Thai land office to confiscate land of poor Isan women married to foreigners?
By Jon Fernquest
Confiscate the land of poor Thai
women
whose foreign husbands have bought them land and a house.This seems to have become the new cause celebre of the land office of the Thai government:
The
director general of the Land Department has reiterated that
foreigners using Thai
nominees to buy land anywhere in the country will
have their land title deeds revoked if caught – even if the nominee in
question is a lawfully
wedded spouse.
Land Department Director Anuwat Meteewiboonwut made the comments during a recent stop in Phuket as part of a nationwide inspection tour of 30 provinces...
...As for foreigners seeking to buy homes in Phuket, they can do so through the Condominium Act, which allows foreign ownership of under half of the total area of any project, he said.
Foreigners cannot use a Thai spouse as a nominee to buy property in Thailand, however.
Land Department Director Anuwat Meteewiboonwut made the comments during a recent stop in Phuket as part of a nationwide inspection tour of 30 provinces...
...As for foreigners seeking to buy homes in Phuket, they can do so through the Condominium Act, which allows foreign ownership of under half of the total area of any project, he said.
Foreigners cannot use a Thai spouse as a nominee to buy property in Thailand, however.
Poor people are being especially targeted:
“If
the Thai spouse has enough money to buy the house that is fine, but if
the Thai has no money and uses money given to
him or her by a foreigner
to acquire property, that is against the law. If we check and find out
later that a Thai person has been using money from a foreigner to buy
land anywhere in Thailand, we will revoke
title deeds,” he said.
Khun Anuwat is apparently clueless about the realities of life in Thailand's poorer rural areas.
A typical example is a friend of mine who teaches at a university near Bangkok. He married a poor Isan woman from Roi Et about five years ago, bought her a house. Her father, mother, grandmother, all her brothers and sisters, nieces, nephews, everyone in their extended family lives in this house. Then she died of cancer three years later. The family still lives in the house.
These Farang husbands also send a steady and reliable stream of income to their poor adopted Isan families. This remittance income to families, sent out of concern and love, is far more reliable than foreign aid sent from rich countries to poor countries, likely cancelled during economic downturns when the rich countries themselves need the money (Read article).
There are also a lot of foreigners on long-term retirement visas living with their spouses in places like Isan and Chiang Mai. Most of these women come from poor farming families and support large families.
In practice all long-term foreign residents in Thailand have always done exactly what Khun Anuwat says is illegal, probably since the end of World War II when travellers first started reaching the shores of Thailand in large numbers.
Now Khun Anuwat says this is all against the law. Should we laugh or cry?
Such a policy that targets poor people is also perhaps a little strange after this years Black Songkran which pitted disgruntled poor farmers against Bangkok city dwellers.
Khun Anuwat's provocative statement has generated reams of angry comment on the web and at the Bangkok Post one op-ed piece and many letters to the editor (Read op-ed piece and letter #1 and #2, and forum #1 and #2).
Based on past experience though, this potential threat is likely to die down and disappear without much notice maintaining the status quo just as similar threats to foreign ownership have disappeared in the past.
In some ways the issue is similar to nominee ownership of companies beyond the 49% limit which is technically illegal in Thailand even though many large companies do it. After the 2006 coup there was a move towards strict enforcement of the law that ultimately went nowhere (Read article with graphs explaining nominee ownership and also see articles).
It has already been rumoured that there will be no active search for violators and enforcement of the land law.
(Photo above is of a rice farmer in Chiang Rai during the planting season, taken by myself and part of an Alliance Francaise exhibit at Chiang Saen National Museum in 2004).
confiscate - taking
away
cause celebre - an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning and heated public debate (See Wikipedia)
reiterated - state or say again, repeat
nominee ownership - owning something indirectly through someone else, property is in their name
a nominee - a person who pretends to own something but who actually owns it for someone else
the nominee in question - the nominee being talked about or investigated for breaking the law
spouse - wife
lawfully wedded spouse - a woman that a man is legally married to, a registered marriage
an inspection tour - when an official travels around an area to check out the problems and see what is happening
Condominium Act - Thailand's law on condomiums (Read article)
targeted - when a smaller group is selected out from a larger group for special treatment
revoke - take away
land deed, deed, title deed - the official document that proves you are the owner of land
revoke the title deeds - take away ownership of the land
apparently clueless - seems to not know what is really happening
realities - what is true about a situation (often different from what you imagine)
extended family - whole family (not just mother, father and children), cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc....
steady - continuous without stopping
reliable - dependable, can be trusted to work well, that way you want it to work
stream of income - money that you gain over a period of time, over several months and years
steady and reliable stream of income - money received each month without stop for a long time
adopted Isan families - families in Isan that you take care of, as your own family
a remittance - money sent back to their family by a overseas worker (See Wikipedia)
foreign aid, development assistance - money given by foreign governments to help poorer countries grow and develop (See Wikipedia)
retirement - later in life around age 55 to 65 when people stop working (See Wikipedia)
in practice, Y - Y is what really happens (not just a theory or idea about what happens)
a policy that targets poor people - a policy that selects poor people for special treatment
Black Songkran - Water Festival 2009 in Thailand, the Red Shirt faction staged several violent demonstrations in downtown Bangkok burning buses, blocking traffic, and even threatening an apartment building with a explosive gas truck (Read article)
pitted X against Y - X faces Y in a competition or fight
disgruntled - people who are angry about something
dwellers - people who live in a place
provocative - causing argument or disagreement
generated - created
reams of - large amounts of
op-ed piece - an article that provides an opinion in a newspaper (See Wikipedia)
potential threat - some possible danger in the future
die down - become less active or less of a problem
maintain the status quo - keep things the way they are now without changing them
in practice - the way things actually, what people really do
technically illegal - against the law, if you look at the details of the law (but perhaps not enforced)
strict enforcement of the law - catch most people who break the law, no slipping thourh
ultimately went nowhere - in the end, finally nothing really happened
cause celebre - an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning and heated public debate (See Wikipedia)
reiterated - state or say again, repeat
nominee ownership - owning something indirectly through someone else, property is in their name
a nominee - a person who pretends to own something but who actually owns it for someone else
the nominee in question - the nominee being talked about or investigated for breaking the law
spouse - wife
lawfully wedded spouse - a woman that a man is legally married to, a registered marriage
an inspection tour - when an official travels around an area to check out the problems and see what is happening
Condominium Act - Thailand's law on condomiums (Read article)
targeted - when a smaller group is selected out from a larger group for special treatment
revoke - take away
land deed, deed, title deed - the official document that proves you are the owner of land
revoke the title deeds - take away ownership of the land
apparently clueless - seems to not know what is really happening
realities - what is true about a situation (often different from what you imagine)
extended family - whole family (not just mother, father and children), cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc....
steady - continuous without stopping
reliable - dependable, can be trusted to work well, that way you want it to work
stream of income - money that you gain over a period of time, over several months and years
steady and reliable stream of income - money received each month without stop for a long time
adopted Isan families - families in Isan that you take care of, as your own family
a remittance - money sent back to their family by a overseas worker (See Wikipedia)
foreign aid, development assistance - money given by foreign governments to help poorer countries grow and develop (See Wikipedia)
retirement - later in life around age 55 to 65 when people stop working (See Wikipedia)
in practice, Y - Y is what really happens (not just a theory or idea about what happens)
a policy that targets poor people - a policy that selects poor people for special treatment
Black Songkran - Water Festival 2009 in Thailand, the Red Shirt faction staged several violent demonstrations in downtown Bangkok burning buses, blocking traffic, and even threatening an apartment building with a explosive gas truck (Read article)
pitted X against Y - X faces Y in a competition or fight
disgruntled - people who are angry about something
dwellers - people who live in a place
provocative - causing argument or disagreement
generated - created
reams of - large amounts of
op-ed piece - an article that provides an opinion in a newspaper (See Wikipedia)
potential threat - some possible danger in the future
die down - become less active or less of a problem
maintain the status quo - keep things the way they are now without changing them
in practice - the way things actually, what people really do
technically illegal - against the law, if you look at the details of the law (but perhaps not enforced)
strict enforcement of the law - catch most people who break the law, no slipping thourh
ultimately went nowhere - in the end, finally nothing really happened
Reciprocity
During a economic downturn people lose their jobs and businesses. This makes people angry. When people are angry they look for someone to blame. Foreigners are an easy scapegoat, especially foreigners working in one's country (Read recent op-ed piece).Protectionist measures have increasing worldwide as a reaction to the global economic downturn. The US may be guilty of passing "made in America" laws. Asian countries are making life difficult for migrant workers. During a economic downturn beggar they neighbor policies of all kinds become much more common (Read article #1).
Workers from poorer Burma migrate to Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand to work. The Philippines is famous for having workers working in almost every country around the globe. Thailand also has many workers overseas sending money back to Thailand (Read article).
Enforcing laws on foreign property ownership that have never been enforced before, that no one even knew existed, is essentially an act of protectionism.
A large portion of Thailand's GDP comes from exports. Access to foreign export markets is not a right but rather a privilege that other countries can revoke if they believe they are not being fairly treated. This is the basic idea behind the US putting Thailand on its intellectual property watch list (Read article).
The world was thrown into a Great Depression during the 1930s after protectionist laws in the US (Smoot-Hawley Act) escalated into a worldwide tit-for-tat trade war.
reciprocity -
giving back to people what you get from them, giving what you get
a scapegoat - an innocent person who are blamed and punished for a problem
migrant workers - workers who move from their homes to another country or region to get a job or work
a beggar thy neighbor policy - a policy that solves economic problems in one country but makes problems in other countries worse (See Wikipedia)
protectionism - laws that prevent foreign goods from entering a country
Intellectual Property (IP) - property rights created through the (intellectual) discovery efforts of a creator that are protected under patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret laws (See Wikipedia)
Great Depression - "a worldwide economic downturn starting in most places in 1929 and ending at different times in the 1930s or early 1940s for different countries. It was the largest and most important economic depression in modern history, and is used in the 21st century as a benchmark in how far the world's economy can fall. The Great Depression originated in the United States; historians most often use as a starting date the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday. The end of the depression in the U.S. is associated with the onset of the war economy of World War II, beginning around 1939" (See Wikipedia)
the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act - a law passed in 1930 that raised U.S. tariffs (taxes on imports) on over 20,000 imported goods to record levels, after it was passed many countries retaliated with increased tariffs on U.S. goods and American exports and imports plunged by more than half, this led to reduced trade and the start of the Great Depression (See Wikipedia)
escalated - when a conflict gets worse and worse, perhaps ending in war
tit-for-tat - when someone attacks you, then you attack them back (See Wikipedia)
a scapegoat - an innocent person who are blamed and punished for a problem
migrant workers - workers who move from their homes to another country or region to get a job or work
a beggar thy neighbor policy - a policy that solves economic problems in one country but makes problems in other countries worse (See Wikipedia)
protectionism - laws that prevent foreign goods from entering a country
Intellectual Property (IP) - property rights created through the (intellectual) discovery efforts of a creator that are protected under patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret laws (See Wikipedia)
Great Depression - "a worldwide economic downturn starting in most places in 1929 and ending at different times in the 1930s or early 1940s for different countries. It was the largest and most important economic depression in modern history, and is used in the 21st century as a benchmark in how far the world's economy can fall. The Great Depression originated in the United States; historians most often use as a starting date the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday. The end of the depression in the U.S. is associated with the onset of the war economy of World War II, beginning around 1939" (See Wikipedia)
the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act - a law passed in 1930 that raised U.S. tariffs (taxes on imports) on over 20,000 imported goods to record levels, after it was passed many countries retaliated with increased tariffs on U.S. goods and American exports and imports plunged by more than half, this led to reduced trade and the start of the Great Depression (See Wikipedia)
escalated - when a conflict gets worse and worse, perhaps ending in war
tit-for-tat - when someone attacks you, then you attack them back (See Wikipedia)
