Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing land in Thailand. I'm making this video because I see a lot of people, especially foreigners, I talk to them, they will contact me and oftentimes unfortunately an Attorney's job is to tell people what they don't want to hear. As much as it upsets people or whatever, you are better hearing the truth that you don't want to hear, than hearing some fanciful lie that you do want to hear that comes back to bite you later; that's my opinion on this kind of thing, and usage of Thai companies to own land is one of those prime examples. Now as I have discussed in other videos, there may be limited circumstances and again under special statutes, Industrial Estate statues and things like that over here, maybe there is a situation where a foreign entity or enterprise may be able to gain land ownership in Thailand for a business purpose. There may also be a kind of structure, mostly where I see it, it involves a married couple, Thai/foreign where they set up a company together and that company may own a piece of property but that foreigner is in the minority but they are operating the company together. Again, that may be feasible. Again I'm not saying just run off and set that up, you really need very distinct legal advice, very specific legal advice to go ahead and do that because just running off wantonly and doing that can cause you a lot of problems as we will get into here in a minute. But yes, the point I am trying to make, the preface is there may be limited circumstances where corporations can be used to own land and it would fit within the parameters of Thai Law. The vast majority of situations I see when I talk to folks about owning property in Thailand through a corporation, it's not the case. It's being used purely as a mechanism of subterfuge, as a mechanism to circumvent Thai Law, it's not being used sort of in an appropriate manner where yeah under these limited circumstances, yeah a foreigner can have some say with regard to property utilizing a corporate structure. That's not the point here. The point here is it just happens so much it's almost ubiquitous here in Thailand and I am noticing it again because we are coming out of COVID where we didn't really deal with hardly any of this and now people are kind of flooding back in and they have got the same old attitudes they have always had. I don't know what it is about foreigners who come to Thailand and think that everything, they can just do what they want and this place operates the way they think it does or should or ought to or whatever. It doesn't, at the end of the day. Thailand has its own set of laws and those laws are set up to protect Thais; they're set up to facilitate the betterment of Thailand; they're set up for the common well-being of Thailand. They're not set up for the conduciveness or the accommodation of foreigners, that's not how it's set. 

In any event, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Phuket News, that's thephuketnews.com, the article is titled: DSI raids Phuket accountants over Bt440 million in nominee companies. Quoting directly: "The Department of Special Investigation" (now let's be clear, that's the equivalent of like the FBI here in Thailand. This is high level, national level stuff, so when people are looking at this and they say: "well that's Phuket, I'm out here in Hua Hin, or I'm over here in Koh Samui, or I am out in Trat, or I am down in Pattaya or I'm up here in Bangkok, or I am up in Chiang Mai - this doesn’t really apply to me, no this analysis applies nationwide, clearly.) Quoting further: "The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has raided a legal accounting firm based in Chalong that is now under investigation for its involvement in facilitating nearly 70 foreigners illegally operating companies with holdings worth an estimated total of Bt440 million." Quoting further: "He said, (and he is DSI director General Police Major Suriya Singhakamol) Quoting further: "He said the practice of using nominee shareholders was illegal under the Foreign Business Act and brought "much economic harm to the country." So again, quoting further: “Quote: "According to the regulations, there will be various taxes and fees on transactions of approximately 10% on each purchase. Especially in provinces where land is highly valued, foreigners trade by changing shareholders to avoid paying taxes. Most of the problems that follow are that the land will belong to foreigners," he said. Again this is key and he said, he being again, Police Director General Pol Major Suriya Singhakamol, I want to quote that again: "Most of the problems that follow are that the land will belong to foreigners." 

So there are two things going on here. One of the things they are upset about in this kind of structure, utilizing corporations for land ownership, is it's used to circumvent transfer taxes associated with real property here in Thailand because when real property moves from one person's name to another, there are taxes associated with that. So that's one aspect of this. But also, I can't stress this enough, I think foreign nationals come in and think "oh, they have just got a bunch of antiquated laws. They don't really want to enforce those laws because they understand the way the world works and they want to help facilitate us or whatever." I don't know what goes through people's minds where they sort of self-rationalize; that's not what's happening. The policies are clear; the underlying policy reasons for the laws are clear. Thai land, Thai real estate is reserved for Thais. That's the point. 

So again, if nothing else from this video, I am sure I am going to get burned in this series of videos I have done about land holdings and all of this stuff associated with this because people are going to say "Hey he's scaremongering, he just doesn't like foreigners, whatever." That's not the case. I am doing this and I started this channel because years ago there were so many forums, fora, forums, whatever, that were out there that were just giving out erroneous information or outdated information. Oftentimes it wasn't anybody's fault. Somebody would post a solution or how they did something and then somebody would say, "well that's how you do it." Well that posting was seven years ago, it could have changed in the meantime, whatever. My point being, the reason I made this channel, I'm not monetized, I don't make any money off of this. I do this, we went through COVID, I was trying to do this to provide information to the public. Obviously there's a promotional nature. If you can't tell that from the fact that our firm's logo is plastered all over the channel, yes it has a promotional aspect to it, obviously. But the point I am trying to make, I make these videos to inform people so they don't end up in a situation where DSI is raiding their accountants office, and their land, what they thought was "their land" that they just had to put through a company, is now possibly forfeit to the state. Again not a place you want to be if you spent millions of Baht to buy something in good faith, possibly in good faith, maybe in bad faith, whatever. Again I am not doing this to scare people I am doing it because this stuff is serious and people need to be properly informed so they don't just run around and make really serious mistakes that can have a detrimental impact on their overall life here in the Kingdom of Thailand.