Ombudsmen urge draconian new law

PROPERTY

Published: 28 Jun 2012 at 00.00
Newspaper section: Business

Thai ombudsmen is drafting a carrot-and-stick law to protect Thai lands from illegal foreign nominee ownership, while developers and consultants suggest more legal transparency, a longer leasehold period and higher foreigner property taxes to prevent nominees.

Siracha: Think of the children

Ombudsman Siracha Charoenpanij said the new law would comprise punishment for companies offering advice to foreigners on how to hold Thai property by disguising their legal transaction. This would include law firms and consultants.

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richard10365
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Discussion 7 : 01 Jul 2012 at 13.077
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I think this is a great idea if this is how the United States will treat Thai people in America.

We could confiscate the land of the Thai citizen living in America (who thought they were legal), break up their families, ruin their careers, and take their children out of schools and universities by deporting them all back to Thailand homeless and broke.

Rewarding people for reporting their neighbors worked great for Hitler and the Nazi's and Stalin and the Communist. It should work great in Thailand as well. This should have great effects on Thai society.

But wait, how can foreigners legally own land if the government approved of them owning land? Wouldn't that make the government guilty of doing something illegal? If so, would the Thai citizens who approved of the foreigners owning land also have to be punished? Or will they just punish the foreigners by having the Thai government confiscate their investment?
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tcr
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Discussion 6 : 29 Jun 2012 at 15.136
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What is needed is for the Kingdom to implement property taxes. To outlaw foreigners from owning property is plain stupid. Very few countries around the world do this, and none that are "first" world. Only "third" world countries do this.
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khunbj
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Discussion 5 : 28 Jun 2012 at 10.405
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Excellent idea ... where can I report to get my billions in snitch cash or are only Thais entitled ? :) Probably, anyway this kind of xenophobia is coming up regularly in Thailand and have been coming up like this the last 20 years I have been here so nothing new under the sun here ... that he would also like foreigners to pay more than Thai will be a very popular point too .... the only thing is that I did not really know that this is the Ombudsmans job at all.
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sidwj
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Discussion 4 : 28 Jun 2012 at 09.184
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This smacks very much of "yes we want your money but we don't really want to give you anything in return". If they want to outlaw company ownership, fine, do it definitively once and for all, but offer a real solution. 99 Year leases would be a good start. They have no idea how much damage their reluctance to change will create, with places like Cambodia and Myanmar starting to open up to Foreigners and Foreign business' if Thailand does not "get with the program" inward investment to this country will rapidly become a thing of the past!!
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wvavin
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Discussion 3 : 28 Jun 2012 at 08.543
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Khun Siracha is absolutely right that we need to protect the land for our future generation. This so called proxy-purchase issue not new. Years back you could see a lot of unusual activities in the outskirts by unknown visitors to various provinces accompanied by legal advisors. Expectedly, a headman would be within the groups and that is the investor. In a very short time, news of a new land owner would spread like fire across all the household in the districts. This is the usual trend and everything is very open, nobody cares a thing about this. I think to re-enforce this law, everybody must alert the authority if such scenarios are being encountered in their provinces. Whenever farangs appear at a very unlikely place around the provinces, news of new land ownership would be heard after a while.
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geoffo
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Discussion 2 : 28 Jun 2012 at 07.472
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To avoid injustice and double standards the bill should also ban Thai's from buying property overseas so they do not impact on another nations sovereignty. That would only be fair- right
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nui
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Discussion 1 : 28 Jun 2012 at 05.301
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The current maximum legal lease period of 30 years for foreigners is too short. Foreigners, who like to lease properties for residential or commercial use, don’t like to invest millions of baht for such a short period and some might use nominees to buy the land instead. The maximum lease period should be extended to 60 years, like in many other countries. Or at least make it legal to automatically extend the lease period for another 30 years after the first period expires. It should be possible for lessee and lesser to agree an automatic extension in the Thai lease contract at the land department. The leaseholder should have the possibility to pay the lease in advance for 30 years or for 2 x 30 years at the land department. Tax and fees for 30 years can be 2 percent and for 2 x 30 years about 5 percent. The lease should not be less than the appraised values for land and property and should be used for assessing taxes.
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Ombudsmen urge draconian new law | Bangkok Post: business