Anyone recommend a decent conveyancing solicitor??

[JW]

It seems this thread has wandered off topic a little, but is interesting.
Bottom line there are a lot of "I have read... I haver heard comments" unfortuneatley mine are the same.
A lease can be written covering most of the concerns written here, i have many customers who are choosing to lease, have had lease agreements written up that a variety of lawyers have looked at and have said will give 60 years. The second thirty can be noted at the land office (this doesnt mean its 100% mind, but means that should there be a problem then a court would have a lot of difficulty finding in favour of the land owner. The issues of death can be covered by attaching the will of both parties to the lease agreement
(not sure the legalities of changing a will and who needs to be notified!).

Also bear in mind that if your buying from a good develper they have no real interest in the land after you have bought it, they would rather just give the freehold anyway, they are happy for the buyer to pretty much come up with any leasee agreement they want (so long as it isnt going to put them at risk).

All of these developers will be set in 5 or 10 years anyway and will offer at any point in the lease an option to use another method of ownership should that become available. They will happily give options to renew at any time also.

Just out of interest 2 prominent lawyers in Bangkok who have been holding back on new company set ups are now advising their clients (who are also mine) to use a company if the land area they intend to buy is less than one rai. This would say to me that they may have information already about what is ahead.

In my view at the moment a good solid lease is the best option.. but nothing seems perfect at the moment.. but will it ever - anywhere in the world.

I know that there is a think tank thing going on amongst major developers and goverment agencies at the moment and the developers are pushing for a 99 year lease, if this happened then all should be very happy.

BUT i bet some narcky buggers will find fault with that!!

What would be good is if anyone has good expirience with any lawyers here in Thailand to post about them, would require pm's.

Anyone has anything further or wants to know the lawyers i have mentioned please pm me.

Cheers

JW

PS - Sorry for any type errors, did this early and have new keyboard and really cant be bothered to read it all again!

[norm]

Burger,Beguine & J.W

Thank you all for the very helpful information. I quite like the idea of a offshore company holding the lease. That certainly makes inheritance easy.

Will expand on this in the near future as I need a little time to digest it all.

J.W I think you are right this probably should have been in a different thread. It is extremely informative and unfortunately will probably be missed by some interested forum members. Will PM you for the lawyer info.

I have owned land in several countries and I must say Thailand is by far the biggest challenge and most complex. But there is nowhere else I would rather be.

Thanks
Norm

[Burger]

In contrast to a lease, a usufructury interest can be sold or transferred, although it expires upon the death of the holder of the usufruct and therefore cannot be inherited." A standard lease cannot be assigned without the owner's permission and I don't know if a clause allowing assignment in a lease is really enforceable.

A lease can definately legally be sold or transfered, it's called 'Assignment'. The clause must be put in the contract though, as standard Thai law does not include this, which is maybe what Bequine is referring to.

As far as I know, a standard lease also expires automatically on the death of the lessee.

Again if you add a 'Succession' clause then legally the lease is left to your heirs, or a person specifically named, wife/child etc.

I've seen these leases set up with solicitiors many times for customers, so it's not just my opinion

Burger

[Burger]

JW wrote:

Also bear in mind that if your buying from a good develper they have no real interest in the land after you have bought it, they would rather just give the freehold anyway, they are happy for the buyer to pretty much come up with any leasee agreement they want

This is exactly right, developers I know are more than happy to transfer the land to a Thai friend/wife/girlfriend/child of the buyer, and let the customer take the lease out with them. Many are doing just that.

Then when you have the lease with someone else, you can 'play around with it' as you please.
For example if your happily married still, tear it up after 10 years and have a new 30 year lease with your wife.
If the relationship turns sour, exercise the buy out clause and make a new 30 year lease with A.N.Other etc etc

Burger

[Nereus]

Norm, Can you check your messages, I did pm you with some lawyers info?
Cheers

[sargeant]

This is a serious question

Does anyone have any idea of the cost of renewing the lease
I have a good idea of how it works in the UK but over here i am clueless i am pretty sure that it isnt free and i havent seen any figures or rules stated specifically anywhere by anyone

I am advising my sister who arrives 17th for 3rd holiday in 11 months and have talked leasing with her already

[sargeant]

I first mentioned cost of lease renewal and that it frightens the crap out of me on 5th feb 2007 0859 hrs on another thread

the response time to my jokes unlikely event and the lemmings was not more than one hour

Why such shyness on a simple question or am i the only person to consider it to be basic and fundemental to purchase of a lease

It is now 5 hours and the clock is still ticking

[Nereus]

Sarg,

It is based on the value of the lease and calculated by the Land Dept. I do not know the rate, but in my case it worked out to around BHT 30,000

I have not gone ahead with it, so can not say exactly.

Nereus

[sargeant]

Thanks for that nereus but is that after thirty years or 5 years
very interesting that it is a land dept calculation that means there must be some sort of formula????

[JW]

Sarge,

A lot of people are bored with the same questions, some see a property thread now and ignore it!!

Lease is cheaper than company route for sure, but who knows waht it may be in 10 years time.

Cheers

JW

[sargeant]

JW sorry but i havent seen on any thread either my question or an answer if you could point me to it I would be very much obliged

[Nereus]

JW sorry but i havent seen on any thread either my question or an answer if you could point me to it I would be very much obliged

Sarge, this may help you:

In term of registering a lease agreement, a registration of a lease for duration of more than 3 year required to pay a registration fee rate of 1% plus a 0.1% rate of stamp duty. Rates are calculated from the total amount of the rental fee or the key money or both.


Business tax 3.3% of the appraised value of the property if selling within
5 years. This applies to both individuals and companies.

Not sure about the business tax, if it applies to a lease, I suspect it does as it is "business".
The fee`s are charged to register the contract at the land dept, so if you do it a second time with a different owner, then you will pay the fees again. And I do not believe "peppercorn" type lease payments would be acceptable at the land dept--it would have to reflect a relative value of the land involved.

Sorry if this is off topic.

Nereus

[sargeant]

Thanks nereus but are you talking of the registering of a new lease or the renewal of an old lease
The question i ask is what will my sister/her son have to pay to renew the lease in thirty years time
Both to the landowner and to the land dept presuming the contract has a guaranteed renewal clause in it
Does the clause mean the landowner /chanote holder just sign it gratis because of the clause or does he have any other charges to lay on the renewal
Your land dept formula seems ok to me but when you renew in 30 years time are there any other charges
Hopefully JW will come back and point me to where this question has been asked and answered before as time is getting short my sister arrives 17th feb at some airport or another

[sargeant]

I am still waiting JW

[Beguine]

Norm, since my last visit here I have been doing more research on usufruct vs lease and the two main advantages seem to be: 1) a usufruct can be for the life of the usufructary, not limited to 30 years; 2) you have an absolute right to reassign by letting the land to some one else. If you die during the course of the lease you have assigned, the owner has to honour the rest of the lease. Apparently a couple can have a usufruct agreement which runs until both pass away. This doesn't do much for passing an asset on to your heirs but should give more security that some one would not be kicked out in their 80s when a 30 year lease might have expired. PM me if you want the name of a firm that has been doing these agreements. If going for a 30 year lease, I would agree with JW that noting a further option to renew for 30 years would be worth doing, if the Lands Dept official will allow it. But under current law it is not enforceable as a court will only accept an actual registration of a lease at the Lands Dept as evidence of default by the owner. The craze of selling villas to farangs started less than 30 years ago, so none of these options to renew have been put to the test. Hopefully things will improve in the next 30 years and I expect that some form of longer lease will eventually be allowed. 50 years is already allowed for commercial or industrial property. BTW since I think you said you were going to build a house, you can register ownership of the house and get a house registration book, if the developer is willing to apply for the building permit in your name and you have a long lease or a usufruct on the land. If you are retired here a house registration certificate is very useful for buying cars, opening bank accounts and many things as it puts you in the same league as a permanent resident. The only foreigners who can get them are permanent residents, owners of condos and owners of houses.