Section 1304

Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section

1. Supreme Court Judgment No. 6120/2558 (2015)

   Land inside a national forest reserve is public domain for the common use of the people under section 1304(2), so occupying it confers neither ownership nor any possessory right good against the State. As between private claimants one may still have a better right than another, but that better right rests on the circumstances of actual possession, not on a Sor Kor 1 notification form or a Por Bor Tor 11 local tax receipt, and it lasts only so long as the possession lasts. If the possession ends for any reason, the better right ends with it.

   The plaintiff bought bare land from a village headman for 200,000 baht, holding a Sor Kor 1 form and Por Bor Tor 11 tax receipts, and from 1990 planted eucalyptus and bamboo. The land lies inside the Chong Mek national forest reserve declared by Ministerial Regulation No. 1211 (B.E. 2530). He sued to evict the defendant from about 10 rai. The Supreme Court held the land was public domain under section 1304(2), so any better right had to rest on the circumstances of possession rather than on those documents and existed only while possession continued. The plaintiff led no evidence that he had guarded the land or held it out as his after planting, and the plot lies behind the Chong Mek police station, which had Forest Department permission to use the reserve, so an occupier would not easily have been displaced. The defendant proved actual occupation with eucalyptus and a vegetable plot, supported by photographs. The plaintiff was therefore not the possessor, had no better right than the defendant, and could neither evict her nor claim damages.

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2. Supreme Court Judgment No. 1360/2555 (2012)

   Uncultivated waste land is public domain under section 1304 (1) and is therefore land of the State, which no one may take into occupation without a right of possession. Whether an indictment describes the land as public domain used for a specific State purpose or as waste land is only a detail going to the heavier penalty tier, not an element of the offence.

   The petitioner had been convicted of encroaching on public-domain land and applied to reopen the criminal case, saying the land was really uncultivated waste land. The Supreme Court dismissed the application. Even taking the land to be waste land, it is public domain under section 1304 (1) and so State land that no one may occupy without a right of possession, and the petitioner's own letter asking to be allowed to stay until he had harvested showed he had no such right. Which category of public land the indictment pleaded went only to the penalty tier, and the sentence was within the range for the basic offence, so this was not clear and important new evidence.

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3. Supreme Court Judgment No. 6712/2554 (2011)

   Where the Cabinet has declared an expropriation to be a case of urgent necessity, and the expropriating official pays the compensation agreed or deposits it where no agreement can be reached, ownership of the immovable property is taken to pass from the date of that payment or deposit, under section 13 last paragraph read with section 11 paragraph two of the Expropriation of Immovable Property Act B.E. 2530. What transfers is ownership, not merely a right to take possession, and a dispute over the amount does not postpone it. Section 1304(2) does separate work: it is applied afterwards to classify the land that has already passed to the State as property of the public domain for the common use of the people.

   Both of the plaintiff's plots were expropriated as a case of urgent necessity. The Supreme Court held that ownership of the expropriated parts passed to the defendant side on 7 September 1998, the day the defendant side deposited the compensation for the two plots, by force of section 13 last paragraph with section 11 paragraph two of the Expropriation of Immovable Property Act B.E. 2530. The failure to agree the amount of compensation did not affect the date of transfer. Section 1304(2) of the Civil and Commercial Code came in only at the next stage, to classify the land so transferred as property of the public domain for the common use of the people.

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Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.