Transcript of the above video: 

I think I will be talking about this more as time moves on. There has been affirmatively promulgated law that has come through The Royal Gazette pertaining to ownership of condos and how that weighs in on Immigration benefits. So what I am going to cite here is actually a small excerpt talking about, from an article I have been citing in a couple of videos I made here recently, but I want to do a bit of a deeper dive.

I thought of making this video as an ALERT, but I don't think it quite constitutes that. Alerts, in a sense this is kind of more promotional than, "hey you need to be aware that there could be a problem." Alerts I put out there when it is something that I think that the expat community or folks that may need a Visa in Thailand need to be aware of; this is more something to be aware of in a positive sense, not like something to worry about, so that's why it's not an Alert. 

That said, I thought of making this video initially after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thai property crackdown: Foreign buyers hit pause on villas as nominee loophole closes. As I have noted in a number of other videos, it's not a loophole this thing regarding nominees; frankly that is kind of a misnomer. That said, quoting directly: "The two most common clean routes of ownership are buying a villa registered as a condominium unit and holding it in freehold or registering a 30-year lease." Well first of all, that's a misnomer, okay? Like condos have to meet a certain set of criteria. Now the old Condominium Act, which there are still units out there that comply under the old Act, look a lot different than condos that really are currently being created pursuant to the later Act. So I don't really want to get into parsing the difference between those two things, but long story short, condos are a good way of legally being able to gain ownership title to some level of property here in Thailand. And now more and more, with new regulations promulgated that we are still sort of dealing with the preliminaries of, and I am still seeing how this is going to play out, but it looks like moving forward, if a foreign national buys a condominium over a certain amount it will be possible for that person to go ahead and gain a Long-Term Visa thereby. 

Now I have talked about this at length in videos going back at the turn of the year - between '25 and '26 - back in December and January, and I talked about the fact that look, some of the locals in Phuket are upset about this. I don't think we have heard the end of what the criteria are going to be when it comes to the issue of issuing Long-term Visas in association with condo purchase. What I am saying is I could definitely see that the type of condo one needs to obtain, the value amount, may go up as time goes on. But it looks like we are seeing a path forming here whereby folks can use ownership of a Thai condo as a mechanism for applying for and obtaining Long-term Visa status and maintaining it on a long-term basis. 

Now exactly what this is going to entail and exactly what this looks like remains to be seen, so we will certainly be keeping folks updated on this channel as that situation evolves.