Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are talking about Thai Companies utilized to own property here in Thailand. As we have discussed in other videos here recently, there was discussion of foreign land ownership in Thailand; that definitely fell by the wayside, not a possibility now and it doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime in the near future.

Meanwhile, there was a spokesman for the Thai Government that noted that companies could be utilized for Thai property ownership. That may be true but there are still laws and regulations on the books that heavily restrict that. So the thing to understand, I really, I hesitate to say I get frustrated but that is really the only word for it, I'll be talking to people on the phone and they will have dealt with real estate folks first and they are just told "oh yeah this is no problem." Well guess what? Real estate people are in the business of selling real estate and I am not going to say that they are unethical and they are going to tell you anything but they are going to skew it to whatever they think you are probably going to need to hear to get that sale closed up, okay? Sorry, the lawyers come in to tell you what you can't do and unfortunately that's kind of a sort of the curse of the profession if you will on a practical basis. But long story short that is what we do. Now there may be certain types of corporate structures depending on the facts in the underlying case, where you can use a corporation and own property and utilize property. Again it's going to be fact driven but there are a number of parallels and pitfalls. One of the big ones is talking to people who are trying to sell you something rather than talking to people who are trying to advise you of something; it's a big, big difference. And people get really frustrated with me because they will have been talking to Tom, Dick and Harry all about town, and especially in the Farang universe. In the Foreigner universe here in Thailand, they will be talking to folks around town telling them this, that and the other thing as if it's the gospel truth and sometimes it's just not. Now candidly, this was a lot worse years ago. I remember years ago it was like living in the ether out here in a way with respect to legal information. It was like a mist. You could never quite figure out exactly what was going on. With the advent of the internet, more translations, quite frankly more people like me out there putting out information and things, I think there's some clear notions of what works and what doesn't. Although that being said, you can end up with a kind of data overload where it becomes even more confusing because there's so much data out there. 

As far as avoidance of perils and pitfalls, the big one I would say before anything else, one thing as an offhand, deposits. Maybe don't make any deposits. Again, there's a lot of people out there trying to sell something and then there are people trying to advise. The best advice to take is from the person advising, not from the person selling, that's a good point just up front. Due diligence is also a big one to avoid being defrauded under certain circumstances and then finally again deposits. I know a lot of folks that will contact us after they made a major deposit and they say "well how can I get it back? I don't want to go through with this because now I understand what's going on." Yeah and effectively that money is gone. Now there may be circumstances where we can help folks recoup it but a lot of times it's just kind of down the memory hole if you will. I think there is a saying in Thai, "you can't get the sugar back out of the elephant's mouth". Once the sugar is in the elephant's mouth, it is gone and that is kind of the circumstance you end up in with deposits. So the thing to take away from this video, there are a number of perils and pitfalls associated with property ownership especially in a context of a corporation. Better to talk to somebody in an advisory capacity first so you understand for your situation what your parameters are and then go start talking to people who are trying to sell you something.