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Foreigners cannot own land in Thailand, and most are told the only alternative is a thirty-year lease. That is incomplete. Thai law recognizes several other registrable rights over land, and in the right circumstances they offer better protection than a lease does. A usufruct can last for the holder's entire lifetime. A superficies can make you the legal owner of the house even though someone else owns the land. Each has its own limits and its own way of ending, and choosing the wrong one is expensive to fix. This guide explains what each right actually gives you, how they compare with a lease, and where each one fails.

Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act applies to far more businesses than most owners realise. If you run a hotel, a clinic, a restaurant with a booking system, a property agency, or any company with employees, you are processing personal data and the Act applies to you. It also reaches businesses located entirely outside Thailand that offer goods or services to people here. Administrative fines run to three million baht, and some breaches carry criminal liability. This guide explains what the law requires in practical terms, the obligations that catch businesses out most often, and what compliance actually looks like.

Court litigation is not the only way to resolve a dispute in Thailand, and for cross-border commercial matters it is often not the best one. A foreign court judgment cannot simply be registered and enforced here, but a foreign arbitral award generally can. A single clause agreed at the contract stage decides which of those two positions you will be in years later. Thailand also has a formal mediation regime under which a settlement agreement can be enforced through the courts. This guide explains how arbitration and mediation work in Thailand, what makes an arbitration clause effective, and the deadlines that apply once you have an award.

Thailand has a court designed specifically for employment disputes, and it works very differently from the ordinary civil courts. There are no filing fees. Judges include representatives of employers and employees. Mediation is built into the process. And a dismissed employee can ask for something the Labour Protection Act does not provide: reinstatement, or compensation over and above statutory severance, on the basis that the dismissal was simply unfair. For employers, the same system means that a dismissal which followed every procedural rule can still be found unlawful if there was no adequate reason for it. This guide explains how unfair dismissal claims work and how the Labour Court decides them.

Building a house or villa in Thailand goes wrong more often than most owners expect. The contractor stops showing up. The pool leaks within a year. The finish bears no resemblance to the specification. Thai law gives an employer real remedies against a contractor, including the right to have defective work put right at the contractor's cost, a reduction of the price, and compensation for defects. But it also contains traps that quietly destroy strong claims: terminating too quickly, accepting the work without objection, and a limitation period measured in a single year from the day a defect appears. This guide explains what a contractor owes, how long they remain liable, and what an owner must do to preserve a claim.

You buy a property in Thailand, commission a survey, and discover the neighbour's wall sits two metres inside your boundary. Or worse, someone has been living on part of your land for over a decade and now claims to own it. Land disputes are among the most bitter and expensive cases in Thailand, and the outcome often surprises people, because Thai law does not simply side with whoever holds the title deed. A trespasser can acquire ownership through possession. A neighbour who built over your line in good faith may be entitled to keep the building. This guide explains how encroachment and adverse possession work under Thai law, and what an owner must do to protect their land.

Business partnerships in Thailand often break down long after the company was registered, and by then the paperwork rarely favours the person who was excluded. A foreign investor discovers the Thai director has transferred a company asset. A minority shareholder is kept out of meetings and never sees the accounts. A board resolution appears that was never actually voted on. Thai company law gives shareholders real remedies in these situations, but those remedies are narrower than most people assume, and several are lost within weeks. This guide explains what directors owe the company, what a shareholder can and cannot sue for, how to challenge an improper resolution, and what to do when a company becomes deadlocked.

Rental disputes are among the most common legal problems foreigners face in Thailand, whether as a tenant who has lost a deposit or been locked out, or as an owner stuck with someone who has stopped paying. Thai lease law is short, old, and unforgiving of assumptions. A thirty-year villa lease can be enforceable for only three. A landlord who evicts too quickly can lose the case. A tenant who signed a clause without reading it may have given away rights the law would otherwise have protected. This guide explains how leases work under Thai law, what each side can and cannot do when things go wrong, and how eviction actually happens.

When a marriage ends, nothing matters more than what happens to the children, and this is the area where Thai law departs most sharply from what foreign parents expect. Thailand does not use the language of joint and sole custody. Instead it works with parental power, a defined bundle of legal rights over a child, and it asks a single question when deciding who should hold it: what serves the welfare and interests of the child. This guide explains how parental power is allocated on divorce, how it can later be changed, the right of contact that survives regardless of who holds it, how child support is fixed, and the special position of children born outside marriage.

Winning a case in Thailand and actually getting paid are two different things. Many creditors discover this the hard way: they obtain a judgment, assume the money will follow, and then find years later that the debtor has moved assets, or worse, that the right to enforce has expired altogether. Thai law gives creditors real teeth, including seizure of property, attachment of bank accounts and salary, and bankruptcy proceedings. But it also regulates how debts may be demanded in the first place, and it imposes a hard deadline on enforcement. This guide explains how debt collection in Thailand works from the first demand letter through to seizure and sale, and the traps that cost creditors their money.

A supplier fails to deliver. A builder abandons a half-finished villa. A business partner simply stops paying. Contracts are broken in Thailand every day, and when it happens the injured party usually has a stronger legal position than they realise, provided they act correctly and quickly. Thai law gives you the right to demand performance, to terminate, and to claim damages, but each remedy has conditions, and some of the most valuable rights are lost by simply waiting. This guide explains what counts as a breach of contract in Thailand, the remedies available to you, how Thai courts calculate damages, why penalty clauses are not always enforced as written, and the time limits that decide whether you can sue at all.

Road accidents, slip-and-falls, and other injuries happen to foreigners in Thailand every day, and Phuket's busy roads make them especially common. When they do, most people have the same two questions: who pays, and how much? Thai law gives an injured person a clear right to compensation from whoever caused the harm, but the amounts, the deadlines, and the evidence required are very different from those in Western countries. This guide explains how personal injury claims in Thailand work for foreigners, what compensation the law allows, the special rules for road accidents, and the strict time limit that decides whether you can claim at all.

Being caught up in a criminal case in a foreign country is one of the most stressful situations anyone can face, and Thailand's system works very differently from what most foreigners expect. There is no jury, cases can be started by the victim rather than only the state, and the language of every hearing is Thai. Whether you are the person harmed by a crime or the person accused of one, understanding how the process works, and where the pressure points are, makes an enormous difference to the outcome. This guide explains how criminal cases in Thailand begin, the difference between a police complaint and a private prosecution, bail, the rights of the accused, and how the case moves through the courts.

If a dispute in Thailand cannot be settled, it ends up in court — and for anyone unfamiliar with the Thai system, the process can feel opaque and slow. How does a lawsuit actually work? Which court hears it? And realistically, how many months or years will it take from filing to a final, enforceable judgment? This guide walks through the Thai civil court system tier by tier, explains each stage of a case from the first document to enforcement, and gives honest timelines based on the recent reforms designed to speed proceedings up. It is written with foreigners in mind, since cross-border evidence and foreign judgments add their own complications.

When a marriage ends in Thailand, one of the most contested questions is not whether the divorce will be granted, but who keeps what. Thai law divides everything a couple owns into two categories, and only one of them is split between the spouses. For foreigners, the rules carry extra traps — especially around land, the family home, and money brought in from abroad. This guide explains how marital property (sin somros) is classified and divided in a Thai divorce, how personal property is protected, what a prenuptial agreement can and cannot do, and the practical steps that decide whether an asset ends up shared or kept.

If you own a condominium, hold a Thai bank account, run a company, or simply spend a large part of the year in Thailand, you almost certainly need a Thai will. Many foreigners assume the will they signed back home will take care of everything. In reality, a foreign will can be enforced in Thailand only after a slow and expensive court procedure — and in the meantime your bank accounts may be frozen and your family left in limbo. This guide explains how Thai inheritance law works, what happens if you die without a will, the special rules that apply to foreigners, and the new will-registration reforms that took effect in 2026.

Scams targeting foreigners in Thailand are more common than most people realise — from property deals to fake investments and online fraud. If it's happened to you, you're not without options. Here are the legal routes to fight back, and why acting fast matters.

Divorce in Thailand can be remarkably simple or genuinely difficult, and which one you get depends almost entirely on whether your spouse agrees. If both sides consent, the whole matter can be completed at a district office in a single morning. If they do not, you must prove a specific legal ground in court, and Thai law does not accept irreconcilable differences as a reason to end a marriage. Foreigners are frequently caught out by this, and by a one-year deadline that quietly extinguishes some of the strongest claims. This guide explains the two routes to divorce in Thailand, all ten statutory grounds, the defences your spouse can raise, and the compensation and maintenance you may be entitled to claim.

To set up a company limited in Thailand is not as hard as you might think.

The common type of juristic person to run businesses in Thailand.

The practice of nominee shareholders is illegal

Losing your job in Thailand raises an urgent question: what are you actually entitled to? Thai labour law protects employees — Thai and foreign alike — when they're dismissed. Here's a plain-language guide to notice, severance, and your right to challenge an unfair dismissal.

Any foreigner who wishes to enter Thailand is required to obtain a visa from a Royal Thai Embassy or Royal Thai Consulate-General

Land due diligence is a critical aspect of real estate transactions, ensuring that buyers, sellers, and investors have a comprehensive understanding of the legal, financial, and physical aspects of a property.

Any foreigner can buy a condominium and has full ownership over the condominium unlike land in Thailand.

Do you know that every company limited must have a Shareholder book?

Defamation isn't just a civil matter in Thailand — it can be a criminal offence, and "but it's true" won't always protect you. A careless review or social media post can lead to a complaint. Here's what actually counts as defamatory.