Section 172 — Restitution after void juristic act
Statutory text (Thai original)
โมฆะกรรมนั้นไม่อาจให้สัตยาบันแก่กันได้ และผู้มีส่วนได้เสียคนหนึ่งคนใดจะยกความเสียเปล่าแห่งโมฆะกรรมขึ้นกล่าวอ้างก็ได้ถ้าจะต้องคืนทรัพย์สินอันเกิดจากโมฆะกรรม ให้นำบทบัญญัติว่าด้วยลาภมิควรได้แห่งประมวลกฎหมายนี้มาใช้บังคับ
Verbatim from the Royal Gazette / Office of the Council of State
English translation
A void act cannot be ratified, and its nullity may be alledged at any time by any interested person. The return of a property arising from a void act shall be governed by the provisions on Undue Enrichment of the Code.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 172 is what allows the parties to unwind a void contract financially. After a §150 declaration of voidness, money or property already transferred is recovered under the undue-enrichment rules of §§406-419. Two practitioner traps: (1) the prescription period for restitution is one year from when the claimant knew about the entitlement, capped at ten years from the transfer — count carefully; (2) if the void act involved an illegal purpose known to both parties, §411 may bar restitution entirely (in pari delicto).
Why this matters in practice
For lawyers: there is no time bar on asserting that an act is void under section 172 — any interested person may raise it at any stage including appeal and cassation. However, the restitution claim itself (for return of what was transferred under the void act) is a separate action governed by the undue enrichment prescription periods. For laypeople: if a contract is void, neither party can be forced to perform it, and anything already handed over can be claimed back under the law of undue enrichment.
Legislative history
Part of the original Civil & Commercial Code codification; no major subsequent amendment.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 14858/2558 (2015)
A juristic act that is void because it is expressly prohibited by law (section 150) cannot be relied upon by either party under section 172, regardless of their intentions at the time.
After the court had made an absolute sequestration order against a debtor, that debtor nonetheless joined in registering a mortgage over land in favour of the opposing party. The Court held that the post-sequestration mortgage registration was expressly prohibited by law (sections 22 and 24 of the Bankruptcy Act) and was therefore void under section 150 CCC. Under section 172, neither the mortgagee nor the debtor could rely on or benefit from that void juristic act.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 157 Supreme Court decisions (1950 to 2025)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 1279/2568 (2025)
- Decision 2358/2567 (2024)
- Decision 1241/2567 (2024)
- Decision 978/2567 (2024)
- Decision 2958/2566 (2023)
- Decision 2475-2476/2566 (2023)
- Decision 131/2565 (2022)
- Decision 6065/2564 (2021)
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
- Section 165 26
- Section 181 21
- Section 193/14 19
- Section 150 16
- Thai CPC s. 142 12
- Section 164 11
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. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Civil and Commercial Code, s. 172 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Civil and Commercial Code (Thailand), s. 172. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-172/ (accessed 8 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.พ.พ. มาตรา 172 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-172/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-172/"><p>A void act cannot be ratified, and its nullity may be alledged at any time by any interested person. The return of a property arising from a void act shall be governed by the provisions on Undue Enrichment of the Code.</p><footer>Civil and Commercial Code, s. 172 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-172/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.