Buying a Koh Phangan property with a sitting tenant: what CCC Section 569 actually guarantees

If you buy a Koh Phangan villa or plot that already has a paying tenant in it, does the sale let you evict them or re-let at a higher rate? Generally no. Civil and Commercial Code Section 569 provides that a contract of hire of immovable property is not extinguished by a transfer of ownership — the buyer steps directly into the seller's shoes as landlord, inheriting both the rights and the duties toward the existing tenant for whatever term remains. The same rule runs the other way: if you're renting a property yourself and your landlord sells it, your tenancy doesn't end just because the owner changed.

What Section 569 actually covers

• Section 569 — the core rule: a change of ownership doesn't end a lease; the new owner takes over as landlord for the rest of the term, bound by the same rent, permitted use and other core terms the outgoing owner agreed to.
• Section 538 — the registration threshold that decides how much of this actually applies to a given lease. A lease of immovable property exceeding three years must be made in writing and registered at the Land Office to be enforceable beyond the third year; an unregistered lease over three years is only good for three years, even between the original landlord and tenant.
• A short tenancy of three years or less needs no registration to be valid, and Section 569 protects it in full for its whole term regardless of a sale — a one-year rental agreement survives a change of owner just as much as a registered long lease does.

Where the protection gets thinner

Thai property-law commentary is consistent on the point that matters more than Section 569's wording alone: for anything running past three years, registration is what makes a lease genuinely bind whoever buys the property next. Practitioner guidance describes an unregistered long-term lease as effectively unenforceable against a new owner, even though it remains valid between the original landlord and tenant for its first three years. This is the same registration principle behind the site's own leasehold ownership structure — see How foreigners legally own a villa and Renewing a 30-year lease — and Section 569 is the actual statutory basis for a point those guides already make in passing: a registered lease survives a change of landowner, while a renewal promise never automatically binds a new owner, because Section 540 and the March 2025 Supreme Court ruling treat that promise as a separate, unregistered contractual undertaking rather than a property right.

Two practical scenarios on Koh Phangan

• Buying an income property with a tenant in place — confirm whether the existing tenancy exceeds three years and, if so, whether it's actually registered at the Land Office. An unregistered long lease you inherit informally from the seller may not bind you at all — which removes an unwanted tenant, but also means you can't rely on it if you were counting on that rental income continuing on the seller's terms. Get the signed agreement, the remaining term, the rent and any break clause confirmed before you commit, as part of the same discipline as the general due-diligence checklist.
• Renting long-term before you buy, or while you decide — if your own landlord sells the villa or land you're renting, Section 569 protects you automatically for the remainder of your agreed term (registered, if it runs past three years) without needing the new owner's consent. What it doesn't protect is anything beyond the written term — an informal understanding that you'd be offered another year, or first refusal to buy, has to be in writing to mean anything against a new owner.
• If you're the one renting out — a villa you intend to sell with a tenant still inside isn't a defect in the buyer's title, but it is something to disclose plainly: staying silent doesn't remove the tenant's Section 569 rights, it just makes for an unhappy buyer at handover. See Renting out your villa and the OCPB residential-lease rules for the landlord-side obligations that travel with the property too.

Section 569 is a short, old provision doing a lot of quiet work behind every Koh Phangan rental and lease-based ownership structure. Treat it as a floor, not a guarantee: it protects the lease you actually have on paper, registered where the law requires it — not the informal promises layered on top.