Transcript of the above video: 

We haven't actually talked a lot about real estate or property news here recently because quite frankly, there has been a lot of front burner news going on in Tax issues, Immigration. We're also at the turnover of the year and we are sort of going into the low season, which tends to be when we see a lot of major news reports specially in the 'Foreigners Behaving Badly' category weirdly enough because it seems like high season has sort of come and gone and people kind of are hanging on, maybe folks that shouldn't otherwise be here and maybe don't have to go home but they can't stay here kind of thing. That's where we are at and I haven't talked a lot about property matters, but property is an aspect of our practice here at the firm. We do have Attorneys that work in the property sector. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the print edition of the Bangkok Post, go ahead and stick this on screen. MP petitions for land to be returned to locals. I'm going to read a fair portion of this. Quoting directly: "A Kanchanaburi MP has objected to a Decree designating restricted land areas in four of the province's districts in an attempt to return landownership rights to locals. Akaranun Khankittinan, Pheu Thai MP for Kanchanaburi, last month submitted a petition to the House asking for a study into problems caused by the Decree affecting Muang, Wang Khanai, Baan Tuan, and Wang Ka districts. The Decree, which came into effect in 1938, designates at least 3.5 million rai of land - about 3 million rai in Kanchanaburi and 500,000 rai in Ratchabiri - for military purposes" - and this is the interesting part - "to preserve a specific bamboo species for a local paper manufacturing plant run by the Thai Army, the petition says." Quoting further: "Mr. Akaranun said the paper factory that used this kind of bamboo had been defunct since 1982.." Now just for some context here folks, I was born in 1982. So, the last time that the reason for the Decree really existed was 42, almost 43 years ago. Okay. Quoting further: "..which means the purpose of conserving a 3.5 million rai outlined in the Decree has ended. Society has also dramatically changed, he said, with the population now 10 times higher than it was 87 years ago," - and also the fact they are not using this paper and it was originally done decades before they ran out of the paper, and now it has been 4 decades plus and they haven't even had the paper at all, and here this land has sat. Quoting further: "Mr. Akaranun said many locals had complained to him regarding problems caused by the Decree, especially not being able to claim ownership rights of their ancestors' land." 

Yeah, as we have discussed in other videos, there are various levels of title: there's like right of use sort of land, then it goes up and up and then you end up in the Nor Sor 3 Kor, and you end up with the Chanote Title which is like what we are used to, Freehold Title or Fee Simple Absolute in an American Common Law vernacular. Again, that is what we are used to dealing with in sort of our property system. Thailand has many varying types of title which culminate if you will with Chanote. That said, not every place is chanoted and different types of places and different types of people, are situated on different types of land. Quoting further: "The Decree should be updated to benefit the public and foster economic stability. Mr. Akaranun's petition was signed by 20 MPs." 

Yeah, see generally speaking, I think this is kind of a good policy and one would think it might benefit locals there and this is something that you would presume to see a policy emanate from a local MP from that area. So I wish this MP good luck and I hope that there is good benefit to come out of this for the locals down there. That being said, it remains to be seen how this plays out, but we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.