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Opposition To Thai Government Plan Regarding Condos?

Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing recent discussion of changes to Thai Condo Laws and some backlash to that here in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Jatuporn calls for protest next month. Quoting directly: "If his plans get implemented without any opposition, Thailand will lose its independence because condominiums in Thailand could be entirely owned by foreigners -- 75% through legal ownership and 25% through nominees," Mr Jatuporn said." Mr Jatuporn is a former Red Shirt leader; his name is Jatuporn Prompan.

Yeah look it land ownership real estate title, is a very sensitive subject here in Thailand and Thai folks get very uncomfortable with the notion of foreigners having disproportional amounts of property title here in the Kingdom. We have talked about this specifically with regard to land rights that foreigners cannot own land in Thailand but at the end of the day, we have also discussed the fact that there are those who really have issues with long-term leasing here in Thailand; long-term leasing options including the possibility of 99-year leases. But on top of that yes, there is a way from foreign nationals to own a condo here in Thailand outright. They can own Freehold title, what we would sometimes call Fee Simple Absolute in a Common Law vernacular, condos can be owned by foreigners. That said, up to now and still on-going, unless there's a change in the Law, it currently only allows foreigners to own 49% of a given condo complex. It has been proposed to up this to 75% and as noted, there is some backlash to this notion of changing that number, of increasing foreign ownership of possible condominiums. 

So the thing to take away from this video and to understand is there may be changes on the horizon allowing more laxity with regard to foreign ownership of certain real estate. That said, I would not presume it to be the case and I would also not presume that this will not happen without a great deal of scrutiny by lawmakers. So again, we have yet to see the final conclusion with respect to the possibility of an increase in the foreigner quota associated with Thai condominiums, but we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.