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Crackdown On Land Owned By Foreign Residents


george

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NATIONAL SECURITY SEMINAR

Foreigners own 100 million rai

Some 100 million rai of Thai land is owned by foreigners, mostly through their Thai spouses or nominees, Auditor-General Sriracha Charoenpanit revealed yesterday.

He said if this situation was "unsolved", it could lead to later generations of Thais having no land to live on.

Sriracha told a seminar yesterday on concealed juristic acts that threats to national security came from: firstly, drug problems ruining people, and secondly, the lack of land for future generations, as foreigners now owned a third of Thai land - about 100 million rai.

Foreigners own about 30 per cent of Hua Hin and Pattaya

It was a long-standing issue that resulted from a policy in 1997 to stimulate the economy by giving a special right of land ownership to foreigners with one million US dollars, he said. Some 90 per cent of coastal land at Ban Phe Beach in Rayong was foreign-owned, and foreigners owned about 30 per cent of Hua Hin and Pattaya.

Land deals were done in ways such as via marriage with Thais or setting up a Thai-based company and a law which allows foreigners to hold up to 49 per cent of the shares. Indeed, he said, many companies let them hold the other 51 per cent through nominees.

Sriracha called for a limit on land owned by foreign residents and said the land tax should be hiked to promote the use of land, although doing this might be difficult, as the rich would object.

Arrests for those who break the law

As a long-term solution, he urged the Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) and Department of Special Investigation to look into foreign land ownership and give rewards to people who help police arrest those who break the law.

National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA) lecturer Piyanuch Potawanich warned that the launch of the Asean Economic Community in 2015 would lead to more foreigners using nominees to own Thai land, especially Singaporeans, who were smart, had money and needed to invest for profit. Among many solutions, she also urged laws to punish nominees and deport any foreigners who do wrong.

Land Department executive Sujit Jongprasert admitted that finding nominees for foreigners who buy land wasn't easy. And AMLO chief Pol Colonel Sihanat Prayoonrat said the agency only checked land transactions that involved over Bt2 million in cash, so many buyers reduced the payment to avoid having to report such deals.

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-- The Nation 2012-03-13

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I wonder how this would effect those of us that are married to thais with children and own our primary residence that is obviously in the name of the Thai spouse. Certainly if all the paperwork was done and filed correctly then no laws were broken right? No intention to break or circumvent any laws either.

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Oh dear..........If they start investigating the funding sources of a lot of these deals there will be a lot of problems for a lot of people......and if someone decide's it's a good way to get rich on the cheap then dive for cover!!

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National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA) lecturer Piyanuch Potawanich warned that the launch of the Asean Economic Community in 2015 would lead to more foreigners using nominees to own Thai land, especially Singaporeans, who were smart, had money and needed to invest for profit.

did he really say that? or is it just the quality translation?

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1/3 of the land? Right. Tell me another one.

Gosh, maybe people who own 1/3 of the land are indeed vaguely related in some distant way to some foreigner or another (or even married), but if you're going to start making too close a degree of separation with a foreigner grounds for invalidating the right to own land, some pretty highly placed folks are going to be in trouble- lots of the 'highest-so' Thais have foreign connections.

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Another bullshit story. We are not allowed to own land so all the land 'owned by foreigners' is actually owned by Thais, be it nominees or people like jay and me. The Thais still own it.

The Amity Treaty enables American citizens to own up to 1 rai of land. It has not been modified or annulled to date.

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Another bullshit story. We are not allowed to own land so all the land 'owned by foreigners' is actually owned by Thais, be it nominees or people like jay and me. The Thais still own it.

The Amity Treaty enables American citizens to own up to 1 rai of land. It has not been modified or annulled to date.

The stats doesn't come from 1 million Americans owning land here.

It might come from over-estimations and fear-mongering...

Edited by TAWP
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So what if the land is owned by the wife well before the marriage and the farang builds the house? This looks like a real can of worms that isnt going to work out well for anyone IF the pursue it....this time.

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Another bullshit story. We are not allowed to own land so all the land 'owned by foreigners' is actually owned by Thais, be it nominees or people like jay and me. The Thais still own it.

+1 so wondering which brain owner but not brain user came to the above conclusion

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