Holding property in Thailand without owning the land

Section 86 of the Land Code lets a foreigner acquire land only under a treaty giving the right to own immovable property, and then only with the Minister's permission. So a foreign buyer almost always holds a right over land somebody else owns, and Thai law offers three of them. A registered lease, which section 540 of the Civil and Commercial Code caps at thirty years and allows to be renewed for no more than thirty years from the date of renewal. A right of superficies under section 1410, which lets one person own the buildings on or under land another person owns, and which section 1411 makes transferable and inheritable unless the instrument creating it says otherwise. And sap-ing-sith, created by its own Act in B.E. 2562, registered by the competent official onto the title deed under section 5, granted for not more than thirty years under section 4, and transferable, mortgageable and inheritable under section 12. The difference between them tends to surface years after signing rather than on the day.