how to find owner of house

[allanman]

I am trying to find out the owner of a house that i am interested in buying.the property has not been lived in for around 6 years that i know,pretty run down but well built house.
I believe the house would be owned by one of the banks as a falang built the house but split up with his Thai wife and went back to Australia.
I tried the land office at Cha Am but they could not help.
Any help would be appreciated
Barry

[Gregjam]

Not trying to be sarcastic but is it a case of would not or could not help. If the land has a chanote then they should know who it is registered to. Best to get a Thai to do the asking if you can and even if you get a result you would then have to locate the 'owner'. My Thai national son has been trying to locate/contact the owner of a small piece of land without success and we do not have any problems with asking other locals if they know anything.

Not sure of the circumstances in your case and you may be trying to keep the Farang interest quiet for obvious reasons. I wish you the best of luck and keep us posted on methods and if you have any success. I am sure somebody more in the know will respond.

[zeitgeist]

You probably have already done it but...try knocking on the neighbour's doors, often someone will know the owner and if lucky have contact details.
If it is owned by the bank see if anybody knows which bank then walk into the local branch, armed with address if possible, and ask.

[SunandFun]

Get a moving truck. Pack up your furniture and move in the house in question. If after 6 months you have not heard or met the owner, now you can spend some money and fix it up. Let us know how it all works out. Sometimes you just have to "think outside of the box!"

[allanman]

The land office told me that i would need the number of the chanote for them to help me,which of course i do
not know.
I will get my Thai wife to ask the people near the house to see if they know the owner.but what i would like to to be able to do is find out which bank is holding the papers and see if i can buy from them,
Would think that if Thai knows I am interested price will go up for sure.

[Dannie Boy]

The land office told me that i would need the number of the chanote for them to help me,which of course i do
not know.
I will get my Thai wife to ask the people near the house to see if they know the owner.but what i would like to to be able to do is find out which bank is holding the papers and see if i can buy from them,
Would think that if Thai knows I am interested price will go up for sure.

The first thing to do is as you intend, get your Thai wife to ask around to try and find out who has ownership. If you can crack that, then again your wife can take the lead on seeing if/how you can try to buy, which would have to be in your wife's name, so all may not be doom and gloom, but it's the first hurdle that needs to be cracked.