A New Way to Check Your Title Deeds in Thailand
Siam Legal Tech Center (SLTC) along with Thailand’s first New Law firm, Mei Legal, are developing a quick, cost-efficient and convenient way for people to check Thai title deeds. We wanted to provide a very simple solution and broke down the process to find out what it was that clients really need to do before buying a property. Essentially, it came down to the title deeds. For many who can’t read Thai, even just having an English translation of the title deed can show many of the issues they would otherwise have no knowledge of.
It also doesn’t’ help that Thailand’s land registry system is somewhat archaic and requires a physical visit to a relevant Land Office in order to check. Ordinarily, property buyers have no choice but to look for property lawyers to do this for them and it can take a lot of time to find the right lawyer with the right price. Lawyers also tend to up-sell this service and can end up costing thousands of dollars for the client.
Introducing ThaiPropertyCheck
ThaiPropertyCheck is a new pilot project that is being tested by SLTC. It is built within Mei Legal’s website but hopes to be a standalone service in the near future should it gain traction or if it receives really positive response from users. The entire service is really quite basic and can be broken down into the following steps.
1. Fill in the details of the property
The property can be anywhere in Thailand. We would need some identifying details of the property and obviously having as much information as possible would help. We know this is not always possible, especially raw land or obscure sites but the majority should have at least some details our lawyers can work with.
2. Pay a fixed one-time payment online
Pay online right at the checkout from anywhere in the world. It’s just a simple one-time payment of $799. No need to shop around with different lawyers for the best price. At the moment it is only accepting PayPal but hopes to incorporate Omise or BitPay for other ways to pay as well.
3. Receive the Property Report & Translation of Title Deed in 3 days
Receive a report in 3 business days. A lawyer from our network will attend the relevant Land Office, obtain and verify the title deed, write a brief summary and translate the title deed into English. The report will be sent directly to your email. There might be some delay if the property is located in really remote provinces and it takes a while to get to that Land Office but if that is the case, someone will let the client know beforehand. However, we envision most of the properties will be located in larger provinces such as Bangkok, Phuket or Chiang Mai.
What kind of information does ThaiPropertyCheck provide?
The Property Report will include most important and relevant information and will cover things like:
a) What kind of title deed;
b) Who owns the property and the history of the ownership;
c) If there are any encumbrances on the property;
d) What can be built on that property;
e) If there is access to the property;
f) Other pertinent details that stands out.
Summary
And that’s pretty much it. Our goal, as we move into the New Law revolution is to simplify legal services and make it as simple and efficient as possible. We believe clients are more knowledgeable today about what legal services they want, and they want to be in as much control as they can. With ThaiPropertyCheck, clients get the information they need as efficiently as possible so they can act quickly on that property. Client’s can obviously get more legal advice if they wish but it’s entirely up to them to decide. It’s really just trying to put the power back into the hands of the client.
If you would like to test it out, we are providing a promotional 15% discount on the already low fixed fee for the first month of the trial. Just type in the discount code LAUNCH2021. Click on the link below to head to the site and follow the instructions. If you have any issues, please feel free to click on the chat button on the site and someone will be able help you with the process.
https://www.mei-legal.com/thaipropertycheck
We look forward to changing the future of law, one simple step at a time.
