Land leasehold: why a lease may not be registered
If you are buying a villa where the land comes on a 30-year lease, there is one clause in the contract that currently decides whether your deal gets registered or not. It is the schedule of lease payments. Here is what is happening, why, and the single question that settles it before you sign anything.
How a villa purchase is put together
In Thai law a building and the land under it are separate objects of ownership. A foreigner registers the house in their own name in freehold, and the land underneath on a long-term lease registered at the Land Department for a term of up to 30 years. This is the standard structure and it is entirely lawful in itself.
Traditionally the full rent for all 30 years is paid up front under that contract, effectively as a purchase price. For many years such contracts were registered without any questions being asked.
What changed
As of September 2026, land lease agreements in Phuket where the full 30 years of rent is paid up front are not being accepted for registration. The Land Office is requiring a broken-down schedule, with payments made at defined intervals across the term of the lease.
The reasoning appears to be this: paying the entire 30-year sum in one go does not look like a lease, it looks like a disguised sale of the land, and therefore like a way around the restriction on foreign land ownership. Seen from that angle, the requirement is not arbitrary. It asks a lease to behave like a lease.
What this means for you as a buyer
If you are still choosing a villa
Before you pay a deposit, ask the developer to confirm in writing that the payment terms in the contract match the current registration practice in Phuket. If the draft contract shows 100% prepayment and registration is due in the near term, that is a direct exposure: the money is paid and the right is not registered.
This is a one-line question and a good developer answers it the same day, because they have been answering it all year. A developer who cannot answer it has told you something useful about how closely they follow the Land Office.
If you have already signed
Look at when registration is due under your contract. If the date is close, contact the developer and ask specifically how they intend to register the transaction: by amending the payment terms, or by waiting for the previous practice to return. An answer along the lines of it will be fine, without specifics, is not an answer.
In most of the cases I have seen, the fix is administrative rather than dramatic. The parties re-paper the payment schedule so that the rent is spread across the term, the total consideration stays the same, and the lease registers. It is worth getting to that conversation early rather than a week before the appointment.
If you are buying an already registered villa
Where the house is already held in freehold, the land lease is already registered, and the seller is assigning you the remaining term, this is a transfer of an existing right and the payment schedule question does not arise at all. That is a genuine argument in favour of the resale villa market: the structure has already passed registration and you can see it in the register rather than in a draft.
One distinction matters here. Assigning a contract that has not yet been registered is treated as a first registration, with all the same requirements. An assignment is only the easy route when the original lease is already on the register.
And the second story, about renewals
Running alongside the payment-schedule question is Supreme Court decision 4655/2566 of 2023, on land with a house on Phuket. The lease was for 30 years, with a promise of two further 30-year terms attached, and the lessee had paid for all three periods up front. The Court held the renewals void: a pre-agreed automatic renewal on identical terms is in substance a lease beyond thirty years and circumvents section 540 of the Civil and Commercial Code. The Court noted separately that such an arrangement fixes the rent sixty years ahead as though land values do not move.
What that means in practice. The registered thirty-year term is a right, and under section 569 it survives a change of landowner. A promise to renew is a personal obligation of that particular lessor: it is not registered, it does not bind a new owner, an heir or a creditor in bankruptcy, and after this decision it may also be held void. Selling that as ninety years, effectively freehold, is not honest, and I do not do it.
This does not affect apartments
Leasehold agreements for condominium units are still being registered, including where payment is made in full. The current restriction concerns land specifically. If you are weighing the two formats, condo or villa in Phuket goes through the trade-offs, and freehold or leasehold covers how to price a lease properly.
It is also worth saying plainly that I do not recommend holding a villa through a Thai company to sidestep any of this. A company has to be genuine, with activity, filings, paid-up capital and annual costs, and a paper one becomes a problem at resale. Where a client wants villa-scale space with a clean title, I look at penthouses and duplexes in condominiums, which register in freehold in your own name.
How to keep this from being stressful
The whole topic reduces to sequencing. Confirm the Land Office's current position on payment schedules in the same week you plan to register, get the developer's written confirmation before the deposit, and structure your own payments so that the large tranches fall after registration rather than before it. Do those three things and the risk largely disappears, whatever the office happens to be requiring that month.
If the villa is off-plan, remember that the lease registration usually happens at handover rather than at signing, so there is time to get the contract right. Off-plan terms are typically around 30% down with equal payments every six months over roughly two years, interest free. There are no mortgages for foreigners in Thailand, so the payment plan is the financing, and it is worth reading it as carefully as the lease itself.
Checklist before signing a villa contract
- What lease term is registered, meaning the registered term and not an option to renew
- What payment schedule is written into the contract and whether it matches the Land Office's current requirements
- Who acts as the lessor: the developer, a separate legal entity or a third party
- What happens to your right if the landowner changes or the project is sold
- What happens to the money you have already paid if registration does not go through
The short version
This is not a reason to avoid buying a villa. It is a reason to read the payments section before you sign. The clause about the schedule currently matters more than half the rest of the contract, and confirming it takes one written request to the developer. The legal review of the contract itself goes to my partner lawyers, who track the Land Office's position week by week rather than from memory.
Requirements like this one come and go, and they are administrative rather than existential. Nobody is taking villas away from anyone, and a registered 30-year land lease remains a normal, workable instrument in Thailand. What the current position does is force the contract to describe honestly what it is, which in the end protects the buyer more than the seller. The practical task is small: get the payment schedule confirmed in writing, verify the Land Office's position in the week of your deal rather than from an article, and do not pay the balance before you know registration will proceed.
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Frequently asked
Why is a land lease with 100% prepayment not being registered?
How many years can a land lease be registered for in Thailand?
Does this apply to condominium apartments?
Does 30 plus 30 plus 30 still work after decision 4655/2566?
Lyubov Fortunova
Investment strategist and founder of Fortunova Capital Group. I have lived on Phuket for more than five years and run every deal myself: I select the property, calculate the net return, check the developer and hold the process together until the keys are handed over. Lawyers, visa and tax specialists come from my own circle.
“I count net, not dreams”
Could you check the payment schedule in the lease contract for the villa I am looking at and tell me whether it will register as written?
I answer personally, within the working day, in any time zone. No calls unless you want them. A question about the article is free and commits you to nothing.
