Why a foreign buyer in Thailand should treat thirty years as the whole of what they are buying — and our findings on the first developer assessed against that standard.

Executive Summary

Nest Invest Global is introducing a standard for buyers considering Thailand: the 30-Year Standard. Every Thai villa we put forward is assessed as a registered 30-year land lease and nothing more. We give no value to renewal promises, we do not offer “freehold” land structures built on nominee Thai companies, and we require the numbers to work — including the return of the buyer’s capital — inside the thirty years.

This is a deliberate restriction, and it puts us at odds with a good part of the market. Thailand is full of offers that sound like ownership: leases “renewable to 90 years,” company structures that make the buyer a “freehold” owner, options to buy the land later. The courts and the authorities have been closing these doors for years, and in 2025 and 2026 they closed them faster.

The first developer assessed against the standard is Samui Paradise Group, a long-established builder in Lamai, Koh Samui, with three developments currently selling: Ulu Villas, Nichakul and Naga Kiri. This report sets out why tenure is Thailand’s defining risk, the five checks behind the standard, and where Samui Paradise Group stands against each.

Why Tenure Is Thailand’s Defining Risk

The starting point is simple and not negotiable: under the Land Code, a foreigner cannot own land in Thailand outside a handful of narrow statutory exceptions that don’t apply to a holiday villa. What a foreigner can hold is a right over someone else’s land — most commonly a lease — and ownership of a building, which Thai law allows to be held separately from the land beneath it. (Condominiums are the genuine exception: a foreigner can own a condo unit outright, provided foreign ownership in the building stays within its 49% quota. That’s a different product from the villas in this report.)

The lease. A registered lease of land can run for a maximum of thirty years under section 540 of the Civil and Commercial Code. It can be renewed, but only once the term has ended, and only for up to another thirty years from that point. Anything longer than three years must be registered at the Land Office against the title deed to bind a future owner of the land.

The “30+30+30” promise. The most common sales line in Thai villa marketing is a lease “renewable twice for a total of 90 years.” In Supreme Court decision 4655/2566, Thailand’s highest court looked at exactly that structure — a thirty-year lease with two further terms promised on the same day and the rent for all ninety years paid up front. It held the renewal promise void as an attempt to evade section 540, refused to enforce it even as a personal promise from the landlord, and the tenant lost the money paid for the extra sixty years. (ThaiLawOnline summary of 4655/2566)

The “freehold” company. The other common route is a Thai limited company, majority-owned on paper by Thai shareholders, that buys the land for the foreign buyer. Where those shareholders are nominees, this is a criminal offence under both the Land Code and the Foreign Business Act, for the Thai holder and the foreigner alike. Enforcement is no longer theoretical: nominee structures in Phuket have ended in criminal convictions, and since August 2026 the Department of Business Development requires companies with foreign shareholders to evidence that Thai shareholders paid for their shares from their own accounts. (ThaiLawOnline, 2026 nominee crackdown)

The 99-year lease. Longer leases for foreigners have been proposed repeatedly and discussed seriously since 2025. As of this report they are not law, and the registrable maximum remains thirty years. A buyer signing today is bound by today’s rules. If reform arrives, it is upside — not something to price in. (ThaiLawOnline property guide, updated September 2026)

Chanote title. A Chanote is the strongest land title in Thailand — surveyed, marked and registered. It is exactly what you want the lease to be registered against. But it is the landowner’s title, not yours, and it does nothing to extend a lease or guarantee a renewal. A Chanote is a condition of the standard, not a substitute for it.

The 30-Year Standard — Our Due Diligence Framework

A Thai project only carries the 30-Year Standard if it passes five checks before it is offered to any buyer:

1. Registered lease on a clean title. A land lease registered at the Land Office against a Chanote title, with the full thirty years running from registration. Renewal language is given no value.
2. Building ownership in the buyer’s name. The villa itself registered to the buyer, separately from the land — through a registered right of superficies and a construction permit in the buyer’s name, or an equivalent registered structure. This is what gives a foreign buyer something to negotiate with at year thirty.
3. No workarounds. No nominee company, no “freehold for foreigners,” no reliance on an option to purchase land the buyer cannot legally hold.
4. Developer track record and milestone payments. A verifiable history of delivered projects, and payments tied to construction progress with a meaningful final instalment on handover.
5. Numbers that work inside the term. Returns stress-tested on our own occupancy assumptions, and judged on whether they repay the buyer’s capital as well as a return within thirty years — because the land does not come with the villa at the end.

This is the same due-diligence-first approach we apply across our other markets — the Clean Title Standard in North Cyprus is its sister framework — adapted for the risk that defines Thailand.

Case Study: Samui Paradise Group, Lamai

Location. Lamai, on the south-east coast of Koh Samui — the calmer, more residential side of the island, with a full town and a long beach.

Developer. Samui Paradise Group, a Lamai-based developer reporting more than fifteen years on the island and over 150 villas delivered, with several completed and sold-out projects in the same area.

The three developments. Ulu Villas — four-bedroom private pool villas of around 390 m², inland from central Lamai, THB 11.9M. Nichakul — a hillside collection of twelve sea-view villas, six with two bedrooms and six elevated three-bedroom villas, from around THB 8.9M. Naga Kiri — three-bedroom pool villas a few minutes from Lamai Beach, leasehold from THB 7.5M.

Tenure offered. All three are available to foreign buyers on a leasehold basis. Naga Kiri is additionally marketed with a “freehold” version through a Thai company, and one Nichakul listing describes the lease as carrying an option to purchase the land.

Payments. A deposit on contract signing, staged milestone payments during construction, and a final instalment on handover.

Due Diligence Findings

Status: passed at desk-review stage, conditional on Land Office verification. The findings below are drawn from the developer’s documentation and independent public listings. Before any reservation, the lease registration, the title and the building-ownership mechanism are verified against the deed itself.

1. Lease and title. The developer has supplied Chanote title documentation for the Naga Kiri land. The leasehold offer on all three developments is consistent with a registered thirty-year term. Any renewal wording in the sale contracts is given no value in our analysis — in line with 4655/2566, it is not something a buyer should pay for.

2. Building ownership. Independent listings for Nichakul describe the building as owned by the buyer, separately from the land lease. This is the structure we look for, and we will confirm the registration mechanism unit by unit across all three developments. Where a unit cannot be registered this way, we say so before a buyer reserves.

3. Workarounds excluded. We do not offer Naga Kiri’s company-based “freehold” option to foreign buyers. A Thai company owning land for a foreigner is only lawful if its Thai shareholders are genuine investors with their own money at risk, and that is not what most buyers are being sold. Likewise, an option to purchase the land has no practical value to a buyer who cannot legally hold it. We price both at zero.

4. Developer and payments. The track record claimed — fifteen-plus years and over 150 villas — is consistent with the number of completed and sold-out Samui Paradise Group projects visible across Lamai. The milestone-linked payment schedule, with a final instalment on handover, is the structure we look for on any off-plan purchase.

5. Costs to plan for. Leasehold villas in Lamai commonly carry a periodic land-lease payment to the landowner on top of the purchase price — independent listings for Ulu and Nichakul both show one. Budget for it, along with lease registration fees at the Land Office, furniture, and ongoing management. Your lawyer should confirm the exact figures on the unit you choose.

Investment Analysis

A thirty-year lease is a consumable asset. On a freehold villa, rental income is the return and the land is the capital you keep. On a lease, the land goes back at the end, so the rental income has to do both jobs: pay a return and hand the capital back inside the term. That changes which numbers matter.

Occupancy and yields. Samui Paradise Group, like most developers on the island, publishes attractive rental yield projections. We do not use developer-published figures — they are marketing, not data. We underwrite on our own stress-tested occupancy and nightly rates, and we share those figures privately in the investment summary rather than as a headline number.

Resale. A leasehold villa can be sold, but it is worth less each year as the remaining term shortens. Anyone buying from you in year fifteen is buying fifteen years — plus whatever chance of renewal the market believes in at that point, which is where a registered building earns its keep. Plan to hold for the income, not to flip for the capital.

Renewal. A renewal at year thirty is possible, and a registered building gives the buyer real leverage in that conversation — the landowner would otherwise have to buy it or live with it. But it is a negotiation, not a right. We treat it as upside.

What this project actually offers. Thirty good years in a beautiful, well-served part of one of Asia’s most established island destinations, from a builder with a real local track record, bought through a structure that doesn’t depend on anyone looking the other way. For the right buyer — someone who wants to use the villa and let it the rest of the year — that is a genuinely good proposition. It is not a forever asset, and anyone telling you it is has a structure to sell you.

Looking Ahead: What Could Change in Thirty Years

Everything above is priced for the rules as they stand today, and that won’t change. But it would be incomplete to leave out the other side: the direction of travel for foreign buyers in Thailand looks more encouraging than the current fine print suggests.

Reform has momentum. Extending foreign leases to 99 years has been proposed and championed at the highest levels of the Thai government. It hasn’t passed, and similar proposals have stalled before under domestic political pressure. But the reason it keeps coming back hasn’t gone away: Vietnam, Malaysia and others are competing for the same foreign capital, and longer, more secure tenure is one of the clearest levers Thailand has. Thirty years is a long time for that argument to keep being made.

Renewal is a negotiation, and a winnable one. A lease can be renewed at the end of its term — it simply can’t be promised at the start. Landowners do agree renewals, particularly where the tenant owns a registered building on the land that the owner would otherwise have to buy or deal with. That is exactly why check two of the 30-Year Standard matters as much as it does.

Why this is free upside, not a forecast. None of this is in our numbers, and we’d encourage buyers not to put it in theirs. But the structure we insist on is the one best placed to benefit if things improve. A buyer who pays leasehold prices for a properly registered lease and building keeps every bit of that upside. A buyer relying on a nominee company or a pre-agreed renewal is exposed in the opposite direction — reform doesn’t help a structure that gets unwound first.

Risk Disclosure and Next Steps

This report is due diligence, not legal or financial advice. Before committing to any purchase:

• Instruct an independent Thai lawyer — not the developer’s — to inspect the Chanote at the Land Office and confirm the land is free of mortgages or other registered rights that would rank ahead of your lease.
• Confirm the lease will be registered for the full thirty years, and how the building will be registered in your name.
• Ignore any renewal or purchase-option clause when deciding whether the price is fair.
• Confirm your total cost, including land-lease payments, registration fees and furniture, before signing.

Nest Invest Global’s role is due diligence and advisory — verifying that a project meets the 30-Year Standard before it is offered to buyers. We are not your lawyer, and we encourage every buyer to take independent legal advice specific to their situation.

To proceed, see the full Samui Paradise Group, Lamai page, or request the investment summary directly from Nest Invest Global.

This article describes our internal due diligence process for general information and education. It is not financial, legal, or tax advice, and it does not constitute a recommendation to buy any specific property. Every investment carries risk, and prospective buyers should seek independent professional advice before making any investment decision.