The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

PATTERNS OF LAND 0\VNEl\SHIP IN CENTRAL THAILAND 243
at auction and the proceeds used to liquidate the debt.
In the case of
khai faak, ownership passes immediately to the buyer subject to the agreement
that the seller can redeem the property at a stipulated price; if the
land is redeemed within the specified period, ownership is deemed never to
have been vested in the buyer. This process greatly favors the transferee
who can escape the regulations limiting interest rates and bas the
possibility of acquiring the entire plot of land even if its value is greatly
in excess of the ostensible purchase price.
The relative importance of each type of land transfer bas been
calculated by taking the average annual rate of transfer for the period,
1910-1972, measured as the percent of the total titled area in the sample
villages of the two provinces.
Mortgage and khai faak refer to land
transferred from the original owners because of default on their loans
and not the rate at which the land was originally encumbered by the debt.
The average yearly rates of transfers over the period were as follows:
Ayuthia
Nakhon Pathom
Sale 2.0% 1.9%
Will 1.7 1.1
Gift 1.1 1.1
Mortgage & khai faak .4 .2
5.2% 4.3%
Table I shows the three-year moving average rate by year for the
two provinces classified by 1) sale, gift and will and 2) mortgage and
kltai faak.
The total rate of land turnover may be defined as the sum of (1)
the natural or warranted rate and (2) the involuntary rate. The natural
or warranted rate reflects the normal inter-generational turnover of land.
Given the mean length of a generation in Thailand, there should be a
complete turnover of all the land in the village every twenty-seven years.
The warranted rate of land turnover would be about 3.7 percent per