The criteria for banks in Thailand to loan money or give mortgages for property to Thai nationals are quite strict. Foreigners, in certain circumstances, such as having a stable Thai job, work permit and are under 60 years of age, can obtain a certain level of finance but it is not easy.
I do not have a work permit or residence permit and I am over 60 so there is no way I could get finance from a Thai bank or any international banks in Asia. I live in Thailand relying on a non -o visa, with extensions based on retirement. The yearly extensions are possible as I have an income of over 65,000 Baht per month from abroad.
So the finance for the house had to be obtained by my wife.
The basic home loan criteria for Thai nationals at most Thai banks include:
- Be 20 years of age or older.
- A guarantor's age combined with the duration of the loan cannot exceed 70 years.
- For an individual borrower, their net income must not be less than 15,000 Baht/month.
- Fixed income earners must have at least 6 months in their employment.
- Business owners / Self employed must have been in their current businesses for at least 1 year.
- Have collateral acceptable to the bank.
- Pass a credit check.
Housewife with an Allowance or Work in an Office for a Salary - What's the Difference?
My wife has not worked for 8 years. Instead I give her money every month so she does not have to. To some banks, this alone caused them to blank her and not even entertain listening to the full circumstances of our position. It was as if they didn't want the custom or maybe that the person at the bank wanted an easy life.
A friend of my wife with her own company even suggested she falsified documents so that it appeared Kwang had a job; but there is no way we going down that route.
To me all this blanking was crazy as Kwang receives more than 15,000 per month from me. What is the difference between a house wife who receives a monthly personal allowance from her husband and someone who works?
We tried multiple branches of 3 banks (sometimes such an approach works as different staff / branches see things differently) but got the same result. Totally rejected out of hand.
Kwang then discussed the problem with someone in Modern Tage's head office. They put her in touch with someone in a branch of the SCB bank that the company deals with. The person was known not to refuse hard or unusual cases for an easy life, but actually works hard on them and succeeds a lot of the time in getting the loan approved by the banks head office. The person did have an application failure rate but things were looking up. I was still confident we would eventually succeed when we dealt with an intelligent person who actually listens and understands our position. This person at the SCB was the person.
To keep things simple, Kwang was eventually granted a home loan for 70% of the cost of the house, with the other 30% coming from a personal loan. She had to use the chanotes of both pieces of land she owned as collateral. She also had to take out fire insurance for the new house and had to insure her life. They accepted the fact that the money I gave her every month was in fact her income.
In addition, I was the guarantor for both loans, even though my age added to the loan period exceded 70 years.
I supplied income evidence from my pension providers at the banks request. What probably helped was that in the event of my death, Kwang will continue to receive money every month equal to 50% of what I receive in pensions now.
We were up and running with a week to spare. We nearly lost our 25,000 Baht deposit.