Surat Thani · 2026
Villas held through a Thai company
What the 2026 review covers, how to tell whether your structure is exposed, and the route to a right registered in your own name.
Not legal advice · we will tell you plainly if there is nothing to change
In short
What is happening
Five agencies are reviewing companies with foreign shareholders across Surat Thani — 8,213 on Koh Samui, 3,213 on Koh Phangan.
Is your structure a problem
Only if the Thai shareholders hold on your behalf. There are checkable signals below.
What can be done
Not a conversion — an asset purchase, then a right registered fresh on the same deed in your own name.
How long
About 14 days from signing to registration.
Where things stand
The rule has not changed. The scrutiny has.
Under the Land Code a foreign individual cannot hold freehold title to land. The company route was never an exception to that rule — its legality always depended on whether the Thai shareholders were real. If they hold their shares on a foreigner's behalf, funded by the foreigner and supported by side agreements, share pledges or undated transfer forms, that is a nominee arrangement, prohibited under the Land Code and the Foreign Business Act. The exposure is not limited to a fine; it can extend to the land.
DBD, DSI, the Department of Lands, AMLO and the Revenue Department, reported by The Nation. A May 2026 inspection covered a pool villa and a hotel on Koh Pha-ngan.
Check your own file
Nominee, or a legitimate Thai company?
Many owners were never shown the full file. These are the signals a review looks at.
Points toward a nominee arrangement
You paid for the Thai shareholders' shares. You have never met them. Undated, pre-signed share transfers sit in the file. The Thai shares are pledged back to you. A side agreement or proxy neutralises their votes. The company has never traded.
Points toward a genuine company
Thai shareholders paid for their own shares from their own funds and can show it. They vote. The company carries on a real business, files real accounts and pays tax on real revenue. No side agreements, pledges or undated transfers behind the share register.
We are not telling you your structure is illegal — we have not read your documents, and neither has any website. Have the file reviewed by independent Thai counsel with no connection to us, the seller or your manager.
One point runs counter to how the structure is usually sold: control secured through protective articles of association is evidence of the problem, not a defence. The better the documents prove you alone control the company, the easier it is to show the Thai shareholders hold on your behalf.
The cost you already pay
Why company-held villas sell slowest.
A buyer is not buying a house. They are buying a company and every year of its history — including the parts nobody can now explain. That exposure gets priced in. Deals stall in due diligence, serious buyers walk, and the ones who stay negotiate hard. Company-held villas take the longest to sell and attract the deepest discounts.
There is also the annual cost of an entity that produces no income: accounts and tax filings every year, and shareholders who age, move and occasionally die, leaving their shares to people you have never met.
The alternative
A right registered on the deed, in your own name.
Sap-Ing-Sith: a real right under the Property-Based Right Act B.E. 2562 (2019), inscribed on the Chanote next to the freehold owner. No shareholders, no side agreements, nothing to unwind later.
What it gives you
Up to 30 years. Transferable without the landowner's consent. Inheritable by statute. Mortgageable as a matter of law. Survives a sale of the land.
What it does not
Not freehold — you do not own the land. No renewal mechanism in the Act, so never 60 or 90 years. Buildings revert at the end unless separately registered. The value declines as the term shortens.
United Grace Co., Ltd. is 100% Thai-owned and owns its land outright — not in trust, not as a nominee for you. That distinction is why this is not the same arrangement under a new name. Side by side →
The route · about 14 days
You cannot convert. You re-acquire.
There is no conversion procedure in the Act. The land has to be acquired by a landowner who will grant the right, and the right is then registered fresh in your name — in practice, an asset purchase.
Days 1–3
Villa, title and existing company file reviewed. Terms agreed, track chosen, full cost shown including government fees.
Days 4–10
The asset purchase is executed. Your company is unwound from the asset rather than left sitting behind it.
Days 11–14
The right is inscribed on the Chanote at the Land Office, in your name.
Winding up the old company, the tax treatment of the sale and settling with your shareholders stay with your own lawyer and accountant. We do not advise on those.
Cost
What it costs.
- At signing
- The purchase price
- Annual payment
- 3% of the purchase price
- At signing
- The purchase price + 20%
minimum ฿700,000 - Annual payment
- Nothing
- At signing
- Nothing — we fund the purchase
- Annual payment
- 6% of the purchase price
Identical right on all three; changeable later. The buyer of the right pays all government fees and taxes: 2% transfer fee, 0.5% stamp duty, and a fixed Land Office fee. Calculator →
Send us how the structure was set up.
The island, roughly what the villa is worth, and how the company was formed. A reply within 24 hours, in English or Hebrew. If there is nothing worth changing, that is what you will hear.
Chat on WhatsApp — we reply in minutes The legal basisעברית. General information about Thai law, not legal advice. Whether your structure is compliant depends on facts we have not seen — confirm your position with independent Thai counsel.