Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing buying a Thai condo as a foreigner. So for those who are unaware, real estate is restricted from foreign nationals owning in Thailand. So it's not possible for a foreign national to buy like a house with land. 

Now as discussed in many other videos, there may be methods and legal mechanisms whereby somebody could have the enjoyment or usage of a house and that kind of property, but it's not going to be outright ownership, what we would call in the Common Law vernacular, Fee Simple Absolute, what I understand in sort of the Australian vernacular with regard to the Common Law they oftentimes call Freehold Title, that's not possible with regard to land in Thailand. Now that said, under the Thai Condominium Act as amended, it is possible to own a Thai condominium outright here in Thailand. And I've done a number of videos talking about things like due diligence, property conveyancing, property ownership in that context. Yeah that can be a major benefit. Now the thing to understand in this video and to take away from this video is we are talking about Thai House Book benefits. 

Now before I get to that, I want to quickly do a shameless plug here for Pancake Palace. I have discussed this in other videos. My better half and I have opened a restaurant here in Thailand. It's called Pancake Palace. We kind of felt like there was a bit of a vacuum in terms of the sort of American diner experience, the sort of all day breakfast experience, so we'll put some photos here of the food we have got. We have got pancakes, we've got great buffalo wings, we've got chilli, we've got cheeseburgers, we've got hot dogs - we have got sort of what you think of when you think of diner food and all-day breakfast. So come check us out. We're on Soi Anuman Rachadhon, sometimes refer to as Narathiwas Soi 1, sometimes referred to as Soi Tarntawan. Basically if you would like to come down, we'd love to see you. I'll put a link in the description below to the Google maps link, and you can find us easily there and we'd love to see you there. 

That said, back to talking about Yellow Books. Yellow Books. What is it? A Thai House Book, also called a Tabian Baan. It's basically like an ongoing census and in many ways it's kind of the keystone document if you will, identity document for Thailand. Basically all Thais are in a House Registration Book, then that allows them to get like their Thai ID card, and it hooks up with a lot of other type of documents. It's sort of the root document for identification purposes here in Thailand. It is possible for foreigners to go ahead and get a Yellow House Book pursuant to the Civil Registration Act of 1991. Bear in mind, as I've discussed another videos, having a Yellow House Registration Book has no impact, I repeat no impact on Thai Immigration. You still have to do 90-day reporting; you still have to do address reporting via TM30, but it can be a benefit insofar as things like banking are easier, getting a driver's license can be easier. If you want to get a Pink ID card it is possible to do that off of a Yellow House Registration Book and that could be a major benefit as well.

So again, buying a Thai condo in and of itself, you can buy that in freehold, you can get what we would call Fee Simple Absolute title to a condo here, what they call Chanote Title in the Thai vernacular, you can do that. On top of that, there are other sort of ancillary benefits including a Yellow House Book which can lead to things like a Pink ID card, easier driver's licenses, easier documentation to deal with banking. This can be a benefit as well that oftentimes folks don't think about when they think about purchasing a condo here in the Kingdom of Thailand.