The Questions That Matter Most

Foreign nationals cannot own Thai land, and no structure changes that. What you can hold is the economic benefit of a property through secure, legally recognised rights. TIN, a 100% Thai-owned company, owns the asset and holds legal title at the Land Office.

Through Better-than-Freehold™, you hold a registered long lease and supporting security over that property, held on your behalf by an independent, regulated trustee. Land ownership stays with the Thai owner, as the law requires. The use and benefit are contractually yours.

A company set up to hide foreign control of land behind Thai shareholders is exactly what the law now targets. That is now actively prosecuted, and the 2026 checks are designed specifically to expose it. Better-than-Freehold™ is the opposite: TIN genuinely owns and operates the asset, with real capital and real substance, so there is nothing to hide and nothing to fail an audit.

A bare 30-year lease with a renewal promise is fragile, because the promise cannot be recorded on title and falls away if the owner changes. Better-than-Freehold™ replaces that promise with registered instruments: a registered lease, a separately registered option, a first-charge mortgage, and a share pledge. Your position is secured against the property itself, not against goodwill.

The structure is built for exactly this question. Your interest is secured by instruments registered against the property, including a first-charge mortgage that ranks ahead of the owner's unsecured creditors, and a pledge over the owner's shares. Those rights are held through a Labuan FSA-regulated trustee, ring-fenced from the trustee's own assets, and the corporate trustee does not die.

An independent, Thai lawyer-led security agency holds enforcement and step-in rights, and disputes are settled through Thai arbitration rather than slow court proceedings. The whole point of the design is that your protection does not depend on any single party staying healthy.

The lease runs for 30 years, and a separately registered Option Agreement gives you choices at the end of the term: a new lease on pre-agreed commercial terms, an onshore sale of the freehold at the Land Office, or a return of your option premium. Because none of these locks in a future price in a way Thai law disallows, the option is enforceable.

On death, your beneficial interest is reassigned to the heirs you nominate. Because the trustee on the title does not change, there is no Thai probate or re-registration to fight through, and succession passes cleanly. Any transfer of that interest happens offshore, though the tax treatment for you personally will depend on your country of residence.

It is designed to align with them. The structure relies on registered rights under the Thai Land Code (leases, mortgages, pledges) rather than corporate loopholes, and it keeps land ownership with a genuine, properly capitalised Thai company, which is exactly the substance the 2026 reforms test for. It is built to comply with the Land Code, the Foreign Business Act, and anti-money-laundering law.

To be clear, no private structure is endorsed or guaranteed by the Thai state, and this page is not legal advice. The design has been through independent legal and tax review, and we always recommend taking your own independent advice on your specific position.