meeting and vote to sell the company assets and distribute the monies to the shareholders (themselves and 49% to the poor farang) who has now lost 51% of his investment or more depending on the sale price.

yep.. a worst case scenario but highly possible.

today the bangkok post ran an article about the drying up of direct foreign investment in thailand.

it looks very serious for thailand,

so many stupid mistakes and other incidents.

1. the 30% witholding for 1 year

2. the odd bomb in bangkok

3. the company law as above

4. oh.. its an unelected government

my next move would be to ban the repatriation of all monies earned in thailand by foreign companies...

that would solve the farang problem for good... there wont be any!!!

[tornado40]

companies may have to transfer voting rights back to directors on % shareholding basis.

so 49% shareholding farang will not have control by voting rights.

i.e. the other directors (thai nominees supplied by your friendly lawyers office)

will then be able to call a meeting and vote to sell the company assets and distribute the monies to the shareholders (themselves and 49% to the poor farang) who has now lost 51% of his investment or more depending on the sale price.

yep.. a worst case scenario but highly possible.

Mark

You seem to have good knowledge about this - I like to deal with 'worst case scenarios' and often find myself suprised

However, I do not intend to sell my house and have set up a lease agreement with my company which is set up as described above. This includes the payment of tax on the rent the company receives

Would they be able to cancel the my lease agreement - which has been set up for 30 years?

[mark lamai]

hi, i am certainly not an expert on this i am afraid,

i wish one was easy to find!

coz now you have the complexities of thai company law of which i know little.

a lease from a legal landlord should be safe i guess.

but are you leasing from a company which owns the property and is this company legal in the true sense of shareholders and voting rights?

this is a unknown i think.

if you obtain a lease from a company for a property and then that company has to re-align its voting rights so the power of control is shifted to the thai nominee directors, is the lease then not valid because the company was contravening the law at the time of giving the lease?

it depends i guess on what the government decide,

about what is retrospective and whats not.

the thing that would scare the hel_l out of me is that if the voting rights have to be given back , the company is controlled by the 51% thai directors, most of whom are just office workers or anyone else, so what if an unscrupulous thai lawyer persuaded them all to call a meeting to do something?

the 49% farang is at their mercy.

so tornado, who are the other shareholders?

can you trust them to be nice to you?

coz if this voting rights give-back happens , they will effectively own 51% of "your" property.

also i have ignored the other possible consequence of new regs,

companies may have to show real employment and remuneration for directors.

its all so stupid i think.

if they simply got over their xenophobia and said farangs can own freehold up to 1 rai of land , then it would help thailand a lot and in no way damage thai sensibilities.

it would not be a lot of land but it would be a lot of hard currency coming into the economy every month.

keep your head down and wait i reckon.

when we know what the new laws are (haaa haaa )

try to get legal quietly.

[tornado40]

keep your head down and wait i reckon.

when we know what the new laws are (haaa haaa )

try to get legal quietly.

[/quote

This sounds the best thing to do - thanks for you comments though