Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Condos, specifically long-term leases. Now I haven't discussed this in a while but we discussed it in other videos. Airbnb has kind of always been a gray area issue with respect to real estate in Thailand. As we have noted in other videos, there was sort of a ring some years back of folks that were one, it was foreigners essentially illegally taking control of Thai Real Estate and renting it out and essentially going around, I think that was happening on Samui, and it was going around the traditional hotel network in that particular location. Yeah there was some serious illegalities associated with that. We are not talking about short-term leasing. Short-term leasing, guest houses, things like this, they have their own sort of regulatory structure to deal with; that is not really what we are dealing with here.

We are dealing with long term leases. So for example, foreign nationals can own Thai Condos in freehold. They can own a Thai Condo outright and if they decide to lease it to somebody, is there any issue with that? Now we have discussed in other videos, there can be in certain circumstances a finding that "oh providing rental services to somebody could be deemed a service and if you remain in Thailand you may need work authorization." If you really worried about that, it is probably a good idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance on that issue. But what we see a lot of is folks who will put somebody on a long-term lease and then they are abroad. I know a lot of folks who are not yet ready to retire but plan to retire in Thailand, they got a good deal buying a condo but they go ahead and they are leasing it out while they are still working. They still come Thailand periodically, they may not even go to that condo but they still come and they have got folks on a long-term lease. That is a frequent thing that we see and really quite frankly there are not a lot of issues with respect to that from a legal standpoint especially work authorization or anything. Now there may be tax implications associated with the rental income which, that may need to be dealt with but as far as legality associated with doing it, yeah it is possible to rent things out on a long-term lease.

When there was that snafu associated with Airbnb, one of the Courts that got involved in that made it clear that long-term leasing is a different animal. So when you are talking about leasing for like a year at a time, that is a very different thing than the issue in hand with things like Airbnb. So yeah it may be a viable option for folks that have a Condo in Thailand to go ahead and lease it long term to someone who wishes to stay in that Condo here in the Kingdom of Thailand.