Services / Enforcement and asset recovery

Enforcement and asset recovery

Winning and still not being paid is commoner than people expect: enforcement is a different exercise from advocacy, and the ten years running from the judgment or order is a hard stop.

What this covers

Tracing the judgment debtor's assets
Seizure and attachment through the Legal Execution Department
Checking the execution window before the right lapses
Acting for debtors on property exempt from execution

Enforcing a Thai court judgment

What happens after judgment, in the order it happens. This page concerns judgments of the Thai courts.

The judgment comes first, then the writ

A judgment in your favour does not by itself put money in your hands. Enforcement is a separate stage, which begins where the judgment debtor has not complied with the order for compliance issued under the judgment. The judgment creditor then asks for execution, and once the court has issued a writ of execution, the execution officer of the Legal Execution Department acts on it, seizing property and attaching claims. The firm can be instructed for the case alone, or for enforcement as well, as agreed.

Ten years, counted from the judgment

Section 274 of the Civil Procedure Code gives the judgment creditor ten years to seek execution by seizure, attachment or other means, counted from the date of the judgment or order. The commonest mistake is to count from the day the case became final. Execution begun within the ten years, whether property has been seized, a claim attached, or other means partly carried out, may be taken through to completion even after the period ends. Where the judgment provides for payment by instalments, the ten years run from the day each instalment became enforceable. See the ten years to enforce, and when they start.

Finding the debtor's assets

Searches of the public registers come first. Where they run out, section 277 provides a procedure through the court. In enforcement, where the judgment creditor has reasonable grounds to believe the debtor has more property liable to execution than it knows of, or has such property but its location is unknown, or where there is reasonable doubt whether particular property belongs to the debtor, the creditor may apply ex parte for the court to hold an inquiry. The court may summon the debtor, or anyone believed able to give useful evidence, to attend in person, and order documents or objects relating to the debtor's property to be produced. The third situation is the one that matters where assets are held in someone else's name. See tracing a debtor's assets through the court.

Seizure and sale at auction

Seized property is ordinarily sold by public auction. Before the sale, section 331 requires the execution officer to notify everyone with an interest in the execution of the date, time and place, and the sale may not be set earlier than sixty days from the seizure or attachment. Those sixty days are when anything that needs doing has to be done. A person with an interest has a full right to bid, or to bring a bidder, to reach the price they want; but once the property has been knocked down to the highest bidder, the price obtained can no longer be raised as a ground for setting the sale aside. See seizure and auction: act before the hammer falls.

Attaching wages, deposits and receivables

Money owed to the debtor, such as salary, bank deposits and receivables, is reached by attachment rather than seizure, and section 302 sets what is protected. The salary and similar income of officials, officers and employees of government bodies cannot be attached at all. Other employees are protected up to a combined twenty thousand baht a month, or such amount as the execution officer thinks fit, and what can be attached is the excess over the protected amount, not a fixed percentage of pay. A judgment creditor, judgment debtor or interested third party who disagrees with the amount fixed may apply to the court within fifteen days of learning of it. See attaching wages, and what cannot be touched and The thirty per cent is not in the statute.

What cannot be seized

The same provisions set limits that protect a judgment debtor. Section 301 exempts, among other things, clothing, bedding, household and personal effects up to twenty thousand baht per category, and the animals, tools and equipment necessary to earn a living up to one hundred thousand baht in total, and the execution officer may allow more in either case. These limits are worth checking as soon as property is seized, whichever side you are on.

When another creditor seized first

Property already seized, or a claim already attached, for one judgment creditor cannot be seized or attached again by another. Section 326 instead allows a later judgment creditor to petition the court that issued the writ for a share of the proceeds in proportion to the judgment debts. The court may not allow it unless satisfied that the applicant cannot obtain satisfaction from the debtor's other property, and the petition must be filed within fifteen days: from the sale where property was sold, from payment or sale where a claim was attached, and from the seizure where money was seized. See rateable distribution: fifteen days to file.

When the property seized is not the debtor's

A person who says the seized property does not belong to the debtor, or who co-owns it, or who is already entitled to have their right in it registered, may apply to the court that issued the writ for its release under section 323. The application is due within sixty days of the seizure, and later filing is allowed only in limited circumstances. Once the court accepts the application, the execution officer stays the sale pending the decision, except for property falling under section 332. An application made only to delay execution can be met with an order to deposit money or give security. See my property was seized: the sixty-day claim.

Staying or ending execution

Staying execution and withdrawing it are different things in different provisions: sections 289 and 290 for a stay, section 292 for withdrawal. The wording of a creditor's letter matters. A written notice under section 292(6) that the creditor waives the right to execute means that debt can never again be enforced against the debtor, while a written request to withdraw execution under section 292(7) carries no such consequence. See staying execution, and withdrawing it.

Judgments for possession and demolition

A judgment ordering someone to leave property, or to demolish a structure, is also carried out by the execution officer rather than by the party who won. For demolition or removal, section 355 requires notice to be posted at the site for not less than fifteen days, and the cost falls on the judgment debtor as a judgment debt. Changing the locks, cutting the utilities or removing goods oneself is not enforcement, even with a judgment in hand. See you won the eviction, and they are still there.

The matters this covers

Each has its own page setting out what the statute requires and what to prepare.

The legislation

Civil Procedure Code
Civil and Commercial Code

Not sure whether the documents you hold are enough?

Ask first. An initial enquiry commits you to nothing and stays confidential.

Ask about this +66 65 145 5546