Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing, it's a phenomenon here that is not uncommon unfortunately in Thailand, of foreigners being what I call “yessed” to death when it comes to Thai property matters. Now the thumbnail of this video might seem a little odd; it's actually from, I was reading an email from someone who sent us an inquiry regarding an issue pertaining to Thai property that they had acquired, hard to really call it that, frankly their legal posture is not optimal, let me just leave it like that, but they were told essentially, "yeah" you have effectively rights of ownership", and all sorts of things.

The thumbnail is from the movie Casino, and I have a link in the description below for the photo credit. It is kind of a blue if you will link, the clip has a fair amount of pretty harsh language in it that might not be necessarily recommended for all audiences. But the phrase, that phrase "Yessed to death", Nikki Santoro in that scene is talking to the woman that Sharon Stone plays and he says, "you yessed me to death". 

This is something we see a lot out here unfortunately and I don't really like seeing it on the back end of the problem if you will because I am usually in the unenviable position of explaining to folks, "hey you don't have the rights you think you had, you may not have any rights at all, whatever "rights" you think you have, if you press them, you can put yourself into an even worse position". As we discussed in other videos, foreign ownership of Thai Property is extremely restricted. Now as we have discussed, in theory it is possible for a foreigner to own land in Thailand but effectively you need to sign off of the Minister of Interior and as a practical matter, unless there's extreme extenuating circumstances that warrant such a sign off, it's just basically not going to happen. The policy of Thailand is Thai real estate is for Thai nationals only in terms of ownership. 

Now there are instruments that would allow for foreign usage, for example long-term leasing, what is called usufruct, (usufruct), depending on where you come from which is sort of like lifetime right of use; that's out there. There's also the possibility of different types of leasing structures, again at the end of the day basically a standard lease is going to kind of cover those kinds of things, but right of use is out there. One thing that is often talked about and is really not understood, is the notion of a company owning property and then a foreigner having like disproportionate voting rights: a foreigner having effective control through such a structure. Let me be clear, there may be fact patterns where such a set up might be viable, for example most of the ones that we see involve married couples where there is sort of a corporate entity sitting on a piece of property, oftentimes it's a “shop house” model kind of situation where there is a business running out of oftentimes the bottom sector of the shop house and then they live on top of it, and they are married and then they have a corporate structure whereby the foreigner has a minority stake but has a directorship, so some control in a business context is then possible. Again these are limited circumstances, and every time I have seen it, where it is a setup that is going to pass muster with regard to Thai Authorities, it always involves a minority stake and generally speaking, involves a marriage or some very close family relationship. 

That said, unfortunately there are a lot of operators out there, foreign, domestic, whatever that will "yes" you to death when it comes to issues of foreign ownership or foreign usage of Thai property especially through a corporate structure. And even when people ask valid and good questions trying to do their due diligence, again they are yessed to death, and basically told. “don't worry about this, this is all okay, nothing to worry about, you can do this, etc.” It's something to be very concerned about. It's one of the primary reasons for doing due diligence here in Thailand and finding an independent professional that will follow up on the nature of the property and the nature of the title which is also a very important thing - oftentimes title may not be what folks think it is - there's different grades of title under Thai Law, the highest being Chanote Title or what we would call Fee Simple Absolute or Freehold title in sort of an Anglo context but again this type of due diligence and ascertaining exactly what you are getting is a very good idea because unfortunately we see it, I wish it was far more uncommon, but we see folks contacting us that say, "oh I own a company and that owns the house." Well as we have discussed in other videos, there have been raids of even law firms and accounting firms throughout Thailand that are utilizing corporate structures to allow foreigners usage of land because it is viewed as effectively illegal subterfuge and those companies are oftentimes dissolved and the land is seized, and that is a bad deal. And there could be even criminal consequences for all this stuff, which is why I bring up even pressing what one thinks of their rights, could lead to further detrimental circumstances befalling them. 

So the point I am trying to make with this video, before getting into any kind of property transaction here in Thailand, it's a really good idea to contact an independent Legal Professional and gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.