Selling property

HuaHinR · Amateur Joined: 04 Apr 2008 Posts: 43

Someone suggested to me that if property (condo) were bought here, upon selling it (whenever) it might be a problem getting the funds out of Thailand and back to an account in the home country. Anybody know or heard anything about this?

JimmyGreaves · Guru Joined: 17 Oct 2005 Posts: 558

if you have a bank trail of the money coming in from abroad then you can then take it out again without a problem. However you cannot really take out more than you brought in.
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alan · Novice Joined: 02 Sep 2007 Posts: 5

so what you are saying then jimmy greaves is once the house is sold for x ammount of million baht you wont really be able to transfer the money back to england or another country?

Jockey · Ace Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Posts: 1494

Just got on here admittingy a littlle inebrriated so I'll explain tomorrow when I'm sober Duck

Randy Cornhole · Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 3:36 am Post subject:

You can bring it in, but you can't take it out...
Not strictly true. You can take out what you bring in, but not any more than that.
I have heard of someone selling a house here, but only accepting payment in their county's bank denomination... So there are ways and means... Twisted Evil

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higgy · Member Joined: 04 May 2006 Posts: 82 Location: Hua Hin

I am bringing in funds from the UK to finance a house build and every time I do so I get my bank to issue me with a Sor Thor 3.This document states what the money is for.This document must specify that the remittance is to be solely to be used for purchasing a property under code 5.22.
A lawyer told me that if I sold my house I can then send monies back to the UK,obviously I have not done this yet but at least I have covered my self by obtaining these documents should I do so later.
Hope this helps but may be too late in your case,there are other threads on here about this document.
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Jockey · Ace Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Posts: 1494

When you bought your condo you would presumably have an FET (Foreign Exchange Transfer) form which you would have received from your bank to stipulate you transferred the money to buy the condo. You should also hopefully have the receipt you get from the land office at the time you bought your condo, buts thats not crucial. As the poster above says, you need a trail, so when you sell your condo get that receipt too of the land tax and property transfer fee (currently very low but still important). If you have some kind of sales agreement contract thats important too.

Now its my understanding that there is no law against you making a profit on your condo, so I think you should be able to take all the money you sold the condo for out of the country, even if that money is more than the money you sent over.

Please let us know how you get on, because this is quite a crucial question I've been investigating, and what I'm told by a lawyer might not materialise in the real world!

STEVE G · Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:11 pm Post subject:

I once spent a lot of time reading through Thai law to find an answer to this and certainly as the law is written you don’t seem to be able to take out a sum greater than you brought in.
I’ve heard that the reality of the situation a little different and people get away with this by taking the profit out in smaller installments by bank transfer.

Jockey · Ace Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Posts: 1494

I believe you 100% Steve but I've also been told conflicting information from a property lawyer in Bangkok. Thats why I'm keen to find out. I suppose the banks are the best place to ask, but I've actually tried that and never got a clear answer. Most don't know.

HuaHinR · Amateur Joined: 04 Apr 2008 Posts: 43

I haven't bought yet; just trying to collect information. Thanks.

JimmyGreaves · Guru Joined: 17 Oct 2005 Posts: 558

icebear · Member Joined: 29 Nov 2007 Posts: 63

Higgy is correct and one should fill in the form ST3 and stating the purpose and the price and keep it safely as when you intend to sell your property, this piece of paper allows you to transfer the same amount out of the country.

Many foreigners have never heard of this before and when I wanted to point this fact out to them, they were saying that we'll cross the bridge when we are there. Hopefully for them they change the law, otherwise......

Super Joe · Specialist Joined: 22 Sep 2006 Posts: 222

your allowed to take out however much you have legally accumulated as long as due taxes are paid

if you have a limited company and you made 5m profit on property, when you sell it you have to pay corporation tax on profit

with a condo as there is no company set up then corporation tax is due
also capital gains tax exists in thailand

also what youre talking about only comes into play when you try and transfer over the bank limit of 20k usd
amounts under that are done by banks without banks trying to add up all your past transfers to see if youve gone over an amount you bought in

Jockey · Ace Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Posts: 1494

Joe - I don't think that your information is accurate.

1. No Ferang "owns" a company 100 % unless they are American using the Thai / USA trade agreement,, so if your company made 5 million profit and you have 49% (or whatever) of the companies shares, then you can only account for 49% (or whatever shares you own) of the 5 million.

2. There is no capital gains tax in Thailand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax

If you know you can take out more money than you bring in based on profit from selling a condo I would very much like to know where you got that information from? Is there a web link?

There is going to be big problems when/if people sell their houses and want to return their money home. Many didn't know you need to keep a money trail and transferred the money direct into the developers account. In these cases it would be up to the developer to give the customer a form / letter from the bank that they sent over the money to buy property. How many manage to get this from their developer? Very few I would guess. Worse still I have heard of bad practice where the agent actually tries to get the customer to pay the money into the agents account in another country outside Thailand. That is illegal but one of the many scams that goes on over here.

norm · Specialist Joined: 23 Jan 2007 Posts: 134

I've been under the impression that when you pay tax on the profit you can take it out. The tax amount depends on the length of time you have owned the property. After 5 years there is no tax.

Not sure where I got that from, has anyone transfered any profit out of LOS??