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What is the Land Office in Thailand?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Land Office.  What are we talking about when discussing the land office? It is also referred to as the Land Department. You will hear this a lot in the context of purchase of property; that's condominiums or real estate here in the Kingdom. You will also hear talk of this rather frequently when you talk about long-term leases in the Kingdom.

So what is the land office?  If we are looking at it from United States context, it is somewhat akin to the Registrar of Deeds and that is one of their main functions is keeping records of Chanote title and various other forms of title to real estate here in the Kingdom. There also is basically a revenue collection component to the functions of the Land Office and what are we talking about? Well what we are talking about is, in Thailand they utilize a transfer fee mechanism for assessing a large amount of property taxes here in the Kingdom and by utilizing that mechanism, there needs to be somebody to collect the revenue associated with transfer fees.  Who better than the individuals who are recording the transfer? So the land office also has the function of being a revenue collector or tax collector if you will specifically with respect to property taxes. So the land office on one hand is basically a recorder's office for purposes of deed registration etc. and lease registration for that matter. Any lease that is over 3 years in duration will need to be registered with a Thailand office and registered on to the Chanote title of a given piece of real estate for it to be considered enforceable pursuant to Thai Law: a lease that is over the duration of three years is not considered enforceable pursuant to Thai Law.  So the long-term leases are going to be registered down there. Then at the same time they also have this function of being the collection point for things like the transfer fees associated with the transfer of a given piece of real estate or lease if it is not being conveyanced fully or if it is not being sold. Also duty stamps.  Duty stamps are a major component of taxation again here in Thailand and duty stamps often times have to be purchased and applied with respect to especially leases here in the Kingdom; long-term leases especially, in order for them to comport with the revenue code.

So the land office is similar to things that we have for example in the United States but at the same time it is rather different and it also has a very unique Thai twist to it; it it's just the way that they do things here. The Land Office, the Land Department has to be dealt with in matters pertaining to conveyancing of a given property or conveyancing of certain types of property rights. So for that reason, those who are looking to purchase property or real estate here in the Kingdom of Thailand are going to have to deal with that office in some capacity.