Below are a few insights into trying to buy property in Thailand.
A loophole is an action which violates the spirit of a law while complying with the letter of the law. A good example of this was the never ending 30 day visa run. Although it was never the intent of the Thai Immigration to allow this it was never expressly forbidden and was therefore legal. This was a loophole and it has been recently closed.
READ THE NEXT PARAGRAPH VERY CAREFULLY!!!!!
As for land ownership through a company this action violates both the spirit and the letter of the law as it is expressly forbidden to use Thai nominee shareholders to act as ghost investors to allow a Farang to own land. This is not a loophole, it is simply committing a crime. In addition in order to make this work the Farang must commit a series of felonies including conspiracy, racketeering and multiple counts of fraud. The worst case scenario is multiple years in prison and large monetary fines.
Below is a bit of good info, only my opinion.
My advice would be to take some time to look into the legal problems and to allow the current political mess in Thailand to settle down before buying anything in Thailand.
As has been noted above, there are significant legal problems with owning property in Thailand. Even ownership of condominium units is risky where there are limits to the % of foreign ownership of the whole building (How are you ever going to know that the total % of foreigners does not exceed the limit).
More Risky that Thai Law are the property developers and sales people who will quite frankly tell you a crock of shite in order to get you to buy.
So please, proceed with caution and take time to build enough knowledge to be able to discern the bullshit that is spread on this subject.
Some Particular Concerns
The only legal way to control land and hence a house in Thailand is through a lease or a Usufruct. The only truly legally way to do this is to give a Thai citizen the money to buy the house, and then they lease it back to you. A 'lease' has a maximum tenure of 30 years and is taxable on two counts (Registration Tax + Tax of the full lease value - the rent you will pay for the lease). A usufruct is valid for the life of the leasee, and has a lower tax, but it is not wholly legal to use a usufruct to build a house (Usufruct is essentially for leasing land for farming purposes).
A lease can have a clause that the leasor and leasee agree to consider an additional 30 year extension, but this is not binding on the leasor, nor on his/her heirs.
The company route
Quite simply it is illegal to set up a company with the express purpose of owning land. Added to which the company must be controlled by a majority Thai ownership and then add to this that the government are now testing these arrangements by asking the Thais to demonstrate where they got the money from to buy your house.
It is a mess and I have a very good friend who has bought two houses this way. He bought the first, and then built the second intending to sell the first as soon as the second was complete. He cannot even get people to view the house he wants to sell.
While the government enforce the law (which was always the law but perhaps not enforced) thousands of expats are sitting on 'Investments' that are worth nothing.
Protecting Your Rights to your property
There is a golden rule of investing in Thailand Do not bring any money to Thailand that you cannot afford to loose, this is especially true of money invested in property.
Where I lived in Narklua there were twelve houses, eight of which had been bought/built by foreigners, all where now in the hands of Thais, only one of those transfers happened with the willing agreement of the foreigner - non got any of their money back.
OK, you can argue that those where Thai/Foreign relationships - but all the methods of buying a house in Thailand, legal and otherwise are 'Thai/Foreign' relationships.
Inheritance
If you have any children/grandchildren then you may very well want to leave them your house in Thailand, or the money from your house.
This is almost impossible, the only legal way to control the house is through a lease and the lease dies with you. (an Usufruct with a management clause that allows you to lease the house ‘might’ (but by no means certainly) allow you to lease the house to your children for thirty years, there after its reverts back to the leasor (The Thai you bought the house for).
Divorce
Do not rule this out, and don’t be offended at the suggestion. Unless you are really rock solid you are taking an increased risk of divorce in moving to Thailand and in truth making the same mistake that many foreign men make when they move to Thailand and buy land/property with their Thai wife/girlfriend – Namely putting their financial well being into the same basket as their relationship.
Yes you do that back home, but back home you are provided with a raft of legislation protecting your rights to property, wealth, pensions.
I would advise any western woman who is considering moving to Thailand with her husband (western or Thai) to take legal advice on the full spectrum of protections they are giving up if they move any substantial part of their wealth to Thailand.
Other Uncertainties
To my mind the big problems are only going to get worse. The whole of Thai society is sitting on knife edge. The current government is getting more wobbly by the day and the recently removed prime minister is by no means out of the picture. Troubles in the South are clearly not getting better.
Given all this I would not rush to buy property that in any case you can't actually own.
So what would I do in your situation?
Well I don’t know how old you are, but let’s say you want to retire in 5 to 10 years time. I’d stick your 60K in a spread of medium to high risk investment trusts and use the capital gained to increase your pension such that you can afford to rent a very nice place with no risks attached.
If your plans are more than ten years ahead that advice makes even more sense.
With a bit of luck the laws will change and you might want to get in the market if they do. Alternatively you might find somewhere else you like, things change like that.
If you are, or your parents are thinking of buying property over here.
Please get them to take off the rose coloured spectacles, stay away from property developers (especially fallang ones) and stick with buying a condo (read above about condo's) or, renting!
I only hope this post saves one person or an unsuspecting couple not to loose their life savings.
Onlyme.
Part of a paragraph deleted as it referred to the Thai Royal Family. This is expressly against T&C's
