How to Sell a Condo in Thailand

Start with the documents, not the price

Condominium sales in Thailand slip far more often on paperwork than on price. Nothing on the list is hard to get, but several items come from third parties working to their own schedule, and you cannot compress them once a buyer is waiting.

Locate the physical title deed first. If you have a mortgage, your bank holds it, and releasing it means asking for a redemption figure and arranging for the bank to attend the transfer so the loan is settled out of the buyer’s money at the same appointment. Tell your agent about the mortgage when you instruct them, not the week before completion.

The debt-free certificate comes from the juristic person that manages the building. It confirms that common area fees, sinking fund contributions and any special levies on your unit are settled, and it is only issued once they are. It must also be current on the day of transfer, so it is requested near the end of the process — but ask the management office at the start whether anything is outstanding, while you still have time to deal with it.

If you will not be in Thailand on the day, you need a power of attorney on the Land Department’s own form. If it is signed abroad it will normally need certifying, and what a branch accepts varies, so confirm the requirement with the branch holding the title before you sign anything overseas.

• The title deed for your unit, held by you or by your mortgage lender
• The house registration book issued for the unit
• Your passport, or Thai ID card and house registration if you are Thai
• A debt-free certificate from the juristic person, dated close to transfer
• A letter from the juristic person confirming the building’s current foreign ownership position

Setting a price you can defend

Thailand has no public register of achieved sale prices that an owner can search. You can see what other units are advertised at; you cannot see what any of them sold for. Asking prices are a poor guide, because they include units that have sat unsold at a number nobody will pay.

That is what an agent with real transaction history in your building is for. Ask them to show you units they have completed on — not listed — in your project or an immediately comparable one, and to explain what moved the price: floor, aspect, the view from that side of the tower, layout, whether the unit has been renovated and to what standard. A market opinion for the district is worth little when two units in the same tower can be worth materially different amounts.

One number will come up that is not a valuation at all. The Land Department maintains its own appraised value for property, and that is the base used to calculate what is payable at transfer. It is not your sale price, it is not what a buyer will pay, and it should not set your asking price. What it affects is your net proceeds, which is a separate question dealt with below.

Decide before you list what is included. Furniture, fitted wardrobes, air conditioning and white goods are routinely assumed by one side and not the other. Ask too whether the parking space is attached to your unit or allocated by the juristic person: the answer differs between buildings, and almost every buyer assumes it comes with the sale.

Choosing an agent and putting the terms in writing

Thailand has no compulsory licence for estate agents, so the screening falls to you. What you can check is real: whether the brokerage is a registered company, how long it has traded, and whether it has completed sales in your building or district. An agent who deals in your project will already know its foreign quota position and what the last few units in it went for.

Decide whether you are giving one agency an exclusive instruction or listing with several. An open listing sounds like wider exposure and often does the opposite: the same unit appears across the portals at several different prices with several different photo sets, which reads to a buyer as an owner who does not know what they want. If you go exclusive, set a fixed term and a written marketing plan, so the exclusivity buys you effort rather than just locking you in.

There is no statutory commission rate in Thailand. The fee is whatever you and the agency agree, so it belongs in a written agency agreement in a language you read, along with the answers that cause arguments later: is the fee inclusive of VAT, is it earned on transfer or on signature, what happens if the buyer forfeits the deposit and walks away, and how it is handled if a second agency introduces the buyer.

The foreign ownership quota, and why buyers ask first

Under the Condominium Act, no more than 49 per cent of the total saleable floor area of a building may be held freehold by foreign owners. The balance is reserved for Thai ownership. This is national law and applies to every condominium in the country, whatever a developer’s marketing says.

For a seller, the effect is that the same unit can be worth different things to different buyers, depending on which side of that ledger it sits on and what the building has left. A unit already held in the foreign quota can pass to another foreign buyer directly. A unit on the Thai side can only be sold to a foreign buyer as freehold if the building still has quota available, and in the projects overseas buyers most want, it often does not.

Only the juristic person can tell you where the building stands. Ask for it in writing and dated before you go to market, and ask again as you approach transfer — quota moves as other owners sell. Do not rely on what an agent or a developer’s sales office told you two years ago.

A foreign buyer taking freehold in the foreign quota must show the Land Office that the purchase money came into Thailand from abroad, in foreign currency, in their own name, evidenced by the receiving Thai bank. That paperwork is the buyer’s to produce, but it is your sale that fails if they cannot, so ask early: has the money been remitted, and does the bank documentation name the buyer exactly as they will appear on the deed. None of it can be fixed at the counter on the day.

From accepted offer to signed contract

An accepted offer is normally followed by a reservation or deposit and then a sale and purchase agreement. Deposit amounts are customary and negotiated, not set by law, and the practical question is not the size of it but what the contract says happens to it — when it is forfeited, when it is returned, and how long the buyer has to complete.

The contract should name the parties exactly as they appear on the title deed, identify the unit and anything sold with it, set the completion date and the Land Office branch, and state in words which side pays which of the costs arising at transfer. That split is negotiable, it is regularly used as a bargaining chip late in a deal, and a contract saying costs will be shared "as per custom" is an argument waiting to happen at the counter.

Ask your agent to obtain the Land Office’s figures for the amounts payable at transfer, on your specific unit, before you agree a net price. The Land Department calculates them at the appointment from its own appraised value and from your circumstances as the seller, not from the price you negotiated, so neither party can work the deduction out from the headline number. Getting the figure in advance is a normal request that any competent agent or conveyancing lawyer can make.

Transfer day at the Land Office

Ownership changes at the Land Office branch that holds the title for your building — not at a lawyer’s office, not at the bank, and not at a branch of your choosing. Both parties attend in person or through properly executed attorneys. Arrive early: branches work a queue, and an appointment that starts late can be pushed to another day.

The officer checks identity documents, the title deed, the debt-free certificate, the juristic person’s letter on foreign ownership, and the buyer’s evidence of remitted funds where they are taking foreign freehold. Any document that is missing, expired or in a different name from the deed will stop the appointment.

The amounts payable are then calculated by the Land Office and settled there and then, before the deed is endorsed. Payment is usually by cashier’s cheque rather than transfer, so agree in advance exactly how many cheques there will be and in whose names they must be drawn, including any cheque redeeming your mortgage.

Once the deed is endorsed in the buyer’s name, hand over keys and access cards, tell the juristic person the unit has changed hands so the fee account moves across, transfer the utility accounts, and keep your copy of everything signed at the counter.

What actually goes wrong

Most failed condominium sales in Thailand fail for a small number of repeated reasons, and every one is visible weeks in advance if somebody is looking for it.

• The title deed is with a mortgage lender and nobody arranged the redemption appointment in time
• The juristic person will not issue the debt-free certificate because of arrears the owner had forgotten
• The building has no foreign quota left and the buyer only discovers it after paying a deposit
• The buyer’s funds arrived in the wrong name, or as baht rather than as an inward foreign currency transfer
• A power of attorney signed abroad is not certified in the form the branch accepts
• The seller’s name on the deed does not match their current passport after a marriage or a name change
• Neither side wrote down who pays what at transfer, and it is raised for the first time at the counter