Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing basically Thai protesters here in Thailand and their concerns regarding 99-year leasing. As we have discussed in other videos, there was a recent court case here in Thailand at the Supreme Court which ruled that so-called 30 + 30 + 30-year leases were null and void. There had been some, there was kind of a nebulous nature to the mechanism by which so called 30 + 30 + 30 leasing was allowed if you will legally speaking, where the mechanism to basically create an automatically existing new lease or renewal or the right of automatic renewal in the past had been kind of nebulous. The Court ruled and said no it is not nebulous; the law is pretty clear. 30-year leasing is the max amount of time under the Civil and Commercial Code that one can lease property. 

This is important because foreigners are constantly looking for property benefits, including trying to get land ownership, and this notion of 99-year leasing has come up, also issues related to uncapping the foreign quota on condos has come up, and it causes a lot of concern to many folks in Thailand, and what I would call street level Thais, just regular old people, don't like the idea of foreign nationals, and look I'm a naturalized Thai, myself included, I don't love the idea of foreign nationals coming in and buying up land in Thailand. I think one of the big problems or effectively owning land at a 99-year lease. I mean a hundred years, that is a substantial amount of time, and it can have a substantial impact on the society as a whole. And I understand where these folks are coming from, but I think part of this is coming about as a result of that Court ruling that said 30 + 30 + 30 was no longer allowed and then there has been this push. My personal opinion is that this past government was frankly heavily unduly foreign influenced. I'm hoping whatever comes about in this new government, we have talked about Anutin; it's still up in the air. That said, I've made my personal biases known, I would kind of prefer to see him over any of the other alternatives I can see out there. That said, it remains to be seen where that's at, at least as of the time of this video, but a lot of people are concerned about this 99-year leasing. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Anti-Pheu Thai grouped together at Victory Monument. Quoting directly: "The United Power of the Land to Protect Sovereignty and its supporters will gather again at Victory Monument in Bangkok on Sunday to oppose the Pheu Thai Party leading the formation of a new government." It is my understanding thing that has happened; it was a fairly well attended rally to the best of my knowledge; I did not go to that one. I have been to a few of these just a sort of see what is going on, but I did not go to that one. Quoting further: "One of the group leaders, former red-shirt stalwart, Jatuporn Prompan, said the departure of Ms. Paetongtarn was not a victory for the group and its supporters, but merely a change of face." Quoting further: "Pichit Chaimongkol, another core leader of the protest group, said that as long as Pheu Thai persists in attempts to form a new government, the group would affirm its opposition. He called on the public to gather at Victory Monument on Sunday from noon onwards. And then they go into some key demands here, and I am not going to read them all but going through here: The 6 key amends from the demonstrators are: 

The exclusion of any Prime Ministerial candidate from the Pheu Thai Party." Quoting further, and this is the key point. I urge those who are watching this video, go read that article in detail if you want to get the full detail of what these folks want and things. But mainly this video pertains to property. And by the way before I go further, I get into deep dive analysis of a lot of this stuff especially developments within the Thai political sphere and how it could impact expat land in our paid news service. You can find that by emailing us, [email protected], again that is [email protected], you can get on the mailing list for the paid new service. While I'm talking my book, also worth pointing out my better half and I set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok. It’s called Pancake Palace as the name implies, breakfast anytime including American Diner style food like cheeseburgers, buffalo wings and chilli bowls. If you're interested in that, we would love to see you. Check out the links below for the location, come on down and see us at Pancake Palace.

That said, quoting further and into the thrust of this video: "Withdrawal of the draft amendment to the Property Leasing Act, which extends leasehold rights for foreigners from 30 years to 99 years." Quoting further: "The group emphasized that these demands were not intended to benefit any political group, but rather represent the power of the people, aimed at preventing a new Government from repeating mistakes and doing long-term harm to the country." Yeah, I have been talking about this myself. It’s my concern with all this World Economic Forum talk, it’s my concern with the fact that people, especially now the caretaker Prime Minister has a history with Communism. I mean these are things that are really concerning and should be for any person that is worried about Thailand's well-being and long-term national interests. That said quoting further: "The demonstration is set to take place just days before the House of Representatives meeting from Wednesday to Friday to select a new Prime Minister." So again, until they meet, we don't really know how this is going to play out regardless of what the Press says or anybody says or thinks. I have tried to make my biases known so the people are aware where I may be not fully impartially 100% impartial, I guess, just because I do view it is ethically incumbent upon me if you will, to try to be as impartial as I can in providing information to folks.

So understanding that, what should foreigners take away from this video? That it's a key concern to Thais that 99-year leasing is a problem. I think it is fairly safe to presume that this would be a tall order under any forthcoming Government, and understand any forthcoming Government is likely only going to be around until right around the first of the year as it is apparently the main negotiating point if you will or the main requirement for People Power to lend their votes to any new Government, be it Bhumjaithai, be it Pheu Thai it is incumbent upon that Party to agree to dissolving the government, dissolving the Parliament I should say by the end of the year effectively, that is my understanding. So they are not going to have a ton of time to do anything and frankly I would highly doubt that any future Government is going to want to invest a bunch of political capital in doing something that is so unpopular, we are already seeing people on the streets over it. So the point of this video is, don't expect 99-year leasing to happen here in Thailand anytime soon.