{"id":3325,"date":"2026-08-06T17:16:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T10:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/buying-a-condominium-in-thailand\/supreme-court-decisions-condo-thailand\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T17:16:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T10:16:44","slug":"supreme-court-decisions-condo-thailand","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/buying-a-condominium-in-thailand\/supreme-court-decisions-condo-thailand\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Supreme Court Decisions Every Condo Buyer in Thailand Should Know"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Why this page exists:<\/strong> most advice about buying a condominium in Thailand tells you to be careful. This page gives you the decided cases instead, with their numbers, so you can check them yourself. Every one of them is a real foreign or Thai buyer who lost money in a way that was avoidable, and every one of them is the reason a particular item exists on our 25-point due diligence checklist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Case numbers are given in the Thai format used by the Supreme Court (Sarn Dika). You can look each one up at deka.supremecourt.or.th<\/a>. These are summaries for orientation, not legal advice on your matter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

1. Putting the unit in a Thai person’s name: Dika 4096\/2557<\/h2>\n

What happened.<\/strong> A Dutch buyer purchased a condominium unit and had it registered in the name of a Thai person rather than his own. That person held the keys and paid the water and electricity, which looked like an ordinary arrangement between a foreign owner and a local caretaker. It was not. The nominee reported the unit’s ownership certificate lost, obtained a replacement certificate, changed the locks, took possession of the unit and the contents, and sold it to a third party without the buyer’s knowledge or consent.<\/p>\n

What the court held.<\/strong> The prosecution had charged embezzlement under Penal Code section 352. The Supreme Court held that the facts actually proved theft, because the true owner had never handed possession over to the nominee: the nominee took it by a stratagem. The court confirmed it could convict on the facts established, since the difference from the charge was one of detail rather than substance, and could correct the legal characterisation without increasing the sentence. The Court of Appeal’s order stood, including restitution of 3,500,000 baht.<\/p>\n

What it means for you.<\/strong> Read the outcome, not the remedy. The buyer eventually obtained a money judgment. He never got the condominium. Years in the criminal courts, a unit sold to somebody else, and a judgment that still has to be enforced, is what “putting it in a trusted person’s name” actually looks like when it goes wrong. If the foreign quota in your building is full, the honest options are a registered lease, a usufruct, or a different building. See the foreign ownership quota explained<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. An offshore company is not a workaround: Dika 840\/2561<\/h2>\n

What happened.<\/strong> A company registered in the British Virgin Islands contracted to buy a condominium unit for 72,960,361 baht under an agreement dated 12 August 2548.<\/p>\n

What the court held.<\/strong> A company incorporated under foreign law has no Thai nationality and is an alien under clause 3 of Revolutionary Council Announcement No. 281 of 24 November 1972. A juristic person that the law treats as an alien may only hold ownership of a condominium unit if it falls within one of the categories in section 19 of the Condominium Act B.E. 2522. For a company in that position, section 19(4) requires an investment promotion certificate under the investment promotion law. The company had none, so it did not qualify to take ownership of the unit, whatever the sale agreement said. The court also observed that a company whose stated business is holding assets could be expected to have researched the law of the country where it was buying, particularly at that price.<\/p>\n

What it means for you.<\/strong> If somebody offers you an offshore holding company as a way around a full foreign quota, this is the decision they have not read. The same reasoning applies to Thai companies used as nominee vehicles, which carry their own exposure under the Foreign Business Act. A condominium unit inside the quota, in your own name, is the only structure that gives a foreigner outright ownership without an argument.<\/p>\n

3. You cannot possess your way around the rules: Dika 7500\/2552<\/h2>\n

What happened.<\/strong> A foreigner had occupied unit 357\/90 in the Jomtien Hill Resort Condominium for more than ten years. Rather than register a transfer, he applied to the court for a declaration that he had acquired ownership by adverse possession under section 1382 of the Civil and Commercial Code. Nobody opposed the application.<\/p>\n

What the court held.<\/strong> It failed at every level. An alien who has not been granted permitted residence in the Kingdom cannot receive a transfer of ownership of a condominium unit. If he wishes to own one, he must do it properly under the Condominium Act B.E. 2522 and the Immigration Act B.E. 2522. He may not use the adverse possession provision to escape those requirements. The court set out the officer’s duty in the same terms it is applied at the counter today: the documents must be correct under section 19 ter, and the foreign ownership ratio, counting existing foreign owners together with the incoming buyer, must stay inside the limit in section 19 bis, before any transfer to a foreigner is registered.<\/p>\n

What it means for you.<\/strong> There is no back door. Long possession, a signed contract, paying the bills for a decade, and nobody objecting are together worth nothing against the registration requirements. This is also the clearest statement of why the FET form<\/a> is not optional paperwork: it is the section 19 ter evidence.<\/p>\n

4. Unpaid common charges stop the transfer: Dika 4457\/2565<\/h2>\n

What happened.<\/strong> A dispute over the priority of unpaid common area expenses on a condominium unit, and whether a purchaser takes the unit free of them.<\/p>\n

What the court held.<\/strong> Section 29 of the Condominium Act allows the officer to register a transfer of a unit only where the unit is free of the debts arising from the expenses under section 18, and that has to be proved by producing a current debt free certificate from the condominium juristic person. The court confirmed that the exception introduced into the Civil Procedure Code applies only to a unit bought at a sale by execution officers, where the auction proceeds are used to pay the arrears if the juristic person notifies the execution officer in time. That exception exists to make execution sales workable. It does not change the priority of the section 18 expenses generally.<\/p>\n

What it means for you.<\/strong> A seller’s unpaid maintenance fees are your problem, because without the debt free certificate the transfer simply cannot be registered, whatever your contract says and whatever date you have booked at the Land Office. Ask for that certificate at the start of the transaction, not the week before completion. A juristic person that is slow to issue one, or that disputes the figure with the seller, will cost you your completion date.<\/p>\n

5. When the developer does not finish: Dika 6473\/2551<\/h2>\n

What happened.<\/strong> Around 2536 the developer offered units in the Rattanakosin Island project. The brochure and scale model showed nine buildings of 39 floors on roughly 60 rai, seven levels of parking and extensive facilities. The contract said construction and registration of the condominium would be completed within 2541, and that if the developer failed, it would refund everything the buyer had paid together with interest at a commercial bank fixed deposit rate. The buyer paid 327,231 baht. The building was not finished on time and the advertised facilities were not built. At the end of 2541 the buyer asked for the money back. The developer’s staff said they had to consult the board, and then simply did not pay. Later the developer sent a notice inviting the buyer to attend and take registration of transfer.<\/p>\n

What the court held.<\/strong> The developer was in breach on two counts: it could not transfer ownership of the unit within the contractual time, and it had not built the utilities and facilities the contract required. The buyer therefore had the right to terminate under section 388 of the Civil and Commercial Code. A right of termination, once it exists, is exercised simply by declaring that intention to the other side, following the ordinary rules on juristic acts and declarations of intention in sections 149, 150 and 168. The buyer’s demand for his money back at the end of 2541 was that declaration. Because it came before the developer’s later notice to attend registration, the termination was valid, and no further notice under section 393 was needed. The court also rejected the suggestion that the buyer had stopped treating the delivery deadline as important.<\/p>\n

What it means for you.<\/strong> Two useful things. First, you do not need a formal lawyer’s letter to terminate: asking for your money back, and being able to prove you asked, can itself be the termination. Second, timing decides who wins. The buyer terminated before the developer produced a belated notice to complete, and that order of events is what made the termination effective. If your project is past its contractual date, the worst thing you can do is wait politely.<\/p>\n

The restitution principle is confirmed elsewhere too. In Dika 1188\/2549<\/strong>, where a buyer had paid a booking sum, a contract payment and 44 monthly installments totalling 1,493,800 baht for land with a building that was never finished, the Supreme Court held the buyer did not have to give notice fixing a further period before terminating, because the developer could not or would not perform properly in any event. On termination each side must be restored to its original position, so the developer had to return the money with interest running from the date it received each payment, under section 391. Note that the 7.5% rate in that case reflects the law at the time; for defaults from 11 April 2021 the rate is 5% under the amended sections 7 and 224.<\/p>\n

6. The brochure is part of the contract: Dika 5352\/2553<\/h2>\n

What happened.<\/strong> In a condominium project the developer produced a scale model and advertising material showing that it would build a large shopping centre next to the condominium, and a large swimming pool on top of the condominium’s car park building. This was done to attract buyers to the project. The buyer signed up. The shopping centre was not finished and the large pool on the car park was never built. The buyer terminated and asked for his money back. The developer’s answer was the one every buyer has heard: none of that is in the contract.<\/p>\n

What the court held.<\/strong> It did not matter that the sale and purchase agreement said nothing about the pool or the shopping centre. The advertising created the buyer’s understanding at the moment of contracting, the developer had offered to build the condominium alongside the shopping centre, and the buyer accepted precisely because of the convenience of having a large shopping centre attached to the building. The court held that the advertising leaflet showing the scale model of the condominium and the shopping centre is to be treated as part of the sale and purchase agreement<\/strong>, and the developer was bound to build what it had advertised.<\/p>\n

What it means for you.<\/strong> Keep the brochure. Keep the scale model photographs, the floor plates, the facilities list, the renders and the sales-office presentation, with dates. In an off-plan purchase those materials are not marketing puff you have to look past, they are potentially contractual, and they are frequently the only written record of what you were actually sold. Buyers routinely throw them away after signing, which is exactly backwards.<\/p>\n

Also worth reading: the title deed fraud case<\/h2>\n

Dika 914\/2569 is recent and we have written it up separately. A buyer falsely reported a title deed lost, obtained a replacement deed and sold the land on. It produced an unsuspended prison sentence under Penal Code sections 267 and 268, with compensation claimed inside the criminal case under section 44\/1 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Read the case note<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What these cases have in common<\/h2>\n

None of them turned on an obscure point of law. Each one turned on something that a buyer, or a buyer’s lawyer, could have established before the money moved:<\/p>\n

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  • whose name is on the certificate, and whether that is the person who will actually control the unit;<\/li>\n
  • whether the purchaser is legally capable of holding the title at all;<\/li>\n
  • whether the registration requirements have been met, rather than worked around;<\/li>\n
  • whether the unit carries debt that will block the transfer;<\/li>\n
  • whether the seller or developer is capable of performing, and what happens the day they are not;<\/li>\n
  • and what you were actually promised, which is not always what the contract says.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    That is the list our due diligence runs against. We check every developer and seller against a database of more than 84,000 Supreme Court decisions before we clear a purchase, which is how these were found.<\/p>\n

    See the 25-point condominium due diligence and the fixed fees<\/strong><\/a>  |  The complete guide to buying a condo in Thailand<\/a><\/p>\n