Buying, selling, renting, mortgages, law and tax, written so you can decide when you finish reading
Start at the roof rather than the windows, because in a Thai house the largest share of heat arrives downwards from above. The roof space takes full sun all day and accumulates heat, turning the ceiling into a radiant panel the size of the room that keeps working long into the night.
Being on the house registration does not make you the owner, and the householder is not the owner either, because ownership sits with the title deed. What is worth real money is one accumulated year on the registration, which exempts a sale from specific business tax, and it need not be continuous.
Look for three things: mud tubes running up a wall, timber that sounds hollow although the surface looks sound, and shed wings on a window ledge after rain. Any one is enough to call someone in, because termites eat the inside and leave the surface, so by the time it shows the wood needs replacing.
Photograph everything, then knock on the door upstairs. Most people do it the other way round and lose ground on day one. Who pays is not decided by who lives above you but by which pipe the water came from: a riser or the structure is the juristic person's, plumbing inside the unit is that unit's.
What you prepare is cable and boxes, not devices. Devices change every couple of years and can be bought later. A neutral at every switch position, deep enough back boxes, conduit with draw strings and power at the ceiling are different: leave them out and adding them means opening walls.
The speed Wi-Fi 7 is sold on comes from the 6 GHz band, the worst of the three at getting through walls. A brick and render house therefore needs several access points, each with a cable running to it, or the signal quietly falls back to an older band without telling you.
It is decided by the size you choose and the way it is installed, far more than by the brand. An oversized unit cools fast and cuts out before removing humidity, leaving a room cold and clammy, while a condenser in a dead corner spends all day breathing back its own hot air.
A single co-owner may inspect the annual report and regulations at the management office under section 38/3. The juristic person must submit an audited balance sheet for approval within 120 days of the accounting year end under section 38/1. Twenty per cent of the votes calls an extraordinary meeting, and one quarter removes the manager.
The standard residential fire policy covers four natural perils, windstorm, flood, earthquake and hail, up to a combined THB 20,000 per year, which is a sub-limit rather than the sum insured. Meaningful cover has to be bought as an extension, and in a condominium the split between common property and the unit has to be clear.
Construction or alteration needs a permit, or a notification under Section 39 bis, under Section 21 of the Building Control Act B.E. 2522. Ministerial Regulation No. 11 B.E. 2528 exempts five cases, including a floor or roof changed by not more than 5 sqm combined without touching columns or beams. Breach carries up to THB 10,000 a day.
Structure is warranted for 5 years and non-structural fittings for 1 year on a house or 2 years on a condominium, counted from title transfer, while a claim must be filed within one year of seeing the defect. This guide includes the pre-expiry inspection checklist, how to report a fault so that it counts legally, and what the warranty does not cover.
A crack in a column, beam or slab is always more serious than a crack in a wall, and the simplest test is whether you can see reinforcing steel. This article condenses the self-assessment guidance Bangkok published after the earthquake of 28 March 2025, adds a pencil-and-phone method for telling whether a crack is still moving, and lists what to ask the condominium juristic person.
