Land ownership

When you have spent a while in Thailand you may get interested in to owning some land. Unfortunately, the law in Thailand says that a foreigner can not own any land. It is not relevant to start to speculate this because there is nothing we can do about it. After all this restriction for foreigners is not an unusual phenomenon in other countries either. Although if you want to think about it, it is not fair that Thai people can own land, for example, in the Western countries but it is not working other way round. However, it is important to remember the next few things:- Foreigners, whether they are individuals or companies, can not own land in Thailand.- Foreigners can own real estate which is built to that very same land area. That means that you can own anything else but no land.There are common ways to control the land area but they need some arrangements:

You can change your nationality to Thai. Although it is maybe not worth of it and there are only very few people who do this just to own some land.
You can establish your own private limited company which can buy land and hence own it too. This means that you can establish a company which is 39% owned by foreigners. It is said in law that 51% of stocks of a company must be Thai owned. However, if there is foreign ownership that is more than 40%, there will be attention from Land Code officers and they may want to investigate the company to find out if the company is established only for owning land. This is why 61% of stocks must be Thai owned. Thai owners can assign irreversible right for foreigners to do all their decisions. By doing so they give all power to foreigners. To get more guaranteed you can also make your own personal loan arrangements or registered obligations or you can rent the building on the land area to yourself with a long time contract. These are very complex things and help of professionals is needed. We also want to point out, that it is illegal to establish a company just to own some land. This is why there must be some other activity in that company too, for example renting the land area to yourself. This means that there must be provable income and expenses and the company has to pay its taxes. It is also important to remember that all over 3-year contracts of rent must be registered to land register.
You can be major investor in a new export company which is approved by the Board of investments. The maximum land area owned this way is 1 rai which is 1600 square meters.
You can make an approved investment which is more than 40 million baht and which will be invested as many years as required. The maximum land area owned this way is 1 rai which is 1600 square meters.
You can buy land area to the name of some Thai person who will rent that land area to you, usually with a 30-year-contract for residential use. Usually there is also an option made for the second 30-year-period too. These kinds of 30-year-contracts can be made several but it is important to make sure that the land owner will not change during the time. This kind of rental contract must be registered at the land register office to be legal. It is also wise to make an option to the land and register it in case there will be a law which accepts foreigners as land owners. A downside of this kind of arrangement is that if you do not own the land, you can not sell it either without your landlord's permission. However, you can not be evicted during the rental period. The only way that the landlord can evict you is to sue you for not looking after his property well enough (and that can mean anything) and these kinds of legal processes keep going for years usually. It also takes a lot of money and there is no guarantee that the landlord would win in the end so it is not very usual that landlords would tend to do this. We would also like to remind you that if that landlord is your spouse and you will end up to a divorce, all the contracts made between spouses during the marriage will be canceled.
You can have a Usufruct Interest which means that you have temporary legal right to use and take advantage of somebody else's land or building in a land as you like. In these means, it is permitted to use land in any ways but destroying it. This is very close to the rental contract described previously. The difference is that you can not transfer your ownership to your heirs after your death. However, you can rent the land. The maximum legal contract is 30 years and you can do this even one day before you die. In this case you should know exactly when you die though.
You can superficially control land which is a quite similar way than renting it. In this way you can transfer ownership and rights to another person. By superficially controlling it means that you can take advantage of the land you have rented for example for the purpose of farming. However, you have to return the land to its owner as it was before your actions.
You can have an Elite Card which gives you special right to control land as the government of Thailand is your warrantor. The Elite Card costs one million Baht and you should also know right people to get that. In addition, there is no surety of continuation of this card because of some backlashes of its success. And still, this would be kind of the same way described in section 2 but this way you don't own the company of yourself. The Elite Card is a company of someone else's and you would be just an investor. This whole system was created by previous prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra so there is no security, this way at least.

There are also a lot of stories where a foreigner has bought land in the name of his or her Thai spouse and made arrangements for rent and debit. Some of these stories have ended happily but most of them not. This kind of arrangement is not very useful as such but there are some things in it that we can use for our advantage. Every case is individual and demands a lot of work because of its complexity. There have also been questions of legal cases between Thais and foreigners but in our opinion, there has not been any matter of nationality when considering who wins the case. In 1999 it was set that a Thai person who is married to a foreigner can also own some land. Before this it was forbidden.We at the Hans Lankari office are familiar with Land law and we are dealing with these things daily. For more information, please contact our office staff.(The writer likes to remind that none of these advices in this article are made for asking you to act illegally or any other way which is against law. This article is a report based on true cases and information which is available to everybody. Every foreigner in Thailand is here as a guest and shall respect the values and rules of the country.)