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Foreign Land Ownership Allowed Under the Thai Condominium Act?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not there is a possibility that the Thai Condominium Act could provide for foreigners to be able to own land in Thailand. 

As a preface to the remainder of this video I would say that you have got to understand the Thai Condominium Act, as amended it has been actually amended once, once I am sure of, the Thai Condo Act allows foreign nationals to own condominiums in Thailand, not land, that is pretty explicit, but they are allowed to own condominiums in Thailand per the Act of 2008, and they can own these condominiums in freehold as opposed to having to use a leasehold structure or some sort of corporate structure; they can own these outright. Foreign Nationals can own a condo outright.

In a recent article from ASEAN NOW, that is aseannow.com, the article is titled: Thailand Proposes 10-year Visas and Land Ownership for Foreigners, Again. The following was noted: "It had previously been suggested that Laws similar to the Condo Act of 2008 would be used to allow foreigners to own land plots and housing developments. Leasehold of land up to 50 years were also being considered." We have done videos on both of these issues; the notion of possible foreign land ownership here in Thailand which has been discussed a lot lately as a mechanism for attracting high net worth individuals to relocate to Thailand. We have also done a video on 50-year leases; that has been discussed for some time now. I think we did a video on that some 2, 3 years ago. 

The thing to take away from this video is, and to be clear, I am an American Attorney; I am a naturalized citizen; I am the Managing Director of the firm; I have dealt with a lot of matters in a liaison capacity in dealing with things like conveyancing of condo ownership and we have dealt with the Condo Act. We have a number of Thai Attorneys here. This video obviously has been reviewed by them to make sure I am not talking completely out of school. I don't precisely see where the Thai Condo Act is going to allow for foreign land ownership. The Thai Condo Act is specifically for condos and there are a number of restrictions associated with that including 49 - 51% ratios of ownership etc. Now that said things can change. Laws can be amended. It is possible that some new regulation comes down the pike which might reinterpret the definition of condominium, maybe. Again this is going to depend a great deal on a lot of things that have yet to transpire if they do even transpire but I thought it was worth making a video because it seems to be in discussion at least at a policy thinking level and we might see something like this in the relatively near future.