Legal know-how
Guides and explainers about Property, written for people who are not lawyers.
When several people are named on one land title, for example siblings who inherited together or people who bought together, they are co-owners. Each may sell their own share alone, but the whole plot only with everyone's consent. Rights, duties, dividing at the Land Office and suing for partition.
Before buying land in Thailand, check which document it has. A chanote shows ownership, a Nor Sor 3 Gor or Nor Sor 3 only possession, and a Sor Kor 1, Sor Por Kor 4-01 or Phor Bor Thor 5 cannot be registered for sale. The differences, the 30-day notice, transfer bans and checks before paying.
As a rule, foreigners cannot buy land in Thailand, but they can own a house, take a long registered lease or register a superficies, usufruct or right of habitation. How long each right lasts, whether it passes to heirs, and why a nominee arrangement puts both sides at risk.
Extending a kitchen, roofing a carport or building a new house usually needs a permit or a notification under Thailand's Building Control Act. Which small jobs are exempt, the 2-metre and 50-centimetre boundary rules, and what happens if you build without permission.
Someone who uses another person's titled land peacefully, openly and as if they owned it for 10 continuous years can acquire it under Section 1382. The conditions one by one, the land it never applies to, the court and Land Office steps, and what owners of empty plots should do.
Before the transfer at the Land Office, buyers and sellers usually sign an agreement to sell and pay money in advance. What makes the agreement enforceable, how a deposit differs from later payments, what happens to the money when one side backs out, and whether you can sue for the transfer.
Late-night noise, smoke from burning rubbish, smells from animals or branches hanging over your fence: Thai law gives you several ways to act. From gathering evidence and complaining to the local office, to mediation and a court claim.
Your builder has vanished, is far behind, or is not following the plans. What Thai hire-of-work law lets you do, how to give notice, which evidence to keep and the deadlines for suing.
Parents who want to give a house or land to a child during their lifetime should know how the gift is registered, what fees and taxes apply, how to keep living in the home afterwards, and when a gift can be taken back.
Common fees follow each owner's ownership ratio, and so do votes. Under the Thai Condominium Act: what happens when fees are paid late, how many votes each kind of resolution needs, how owners can check the accounts, and how to call an extraordinary meeting.
When other plots surround your land so it has no way to a public road, Thai law offers two routes: a way of necessity and a servitude. How they differ, who pays compensation, whether 10 years of use gives you a right, and why registration matters.
A neighbour's fence or house crosses onto your land, or the boundary markers are not where you thought. How to ask the Land Office for a boundary survey, what happens when a neighbour objects, the rules on buildings put up in good or bad faith, and why you should act before 10 years pass.
