Property: what a foreigner can own, and what the paperwork proves.

What a foreigner can and cannot own

Start with the settled position, because most confusion begins with someone repeating a half version of it. A foreign individual cannot own land in Thailand. A foreign individual can own a condominium unit outright, in freehold, in their own name, subject to a quota described below. A foreign individual can hold a registered lease over land or over a house for a term of up to thirty years, registrable at the land office. A building can in some circumstances be owned separately from the land beneath it. These rules apply to every foreign nationality identically; there is no separate regime for Russian buyers and no separate obstacle.

That means the honest menu for a family is short. A condominium in your own name is the cleanest form of ownership available to a foreigner in Thailand and the only true freehold. A villa is almost always a long lease of the land with ownership of the structure, or a lease of the whole. Structures that purport to give a foreigner effective ownership of land through a Thai company formed for that purpose are a well known area of legal risk, and our office does not arrange them; if anyone proposes one to you, that is the moment to instruct an independent lawyer rather than the seller's.

The condominium quota

Under the Condominium Act, foreign owners may collectively hold up to forty nine per cent of the total saleable floor area of a registered condominium building. The remaining fifty one per cent must be held by Thai nationals or Thai entities. The quota is a building level figure, not a national one, and it is the single most common cause of a purchase collapsing late.

The practical drill is simple and non negotiable. Before you pay a reservation fee, ask the juristic person of the building for written confirmation of the current foreign quota position and of the specific unit's status, and have your lawyer confirm it independently at the land office. In a popular Phuket or Bangkok building the foreign side of the quota can be full, in which case the same unit can only be bought on a leasehold basis or through a Thai buyer, and the price and the exit are different animals. Sellers do not always know their own building's position, and agents sometimes assume.

The remittance paper trail

This is the section that matters most, and it matters more for buyers whose banking arrangements involve additional steps. To register a freehold condominium into a foreign name, Thai law requires that the purchase money was brought into Thailand from abroad in foreign currency and converted to baht by a Thai bank, and that the bank issues documentary evidence of that inward remittance stating the purpose. Without that evidence, the land office will not register the transfer. The rule is decades old and it applies to everyone.

• The money must arrive in foreign currency and be converted to baht inside Thailand, not sent as baht.
• The remitter should be the buyer, and the beneficiary should be the buyer or, where the sale contract provides for it, the named seller or developer.
• The stated purpose on the transfer must reference the purchase of a condominium, ideally with the unit or project identified.
• The Thai bank must issue the foreign exchange transaction evidence, historically the FET form and now more often a credit advice, in the correct form for the land office.
• Where the sum exceeds the bank's reporting threshold, additional documentation will be requested. That is routine.
• Collect the evidence at the time of each transfer. Reconstructing it months later, after staff have changed, is where deals stall.

Two related realities should be stated calmly rather than avoided. First, transfers into Thailand pass through correspondent banks that run their own screening, and enhanced due diligence, including questions about source of funds, is ordinary practice rather than an aspersion. Second, the timeline is longer than it used to be. A family closing on a unit should build weeks of margin into the completion date and should never allow a contract to impose a penalty on a timetable the banking chain cannot meet. Where a payment simply cannot be made through lawful, documented channels, the correct answer is that the purchase does not proceed. Our banking guide for the Russia desk deals with this at length, and the conclusion there is the conclusion here.

Leasehold, villas and the land question

Most of the villa stock in Phuket, Samui and Krabi that foreigners occupy is held on a registered lease of up to thirty years, frequently sold with contractual promises of renewal. Understand what a renewal promise is: a contractual right against the current landowner, not a property right that binds a future one, and Thai courts have historically treated pre agreed extensions with caution. That does not make leasehold a bad structure. It makes it a structure whose real term is thirty years, to be priced and planned as such.

Diligence on a villa is a lawyer's job and worth every baht. The essentials are the title deed itself, ideally a chanote, checked at the land office rather than accepted as a photocopy; the access rights, because landlocked plots and informal access tracks are common and expensive to fix; the building permit and whether what stands matches what was approved; any environmental or setback restrictions, which on hillside and beachfront land in Phuket and Krabi are real and enforced; and the identity and capacity of the person signing. Instruct your own lawyer, not the one the seller recommends.

Costs, taxes and the transfer itself

Transaction costs in Thailand are moderate but should be agreed in writing before signing, because who pays what is negotiable and commonly disputed. The usual components are a transfer fee calculated on the appraised value, a specific business tax or stamp duty depending on how long the seller has held the property, and withholding tax on the seller's side. On a resale, splitting the transfer fee equally is a common convention rather than a rule. Registered leases carry their own registration fee and stamp duty. Add legal fees, and for a condominium the sinking fund contribution and the common area charge, which is billed by square metre and continues for as long as you own.

Completion happens in person at the land office, or through a properly executed power of attorney if you cannot attend, and it is a same day exchange: the money moves, the deed is endorsed, and you leave with the ownership document. Bring the passport, the bank evidence, the translations and the lawyer. It is an unglamorous morning and it is the whole point of the previous three months.

How our office reads a purchase

Asia Global Partners does not give investment advice and does not tell clients whether a property will rise or fall in value. What we do is sequence the transaction so that nothing depends on a step that has not yet been verified: quota confirmed before deposit, title and access checked before contract, banking route agreed with the buyer's own bank before any timetable is committed, and every remittance documented as it happens rather than afterwards. Compliance in this process is not an obstacle placed in front of the family. It is the ordinary machinery by which a foreigner's ownership becomes registered and secure, and a family that engages with it properly ends up with a title that no one can question.

Property law, quota positions, tax rates and land office practice change, and practice varies by province. This is general information and not legal or investment advice. Verify the current position with the Land Department and with an independent Thai lawyer instructed by you, and confirm all remittance requirements with your own bank before transferring funds.

This briefing is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Thai rules change frequently and individual cases differ. Verify current requirements with the relevant authorities, including the Immigration Bureau, the Board of Investment, the Land Department, the Department of Business Development and the Revenue Department, and take advice on your own facts before acting.