Section 171
Statutory text (Thai original)
ในการตีความการแสดงเจตนานั้น ให้เพ่งเล็งถึงเจตนาอันแท้จริงยิ่งกว่าถ้อยคำสำนวนหรือตัวอักษร
Verbatim from the Royal Gazette / Office of the Council of State
English translation
In the interpretation of a declaration of intention, the true intention is to be sought rather than the literal meaning of the words or expressions.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
True intention in lease and side agreements
Read the lease, side agreements, payments and proposed further term together. 4655/2566 is relevant to this interpretive exercise because the Court found an intended evasion of section 540 in a prepaid 90-year arrangement. This cross-reference explains the relationship between intention and mandatory law. it does not present section 171 as the judgment’s independently stated basis. Compare the short-term renewal upheld in 1925/2517.
Cited in 35 Supreme Court decisions (1992 to 2024)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 3031/2566 (2023)
- Decision 42/2566 (2023)
- Decision 8429/2563 (2020)
- Decision 10657/2559 (2016)
- Decision 12945/2558 (2015)
- Decision 12696/2558 (2015)
- Decision 12972/2557 (2014)
- Decision 7257/2557 (2014)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Most often cited alongside
Sections that appear in the same judgments as this one most often. The figure is the number of decisions.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Civil and Commercial Code, s. 171 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Civil and Commercial Code (Thailand), s. 171. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-171/ (accessed 17 September 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.พ.พ. มาตรา 171 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-171/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-171/"><p>In the interpretation of a declaration of intention, the true intention is to be sought rather than the literal meaning of the words or expressions.</p><footer>Civil and Commercial Code, s. 171 (Thailand): <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-171/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.