Marital property in Thailand: whose asset is whose

Registering a marriage changes the status of property immediately. What each spouse owned beforehand stays that spouse's own. What is acquired afterwards becomes joint property by operation of law, with no agreement to sign and no need to add the other name to the title. This is the point most often misunderstood, because people assume the name on the title deed or the bank book settles the question. It does not.

The problem therefore surfaces only once the relationship has ended, whether by divorce or by death. At that stage the documents created years earlier decide the outcome, not either party's recollection of what was agreed. Thai family law now uses the word "spouses" and applies to two people regardless of gender, in force since 23 January 2025, so the rules below apply to every married couple alike.

Property that remains one spouse's own

The law calls this category personal property. Each spouse manages their own personal property alone, and it is not divided when the marriage ends.

• Property already owned before the date of registration.
• Personal effects, clothing and ornaments appropriate to the holder's station, together with the tools of that spouse's trade or profession.
• Property received during the marriage by inheritance or as a gift, unless the will or the deed of gift states that it is to be marital property.
• The engagement gift.
• Whatever is received in exchange for personal property, including the sale proceeds, which remain personal property.

Property that belongs to both

This category is marital property, and it belongs to both spouses even where the registered owner is only one of them.

• Anything acquired during the marriage, whichever spouse earned it and whichever spouse is named on the paperwork.
• Salary, annual bonuses and income from the work of either spouse during the marriage.
• Property received under a will or under a written gift, where that document states it is to be marital property.
• The fruits of personal property, such as rent from a building that is personal property, or dividends on shares that are personal property.

Where it is doubtful whether an asset is marital or personal, the law presumes it is marital. The burden of proof therefore falls on the spouse who claims sole ownership. What actually works as evidence is a paper trail showing where the purchase money came from: historical bank statements, the deed of gift, or the inheritance documents.

What one spouse cannot do alone

Certain dealings with marital property require the consent of the other spouse before they are carried out.

• Selling, exchanging, selling with a right of redemption, hire-purchasing, mortgaging or releasing a mortgage over marital immovable property.
• Letting marital immovable property for more than three years.
• Lending money, or giving property away, other than a gift that is reasonable on moral or social grounds.
• Entering a compromise agreement, or submitting a dispute to arbitration.

If it is done without consent, the other spouse may apply to the court to have the transaction set aside. That right is time-limited: within one year of learning of the transaction, and in no case more than ten years after it was made. Once those periods run out the asset cannot be recovered, even if it genuinely was marital property. Nor will the court set the transaction aside if the spouse ratified it, or if the third party acted in good faith and paid value. The wronged spouse is then left with a claim against the other spouse, for example by counting that asset when the marital property is divided.

When the marriage ends

Whether the marriage ends by divorce or by death, the first step is to take each spouse's personal property out of the pool. What remains is marital property and is divided in equal shares. That holds regardless of which spouse earned more and regardless of whose name is on the title.

Where one spouse dies, the marital property must be divided first, and only the deceased's half then forms the estate. The surviving spouse therefore receives on two counts: their own half of the marital property, and a share of the estate as an heir. The order of heirs and the size of each share are set out in the article on inheritance where there is no will.

What can be arranged in advance

Property questions between spouses are hard to correct after the fact. The most effective step is to keep the documents aligned with reality from the outset.

• A prenuptial agreement, which can set the property rules differently from the statutory ones, but must be recorded in the marriage register at the same time as the registration itself or it is void.
• Keep proof of where the purchase money for each significant asset came from, created on the day of purchase rather than hunted for once a dispute begins.
• Keep inherited money and gifts in a separate account from day-to-day spending, because once the funds are mixed the tracing exercise becomes far harder.
• Make a will, if the division is to differ from the statutory one.

This note states the general position and is not advice on your own situation. How each asset is classified depends on the date it was acquired, the source of the purchase money and the documents that exist. Send the firm a list of the assets and the related paperwork and it will set out which parts are likely to be marital and which personal.