Phuket villas. The register.

Not the land under it, in their own name. Thai law restricts foreign land ownership, so villa estates on Phuket ordinarily sell on a registered lease, typically 30 years with renewal options, registered at the Land Department. The exceptions are villas registered as condominium units, which can be held freehold within the building's 49 per cent foreign quota, and the small number of estates that genuinely sell freehold and will state it in writing. Company structures that hold land for a foreign buyer carry legal risk under Thai law; we do not recommend or arrange them. This is general information, not legal advice.

The estates in this register are the ones that can carry a ticket above THB 20 million, and the range above that is very wide: a three-bedroom pool villa inside an established estate and a ten-bedroom house on absolute beachfront are both villas and are not in the same market. We publish a per-project price only where the developer has cleared it for publication, so most entries here quote none. We confirm the current price list and availability for a specific house with the developer or the owner at inquiry.

It depends on which of two things you are unwilling to give up. If outright ownership in your own name matters most, a condominium within the 49 per cent foreign quota is the format that delivers it, and a villa ordinarily will not. If space, privacy, a plot and a pool matter most, a villa delivers what no apartment on the island does, and the price of that is usually a registered lease rather than a title. The running costs and the resale pool also differ, both in the apartment's favour. There is no general answer, and any agency that gives you one without asking how you intend to use the house is selling rather than advising.

A small number, and the register states the structure for each one rather than generalising. Amanpuri Residences above Pansea Beach is recorded as freehold villas, and Kiara Reserve Residences at Layan as freehold. Several estates are recorded as confirming, which means we have not yet read the papers for that development and will not state a structure we have not verified. Where an estate is leasehold, the term and whether the renewal is contractual or marketing are the first two things to establish.

By the month or longer, yes: that is an ordinary tenancy. By the night, not without a hotel licence: the Hotel Act B.E. 2547 treats paid short stays as a hotel unless the letting is monthly or longer (Section 4), and unlicensed operation is an offence under Section 15, with the penalties set out in Section 59. Several estates on this register are hotel-managed and run rental programmes; whether a programme is licensed, what it costs, and whether joining is voluntary are answered by the management agreement, not the brochure, and we put those questions to the operator in writing before a client commits. General information, not legal advice.

That an operator, not the owner, runs the estate's services: grounds, security, often housekeeping, sometimes a rental programme. What the operator actually owes is in the management agreement, so before a client signs we establish in writing: who the operator is and for how long the agreement runs; which services are contractual and which are marketing; the annual charges and how they can rise; whether any rental programme is voluntary; and what happens to the brand if the operator leaves. An operator that answers in writing tells you a lot. One that does not tells you more.

On part of the register. Embark Estate holds written, non-exclusive sales appointments from Banyan Group and from PROUD Real Estate, and is an appointed sales agency on those projects. On every other estate here we act buyer-side only: we introduce you to the developer's office or the owner's agent, put your questions to them in writing, and tell you how we read the answers. We say which of the two applies on every row, because the answer changes whose interest we are paid to serve.