Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing prohibition of foreign land ownership here in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Legal issues threaten Koh Samui maid's claim to late employer's estate. Quoting directly: "Nutwalai Pupongta the trusted housemaid of a French businesswoman who committed suicide on Koh Samui on April 29, might not be able to inherit 100 million Baht in assets from her former employer as police have found the deceased illegally ran businesses and owned luxury villas via nominees." Yeah look, nominees in and of themselves are illegal in Thailand, as we've discussed in other videos. That said, quoting further: "The investigation has implicated two companies GVNE Co Ltd and Maxikate Co Ltd, in acting as nominee entities for Delacote to acquire plots of land in Thailand illegally. These actions violate foreign landownership laws, which prohibit foreigners from owning land." 

Yeah look, this is another one of these things that foreigners come here to Thailand and quite honestly, they act poorly when they do on this topic, sometimes, not all the time. What am I talking about? Well, what I'm talking about is how they just flout it. They just say, "oh I can use a company to own the land. I get around it that way." No, I've said this in a million videos at this point. You can't use it like that; you can't purely use a corporation with nominees to act as a front for your land ownership. Yes, I have said this a million times - like a broken record - there are narrow circumstances, like corporate ownership, or the running of a corporation may entail ownership of a building, oftentimes like a factory or maybe like a corporate office space, and a foreigner may be a minority shareholder on the corporation, but the corporation owns land, and they are actually operating within it for business purposes and things. That may work, but if you're purely again just using a corporate structure to act as a front in order to own land, that can be very, very problematic here in Thailand and can lead to real problems including criminal problems. It's a criminal problem. 

And I've discussed in other videos, I've done the videos at the time, law firms here in Thailand have been raided over this issue. Thai Law enforcement takes it very, very seriously. Foreigners are not supposed to own land, and you can't utilize corporations as a front to do so, that's just not going to happen. So, the question then becomes, what happens if they find a corporation that's doing that? Well in the vast majority of cases, if they can prove that that's the situation at hand, they'll dissolve the company, seize the land and leave you holding nothing basically, and they could also file criminal charges against all the people involved. So, at the end of the day, it's problematic to do that; it's generally not a great idea. 

Is it possible to structure something in Thailand that you can effectively enjoy your land as if you owned it, in all the manners that that entails for all practical purposes? Effectively, yes. As we have discussed in other videos, things like usufruct - lifetime usage of property, things like long-term leasing can be set up. Again, in narrow circumstances landownership by a corporation may be warranted and be perfectly appropriate. That said, again and to reiterate, utilizing nominee corporate structures purely for a foreigner to circumvent the law that restricts foreign ownership of land in Thailand, is considered criminal and will be, again, it will be pursued by law enforcement here in the Kingdom of Thailand.