Section 747: Pledge, definition
Statutory text (Thai original)
อันว่าจำนำนั้น คือสัญญาซึ่งบุคคลคนหนึ่ง เรียกว่าผู้จำนำ ส่งมอบสังหาริมทรัพย์สิ่งหนึ่งให้แก่บุคคลอีกคนหนึ่ง เรียกว่าผู้รับจำนำ เพื่อเป็นประกันการชำระหนี้
Verbatim from the Royal Gazette / Office of the Council of State
English translation
A pledge is a contract whereby a person, called the pledgor, delivers to another person, called the pledge, a movable property as a security for the performance of an obligation.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 747 governs pledges, security with delivery, contrasting with mortgages (without delivery, §702). Pledges work primarily for jewellery, gold, securities, machinery, anything movable. The pledgee has possession and a right of retention until the secured debt is paid; on default, the pledgee can sell at public auction after 30 days' notice (§764). Thailand's traditional pawnshops operate under a special Pawnshop Act, but commercial pledges (e.g., share-pledge financing) operate under §747+.
Why this matters in practice
Lawyers: A pledge requires actual physical delivery — a mere agreement to pledge without delivery is unenforceable as a pledge (though it may constitute a different security arrangement governed by contract). Courts distinguish a genuine pledge from other forms of security (e.g. assignment of deposit passbooks) based on whether the arrangement matches the statutory definition. Laypeople: When you pledge an item (e.g. jewellery, savings passbook) to secure a loan, the item must actually be handed over to the lender — otherwise it is not legally a pledge.
Legislative history
Part of the original Civil and Commercial Code codification; no major subsequent amendment.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 3486/2554 (2011) ★ Landmark
A pledge of rights (such as the right to receive a bank deposit) does not qualify as a pledge under Section 747, which requires physical delivery of a movable thing, but may be valid as a contractual security arrangement.
An agreement to pledge the right to receive back a bank deposit was not a pledge under Section 747 (which requires delivery of movable property) but rather a valid contractual security arrangement entered into by agreement of the parties.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 16 Supreme Court decisions (1960 to 2012)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 3486/2554 (2011)
- Decision 1063/2540 (1997)
- Decision 9722/2539 (1996)
- Decision 4278/2534 (1991)
- Decision 1474/2528 (1985)
- Decision 1914/2526 (1983)
- Decision 653/2525 (1982)
- Decision 4174/2555 (2012)
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. 747 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Civil and Commercial Code (Thailand), s. 747. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-747/ (accessed 8 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.พ.พ. มาตรา 747 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-747/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-747/"><p>A pledge is a contract whereby a person, called the pledgor, delivers to another person, called the pledge, a movable property as a security for the performance of an obligation.</p><footer>Civil and Commercial Code, s. 747 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-747/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.