Transcript of the above video:

So we are talking short-term leasing, I am going to do kind of a general broad video here where I talk about both residential briefly as well as commercial. 

So one thing with regard to residential, we have discussed this in other videos, Airbnb has always been a nebulous thing here in Thailand and there have been calls in the past, the fairly recent past, to make restrictions on Airbnb. This has been done by a number of property owners and hotel associations because quite honestly it cuts into their business I think is a big reason but also as we are seeing in the United States, there are detrimental effects to the overall real estate economy by becoming overly reliant on Airbnb. Most notably I have been reading recently about the situation in Aspen in Colorado, where due to Airbnb, people that are like working class people in Aspen, can no longer find particularly affordable housing because everybody is renting out their Aspen house on Airbnb to people and people that are actually living there and working there, are unable to get affordable rent. Now there is a part of me that says "well sort of let the market take over" but at the end of the day Adam Smith's notion of free market didn't really factor in notions of the digital age, things like Airbnb.

I think there is something to be said for Thailand's kind of nebulous take on Airbnb. They don't seem to be particularly interested in swatting it completely down but they also don't particularly seem to want it to replace like the hotel industry which I totally understand. On top of that, it can also really warp the property economy here in Thailand. There is a sweet spot though. I talked to people about short-term leasing, and they say well "I am going to rent for a few months" I don't think anybody in Thailand has any problem with people renting on a multi-monthly basis. It may fall under a year. In fact Thai law is pretty clear on that; leasing can be done for three years or under without the need for a registered lease so I think to a certain extent yeah, short-term leasing in a residential context is possible. But don't necessarily presume that the Airbnb model may be proliferating here in Thailand, so think about it kind of from that perspective. 

Meanwhile, over in commercial leasing, as I discussed a moment ago, leases which are under many years in duration pursuant to the Civil and Commercial Code, and full disclosure, I am not a Thai Attorney. I am the Managing Director of this firm; we have Thai Attorneys who work in this firm; they do review these videos before they go out and I confer with them before I make them. These videos are for educational purposes only. But yes leasing in terms of leasing in a commercial context here in Thailand, if a lease is for a duration of less than three years, it does not necessarily need to be registered in Thailand in order to be enforceable. If it is over that duration then yes, it has to be registered in order to be enforceable. But three year leases can be very useful for those looking to do business here in the Kingdom and we have seen a number of our clients quite enjoy utilizing a shorter term commercial lease because their businesses have grown and they have decided to move to other locations. Now again there is a converse to this where you may really like your location and want to get a long-term lease so that you can lock in a rate that you find reasonable because as time goes on, if the location is successful you may see the price of the lease go up, I can totally understand that. As previously noted, if a lease is over the duration of three years, it should be registered here in the Kingdom of Thailand in order to be enforceable by the Thai Courts.