Land ownership in Thailand is a right exclusive only to Thai nationals.\u00a0 This notwithstanding, foreigners desiring to acquire some lands are not left without options. There are a number of legally sanctioned ways to acquire interest over lands in the Kingdom.\u00a0 However, most foreign nationals are only aware of company structured land ownership and long term leaseholds when in fact there are more ways available.\u00a0 One of these little known options is \u201csuperficies\u201d.<\/p>\n
Superficies is a right to own, upon or under the land, buildings, structures or plantations.\u00a0 This right is granted by law to all persons, Thai and foreigners alike. This means that although a foreigner is not the owner of the land, his interests over the improvements thereon –e.g. house, building, crops, etc.– can be legally protected through the right of superficies.<\/p>\n
Many foreigners — for a lack of knowledge on legally viable options — appoint Thai nominees to own land in their behalf.\u00a0 The problem with this scheme is, aside from the fact that it is a blatant circumvention of the law, the Foreigner financier is without any legal protection for his or her investment.\u00a0 There is no stopping the Thai nominee from exercising his or her legally recognized ownership rights over the land.\u00a0 To avoid this dreadful scenario, a foreigner should have a registered title over the land\u2014e.g. superficies– that can serve as an effective deterrent from unscrupulous nominees.<\/p>\n
Primarily, there must be an agreement between the land owner and the superficiary (the grantee) detailing the grant of Superficies.\u00a0 This Agreement should be registered in the competent Land Office in order to be binding against third persons.\u00a0 As to the duration of superficies, it can be created for a period not exceeding 30 years or for the duration of the lifetime of either the landowner or the superficiary.<\/p>\n
Superficies can be terminated after the lapse of the agreed period or upon the death of the party whose lifetime the superficies is established to last.\u00a0 Either party can also terminate the superficies at anytime in the event that the other party is guilty of breach of an essential condition.<\/p>\n
Superficies is a practical and beneficial scheme to protect a foreigner\u2019s interest over the land.\u00a0 Taking chances with a nominee\u2019s sense of moral obligation maybe noble– albeit foolish– but employing ways\u00a0\u00a0 to protect one\u2019s investment is more reasonable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Land ownership in Thailand is a right exclusive only to Thai nationals.\u00a0 This notwithstanding, foreigners desiring to acquire some lands are not left without options. There are a number of legally sanctioned ways to acquire interest over lands in the Kingdom.\u00a0 However, most foreign nationals are only aware of company…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[20,22,32,18],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thailand-realestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thailand-realestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thailand-realestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thailand-realestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thailand-realestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thailand-realestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thailand-realestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thailand-realestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thailand-realestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}