Sap-Ing-Sith: Thailand's fifth registered property right, and why '30+30' claims for it aren't binding either

Is there a stronger alternative to a 30-year lease for a foreigner's villa on Koh Phangan? Sap-Ing-Sith is the newest candidate — a distinct registered property right created by the Sap-Ing-Sith Act B.E. 2562 (2019), separate from the lease, usufruct and superficies rights in the Civil and Commercial Code covered in Superficies, usufruct and lease. It's real, it's registrable, and a foreigner can hold it — but it comes with the same term cap that trips up leaseholds, and marketing around it has gotten ahead of the law in the same way.

What Sap-Ing-Sith actually is

• A real property right, not a personal contract. Once registered, it's endorsed directly on the land title deed (chanote) or condominium ownership certificate — enforceable against the world, including a future buyer of the underlying land, the same way a registered lease or superficies is.
• Transferable, inheritable and mortgageable — closer to superficies than to usufruct, and a meaningful upgrade on a lease in that respect.
• A foreigner can hold it directly, without needing a Thai company or nominee structure, for land, a building, or both.
• Capped at 30 years per instrument, with no statutory right of renewal or automatic extension written into the Act.
• Cannot be registered over only part of a property — it applies to the whole parcel or unit as shown on the title.

How it compares to the other three rights

Thai law now has four registrable rights a foreigner can hold to use land or a building they don't own outright, plus the separate right of habitation for occupying a house. A lease (Sections 537–571) gives occupancy only, capped at 30 years. A usufruct (Sections 1417–1428) adds the right to earn income from the property but can never be sold or inherited. A superficies (Sections 1410–1416) titles a building separately from the land beneath it. Sap-Ing-Sith is the newest entrant and, on paper, the most complete of the four for a single instrument — it can cover both land and building, and unlike a usufruct it can be sold or left to heirs. What it doesn't do is escape the 30-year ceiling that already limits a lease.

Registration and cost

• Flat ฿20,000 registration fee at the Land Department — a fixed amount, not a percentage of value or rent. Compare that to a lease's registration cost of 1% of the total rent over the term plus 0.1% stamp duty, which on a high-value, long-term lease can run well above ฿20,000; Sap-Ing-Sith can work out cheaper for exactly that kind of deal.
• Must be in writing and registered with the Land Office to take effect as a real right — an unregistered agreement is only a personal contract between the original parties, exactly as with an unregistered lease or superficies.
• Written consent from a mortgagee is required if the underlying land already carries a mortgage or is pledged as business collateral.

The 30-year cap — and why '30+30' claims for it aren't binding either

Some marketing materials and even some transaction documents describe a Sap-Ing-Sith deal as '30+30' — a second 30-year term promised alongside the first. Legally, that promise is a contractual clause, not a registered right: it binds only the specific landowner who signed it at the time, not that party's heirs or a future buyer of the land, and there's no provision in the 2019 Act creating an automatic or statutory renewal. This is the same problem the March 2025 Supreme Court ruling (Case No. 4655/2566) settled for '30+30+30' lease structures — a pre-agreed renewal signed on day one is not a property right, whatever the marketing brochure calls it. Treat any second Sap-Ing-Sith term the same way you'd treat a lease renewal promise: a negotiation to have with whoever owns the land in 30 years, not a guarantee you already hold.

Where it fits for a Phangan buyer today

In practice, Sap-Ing-Sith is still rare on the ground — the standard villa structure on the island remains a registered lease plus a fixed-term superficies, and most Land Offices, lawyers and title-search processes are built around that combination. Because Sap-Ing-Sith is newer and has less registration volume and case law behind it than a lease, treat it as an option worth asking a Thai property lawyer about — particularly for a buyer who wants a single instrument covering both land and building — rather than a default substitute for the lease-plus-superficies structure described in How foreigners legally own a villa.