Glossary · Types of home
Apartment
In short
In Thailand, a home in a building that one owner holds as a whole and lets to tenants. An apartment is rented, not bought; a home you can buy in a multi-unit building is a condominium unit.
What it means
In everyday English an apartment is any home in a multi-unit building. In the Thai property market the word means something narrower: a building owned by one person or company and let unit by unit. The homes in it have no title deeds of their own.
Apartment and condominium
- A condominium unit has its own title deed and can be bought, sold, mortgaged and inherited. An apartment cannot; only the whole building can change hands.
- A condominium is run by its owners through a juristic person. An apartment building is run by its landlord.
- Serviced apartments are apartment buildings let with hotel-style services, by the month or, where the building holds a hotel licence, by the day.
Why it matters to a buyer
Listings and brochures often use "apartment" loosely for condominium units. If you are buying, what matters is that the unit will have its own title deed under the Condominium Act. If an offer describes a long lease of a home in a building that is not a registered condominium, you are being offered a tenancy, not ownership, and it should be priced and checked as one.