Thailand Law Online
Thai law by real lawyers with real experience
Real estate and real property laws in the Thailand Civil and Commercial Code governing land and building and who owns or has use of it
BOOK IV
TITLE I
Section 1298. Real rights may be created only by the virtue of this Code or other laws.
Servitude as a legal property right is governed by the sections 1387 to 1401 civil and commercial code. The practical use of a right of servitude is that it could be registered as a 'right of way' (easement) over one or more neighboring land plots in case a land plot is surrounded by other land plots without having direct access to a public road. It secures access to the public road. The right of servitude in Thailand has a broader use and can put several kinds of burdens or restrictions on a neighboring parcel or parcels of land (such as the use of a neighboring water well, or specifying private building restrictions).
A servitude is a registered right (with the Land Department) that a person has over the immovable property (not restricted to land) of another and is the legal right that runs with an immovable property, but servitude can also be acquired after a period of time a certain right or practice has existed (note section 1401 below).
The right of habitation is the right of dwelling gratuitously in a house of another person. As one of Thailand's real rights of book 4 of the civil and commercial code the right of habitation must be registered with the land office to be complete and enforceable. The right of habitation cannot be encumbered, sold, transferred, donated or transferred at death. The right of habitation is a personal servitude.
TITLE V
The Right of Superficies (สิทธิเหนือพื้นดิน) is a registrable real right under Thai property law that separates ownership of land from ownership of buildings, structures, or plantations situated on or under the land.
Under a superficies structure, one person owns the land itself while another person legally owns buildings, structures, or plantations on the land without acquiring ownership rights in the land itself. Because foreigners cannot own land in Thailand, the right of superficies is commonly used in long-term residential and investment structures involving foreign ownership of houses or buildings located on Thai-owned land.
In comparative civil-law systems, the Thai right of superficies is conceptually similar to the French droit de superficie, the German Erbbaurecht, and the Dutch recht van opstal.