Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing corporations in Thailand utilized for the purpose of owning homes. Let's go ahead and jump in. I thought of making this video after reading a recent email actually from a viewer. Quoting directly: "I thought this might be a possible video for you to make. Perhaps you already made one and I just can't find it. A couple of friends of mine have a similar situation and I'm wondering what the final outcome will be, and I'm sure there are others that could use this knowledge. They are foreigners and own a house in a company name. They live with their Thai girlfriend but are not married." So are they like they're two people? They? I don't know; I'm presuming it is one person. "They live with their Thai girlfriend but are not married. One of them has a child with dual citizenship. Their Thai girlfriend and family are on the company as 51% and he of course owns 49. I don't know if either of them have a Thailand Will. My question is what happens with the property if he unexpectedly dies or have a falling out with their girlfriend? Any other potential problems, division of money if the company sells the property?" 

Well okay, a couple of things. I mean dying is a big difference than getting into a fight with your girlfriend and effectively losing your house; those are two very, very different things. 

So okay, if somebody dies and they have a 49% interest in a given corporation, presumably the rights in those shares would move to whomever the heir is within the estate. Meanwhile “division of money if the company sells the property; again depending on the circumstances, corporations can sell assets. They can also distribute dividends and again depending on the circumstances of that, there would be probably some sort of loss filtering through that corporate mechanism but at the end of the day, it would probably largely resemble the split on the shares. 

Now to the point though, as I have discussed in many other videos, look, corporations to own Thai property for the benefits of foreigners, it's tricky. It's not something to presume everything's just going to work out hunky-dory on, not really something we love doing here at the office, but depending upon the facts in the underlying case, again where somebody is telling me about a girlfriend - I don't know what that means. They could be only married, they might not. If they have a child together, again if there is a family relationship, these kind of setups may work. I've discussed this in other videos, what I call the shop house model, where perhaps you are doing business out of a shop house, you own the shop house through a company that might maintain a Work Permit and a Visa, and you're doing business through it, again where you're with a Thai significant other, married, it's been our experience that when you are dealing with somebody who is in a registered marriage, under such circumstances maybe something that nobody is going to have a real problem with.

That said, in the situation where you're not, again to be clear on this, you cannot use Thai corporations to circumvent Thai law on foreign ownership rules. So where you might be doing it for legitimate reasons - family or business - again the sort of shop house model, that may work. That said, it may not, and I think it's fairly clear, especially going into this new year and this new government, this stuff is being scrutinized heavily. A couple of the islands are seeing crackdowns constantly. Raids on even law firms and accounting firms that are setting up companies to own property. It's not something that Thais take lightly. 

That being said, and in answer to the viewer's questions, the best I can tell you is again, it depends on the underlying circumstances. If there is an underlying family reason why a foreigner might be on a corporation for the purposes of owning Thai property, it may be kosher if you will. That said it may not. So things to watch out for are if you are kind of uneasy regarding foreign ownership of property in Thailand, it may not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.