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Company Ownership
It is also perfectly legal for a Thai company to own land
in Thailand and for up to 49% of such a company to be owned by a foreign
shareholder or shareholders. Moreover, such foreign shareholders can have
majority voting rights within the company. However, it is illegal for the Thai
shareholders in such a company to be nominees, although the questions of what
are and what are not nominees and how to prove that a shareholder is a nominee
are not ones that are necessarily easy to answer.
In practical terms, many thousands of foreigners have set
up Thai companies, with 51% or more Thai shareholders and adjusted voting rights
which give the minority foreign shareholder control of the company, in order to
purchase and effectively own properties in Thailand. Whether or not the Thai
shareholders in such companies would be classed as nominees depends to a large
extent upon how the company has been set up, and obviously this is an area in
which it is important to take good legal advice. I know of one lawyer who put
his company set up “model” before the authorities in order to test its validity
and received confirmation that it was perfectly legal and legitimate, that the
Thai shareholders would not be classed as nominees. Other companies set up
differently, if ever they were “tested” may fare differently, so taking the
right advice is important.
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