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Marriage Registration, Prenups, And Thai Property Ownership?
Transcript of the above video:
As the title of this video suggest, we are discussing marriage registration, prenuptial agreements and Thai property ownership. Specifically I am going to take this from the vantage point of somebody who for example like owns a condo here in Thailand. Foreigners are not allowed to own real estate in Thailand but foreign nationals are able to own condos and gain Freehold Title also known as Fee Simple Absolute title, what the Thais call Chanote Title, it is possible to gain Freehold title to a condominium pursuant to the Thai Condominium Act.
So in the scenario where you have got a foreign national who owns their own condo and perhaps they meet someone here in Thailand, they want to register their marriage and go ahead and deal with that, oftentimes I tell folks, you may want to look at a prenuptial agreement. It may not necessarily be what you want but a prenuptial agreement can mitigate against the possibility of quite honestly problems in the event of dissolution of the underlying marriage. Now something to keep in mind with prenuptial agreements. In Thailand there are certain strict formalities associated with them so properly drafting and properly formalizing such agreements is extremely important.
That stated, again prenuptial agreements and the laws that pertains to them in the United States is somewhat different. So depending on what your plans are, for example if you intend to marry your spouse and possibly live full or part-time in the United States, the analysis regarding a prenuptial agreement associated with that scenario may be different than somebody who wants to marry someone and live here in Thailand on a full-time basis.
The thing to take away from this video and to understand is there are a variety of factors that go into the analysis of both marriage registration and prenuptial agreements, one of those factors being whether or not property exists here in the Kingdom in the ownership or in the custody I should say in title to a foreign national. Under those circumstances again you probably are going to need some deep analysis from a legal professional regarding how prenuptial agreements work, marriage registration works, and how it impacts the ownership or possible future ownership of that property.