Thai house company pitfalls?

[Toosetinmyways]

I live in a Thai village not a developer’s estate. The house at the start of the village from the main road which sits on 4 rai of land and maybe has 10 bedrooms, has been empty for 8 years. In the meantime the trees in the garden have grown and have entangled all the electric and communication cables. First surprise. PEA arrived with a cherry picker and a chain saw gang but could do nothing as they were unable to get the landowners permission to cut the tree limbs.

Talking to the village headman it turns out that the house and land are owned by a Thai company that is the usual 49% westerner 51 %Thai. The westerner has sole signing rights for the company. All the Thais involved have changed their names and ID cards. I am not familiar with Thai company law but I would assume yearly accounts and reports have to be submitted. What happens, will the government reposes the company at some stage to recoup the fees?

Also under the control of the company are six ½ rai house plots. Three Thai families have build houses on three of the plots. These are concrete built three bedroom houses. It is obvious they have no chanote as they get their water and electric from their neighbors. Is there such a thing as squatters rights in Thailand. After a time period can they claim the land? Contrary to TVF users Thais would not be as stupid as to invest say 300,000 baht is something they may have to vacate.

[BritManToo]

2 minutes ago, Toosetinmyways said:

Is there such a thing as squatters rights in Thailand.

Yeah, 10 years and it's theirs.

But they might know where the foreigners body is buried, which would make their investment a little more secure.

Edited February 18, 2020 by BritManToo

[DaRoadrunner]

A Thai lawyer told me that this year the Govt will be going after those who use companies with nominees to own property.

[rech]

13 minutes ago, DaRoadrunner said:

A Thai lawyer told me that this year the Govt will be going after those who use companies with nominees to own property.

 

20 years that this story is repeated...

 

 

[baansgr]

1 hour ago, DaRoadrunner said:

A Thai lawyer told me that this year the Govt will be going after those who use companies with nominees to own property.

A Thai lawyer told me that also back in 2004....and probably about 20 times since then but it won't happen

[Susco]

Just now, baansgr said:

1 hour ago, DaRoadrunner said:

A Thai lawyer told me that this year the Govt will be going after those who use companies with nominees to own property.

A Thai lawyer told me that also back in 2004....and probably about 20 times since then but it won't happen

 

A Thai lawyer told me about so many laws that never would be enforced...............until the day they were enforced

[DaRoadrunner]

10 minutes ago, baansgr said:

but it won't happen

We would all be most grateful if you educate us on how you know this? Is your name Prayuth by chance?

[Scouse123]

Well it might be worth digging and finding out what happened regards the Foreigner. As you say, the Thais would not build and invest 300,000 baht in something that could be repossessed quickly. No doubt some of the local Thais know the up to date situation and his whereabouts or at least, the state of play with the land.

 

In my village they have built opposite our house and developed the land and put cattle on it and houses, the housing though is little more than shacks, but this is government owned land. I think these chancers are just pushing it as far as they can until one day somebody from government tells them to get off.

[Toosetinmyways]

Unfortunately the foreigner has a 15 year booking at the Hilton in Bangkok on his return to Thailand.

[ChipButty]

13 hours ago, DaRoadrunner said:

A Thai lawyer told me that this year the Govt will be going after those who use companies with nominees to own property.

They have been threatening to do that for years here in Phuket

[saengd]

1 minute ago, ChipButty said:

They have been threatening to do that for years here in Phuket

They have been doing that in Chiang Mai for at least seven years. We have two English friends, both married to English partners who were advised to purchase their homes via a Thai company. Everything was fine for a few years until one day the Land Office carried out some sort of ownership inspection and both were told they had six months to rearrange the ownership of their homes....which they did, one through a Thai proxy.

[Langsuan Man]

39 minutes ago, saengd said:

They have been doing that in Chiang Mai for at least seven years. We have two English friends, both married to English partners who were advised to purchase their homes via a Thai company. Everything was fine for a few years until one day the Land Office carried out some sort of ownership inspection and both were told they had six months to rearrange the ownership of their homes....which they did, one through a Thai proxy.

Did they do that to all the Thais who own property through a company ? 

 

NO, probably because their companies were set up correctly.  Everyone here likes to forget that the company route is designed for rich Thais, so that they can transfer property around without paying "land transfer taxes" .  You can transfer a company, thus it's assets, very cheaply

 

Smart lawyers just use the existing law to allow foreigners to control, but not own , property in Thailand

 

And other that the above unsubstantiated claim,  the only publicized example of a Land Office seizing a company owned property occurred in Phuket, when the Land Office went after a Hell's Angel Motorcycle club chapter for building a club house on company owned land

[jackdd]

6 minutes ago, Langsuan Man said:

Did they do that to all the Thais who own property through a company ? 

A Thai using a company to own land isn't circumventing land ownership laws, so this is no problem, why would they do anything to them?

[Langsuan Man]

32 minutes ago, jackdd said:

A Thai using a company to own land isn't circumventing land ownership laws, so this is no problem, why would they do anything to them?

A foreigner using a company to control land isn't circumventing land ownership laws, so this is no problem, why would they do anything to them ?

 

They wouldn't is the point, it's fake news 

[jackdd]

10 minutes ago, Langsuan Man said:

A foreigner using a company to control land isn't circumventing land ownership laws, so this is no problem, why would they do anything to them ?

 

They wouldn't is the point, it's fake news 

A foreigner doing this is clearly circumventing land ownership laws, because a foreigner is not supposed to be able to own land.

 

This is fake news?

 

Edited February 19, 2020 by jackdd

[ThaiBunny]

2 minutes ago, jackdd said:

A foreigner doing this is clearly circumventing land ownership laws, because a foreigner is not supposed to be able to own land.

I was once told the issue is not the shareholding but that the company itself is not trading. Its sole asset is a non-income-producing asset and it has no employees responsible for generating income for the company. That's the theory - a bit like prostitution is illegal

[baansgr]

2 hours ago, jackdd said:

A foreigner doing this is clearly circumventing land ownership laws, because a foreigner is not supposed to be able to own land.

 

This is fake news?

 

But the company owns the land...not the Foreigner..

Its saber rattling every year or so. The government don't care about some foreigner with a piddly rai of land and villa....the laws are in place to stop the purchase of agriculture land. 

[Toosetinmyways]

just to update. The company was reprocessed by the government and auctioned off last month. No idea of the price. The house and vacant land plots have for sale signs. The land occupied by the squatters are still occupied. Maybe they do have squatters rights.

[Monomial]

On 2/19/2020 at 12:22 PM, baansgr said:

But the company owns the land...not the Foreigner..

Its saber rattling every year or so. The government don't care about some foreigner with a piddly rai of land and villa....the laws are in place to stop the purchase of agriculture land. 

 

The issue has nothing to do with a company owning land. The issue is whether or not the Thai partners are genuine investors in the company, or nominees.

 

In the case of an issue, you would need to be able to prove the Thai partners had sufficient personal resources to cover their 51%, invested their own money and are receiving proportional benefits from the company structure. If you can not prove that, they will be considered nominees, and thus the company structure itself illegal, set up for the purpose of avoiding the law on foreign holdings of land.

It is not illegal to use a genuine company to hold land even if there is a foreign shareholder of 49%. It is not even illegal to use Thai nominees in a company if it was not done for the purpose of evading the land law. The illegal part is using Thai nominees for the purpose of evading the alien land law. The intent of the company matters.

 

Keep your head down and never give them a reason to investigate, and you'll probably be fine. <deleted> off the wrong person though, and it is a dangerous gamble.