Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thailand Elite Visas and the possibility of land ownership. A lot of talk has been going around about so-called Long-Term Resident Visas which as we have discussed in many videos is not technically a Residence Visa, it's just a long-term non-immigrant status. And there has been a lot of talk about the possibility of land ownership associated with those type of visas which all of this remains to be seen. None of this has fully been promulgated; we have yet to see this program even come online. It is not going to happen until September. For now it's all kind of an exercise in speculation at this point and for that reason you need to take everything that is being said right now with a certain grain of salt. 

But I was reading recent article from the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, that got me thinking about making this video. The article is titled: New laws to permit foreign ownership of Thai property will benefit China. And this little excerpt I thought was noteworthy for this video. "In 2003, the Thailand Elite Visa was initially marketed on the basis of allowing Card holders to buy freehold property rather than just condos, but the concession was withdrawn after opposition in Parliament." This is kind of similar. This entire talk of freehold title associated with Thai property, it gets sort of pushed out there it seems and then immediately, as we noted going back into April of last year this was talked about, and a spokesperson for the Land Office, the Land Department came out and said NO, this is not going to be feasible. Now whether or not that remains the situation remains to be seen but there was kind of an immediate, not immediate but it happened within a week or so of that being talked about that somebody from the Land Office came out and said no, no, no, we are not looking to do that. 

So exactly how this comes out remains to be seen. And as noted this is only currently being talked about and in the case of the LTR much like when the Elite was first talking about this, Parliament came out and opposed it. There was strong opposition in Parliament and it just didn't come to fruition. So I'm not saying that's what will happen with respect to the LTR, it remains to be seen. For purposes of this video, the thing to fully understand and to provide full clarity on is the Thailand Elite Visa, No, it does not provide holders with the ability to buy freehold title here in the Kingdom of Thailand.