> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://easythailandvisa.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The 30+30+30 Lease You Are Being Sold Is No Longer Legal - URL: https://easythailandvisa.com/buying-property-in-thailand-foreigner-lease-rules/ - Published: 2026-08-11T13:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-19T12:26:52.000Z - Description: A Supreme Court ruling in March 2025 killed pre-agreed lease renewals, and a crackdown on nominee companies followed. What a foreigner can actually buy now. - Author: Somchai Jaidee - Tags: Money & Costs The villa brochure said ninety years. The agent said ninety years. The lease contract in front of me had thirty, plus thirty, plus thirty, written into it, signed, notarised, and it looked bulletproof. In March 2025 the Thai Supreme Court ruled that pre-agreed renewals beyond the first thirty-year term are not enforceable. The contract I was reading was, at the time of writing, a piece of paper describing a legal situation that does not exist. Last verified 24 August 2026. ## What a foreigner can actually own **The Land Code is unambiguous: you cannot own land in Thailand.** Not a house, not a plot, not the ground a villa sits on. This is one of the few things in Thai property law that is completely clear. **What you can own outright is a condominium unit,** freehold, as long as the building has foreign ownership quota available. The quota is forty-nine percent of the total floor area of the project, not forty-nine percent of the units, which is a detail that catches people out in small developments with large penthouses. **So the only direct ownership available to a foreigner is a condo, and only inside the quota.** When the quota is full, developers and agents offer a long-term leasehold on the unit instead, which is a different legal animal and is sold by people who will not make that clear. ## The three structures that are actually legal for houses and land **1\. A registered lease for up to thirty years,** with the lease recorded at the Land Office on the title deed. This gives you enforceable exclusive occupation for that term. The renewal is the problem, and it is the problem everybody gets wrong. **2\. A superficies right**, which is ownership of the building sitting on somebody else's land, separately registered. This is how the structure of a villa can be genuinely yours while the land is not. **3\. A usufruct,** a registered right to use and enjoy the property, which can be granted for up to thirty years or for the lifetime of the holder. In some retirement situations this is the stronger structure, because the lifetime element is exactly what a lease cannot give you. **All three must be registered at the Land Office to carry real weight.** An unregistered lease is a piece of paper between you and a landowner, and it is very hard to enforce. This is the number one thing to check before any money moves. ## The thirty plus thirty plus thirty problem, in detail **Before March 2025, it was standard practice to write two renewal periods into the lease**, producing the widely marketed ninety-year structure. It was never statutorily guaranteed, and the Supreme Court has now made clear that the pre-agreed renewals are not enforceable. **What survives is a first term of thirty years that is genuinely secure,** plus contractual renewal options that depend on the landowner's cooperation and good faith. That is a materially different proposition from a ninety-year title, and it should change how much you pay. **So the practical question when an agent shows you a villa is not about the building.** It is: is the lease registered, is the first thirty-year term firm, and what specifically is in the contract about renewal, and who the landowner actually is. ## Two proposals that keep being advertised and have not happened **A ninety-nine-year leasehold scheme and a rise in the foreign condo quota from forty-nine to seventy-five percent have both been discussed since 2024.** As of mid-2026 neither has been enacted and no bill has been tabled in Parliament. **Do not buy on the strength of a law that has not passed.** A property bought on the expectation of a future lease reform is a bet on Thai politics by somebody who does not vote in Thai elections, and a market that prices a rule change into the asking price will simply not give it back if the change stalls. ## The nominee company crackdown **The standard workaround used to be a Thai company with a Thai shareholder holding the land on your behalf,** sometimes genuinely, frequently nominally, and with a side letter. This structure is now under substantially greater scrutiny, and enforcement has focused on whether there is a real Thai investment, a real business purpose and a legitimate source of funds. **It remains legal to own land through a Thai company in a genuine joint venture,** with real Thai shareholders, real capital at risk and a real business. It is not legal to use a Thai national as a stand-in so that a foreign individual owns land. **If your purchase is being structured through a company, ask for an Investment Confirmation letter and treat any agent who shrugs at the question as your answer.** ## The things nobody mentions until after you have paid **The money has to come from abroad and be documented.** Funds for a freehold purchase must enter Thailand from overseas through a Foreign Exchange Transaction form, and the process has documentary requirements at the upper end. A payment out of an already-existing Thai account is a different and more complicated transaction, and it is where a lot of deals get stuck. **There is no residency.** Buying a property in Thailand grants absolutely no visa, no right to live there, and no exemption from the entry rules that apply to everybody else. People occasionally assume that owning a home implies a right to be in the country. It does not. **Taxes are not small and they are not one-off.** Transfer fees and stamp duty on purchase, then income tax on any rental, and the tax treatment of a property you personally occupy is different again. **And rental income is taxed in Thailand.** This surprises people who are buying a home to live in and then let it out while they are abroad. ## How to buy anything here **Use an independent Thai lawyer, not the agent's lawyer.** This is the single most valuable thing in this article and it costs a few thousand baht against a transaction running into millions. The agent's lawyer works for the agent. **Never pay a deposit without a lawyer having read the title deed and the lease.** Ask for the chanote, the land office registration, and the identity of the registered landowner. A sale of something the seller does not legally own is common and it is not fraud, it is simply how a bad deal goes wrong. **And treat every verbal assurance as worth exactly nothing,** particularly about renewals, particularly about foreign quota, and particularly from a man who wants to know your budget before he shows you the good units. ## The honest version **Buying a condo in Thailand as a foreigner is straightforward, low-risk and well understood.** The quota is checkable, the title is clean, and the process is boring. **Buying land, a house or a villa is a genuinely complicated legal structure,** in a market where the most common sales pitch describes a legal position that has not existed since March 2025, and where the workarounds are under active enforcement. It is not a bad market and it is not a scam. It is a market where the gap between what is lawful and what is commonly said is wide, and where five thousand baht of independent legal review closes most of that gap. Spend it. **More on this** - [Your Bank Called to Say the Card in Thailand Was Captured,](https://easythailandvisa.com/atm-and-card-fraud-in-thailand/) - [Bargaining in Thailand Is Fine and Haggling With Women](https://easythailandvisa.com/bargaining-in-thailand-etiquette/) - [Thai Gold Is Cheaper Than Gold and the Reason Is a Refusal](https://easythailandvisa.com/buying-gold-in-thailand/) - [How to Move Money Without Losing a Fifth of It](https://easythailandvisa.com/moving-money-in-and-out-of-thailand/)