Land Disputes, Boundary Conflicts, and Adverse Possession: A Guide for Landowners

Which situation are you in?

Most people come to consult about a land dispute only after the matter has already dragged on for years — the fence has been inching over bit by bit, siblings have lived together without ever dividing the property, or someone has been living on our land for so long that it became a matter of course.

⚠️ The most important warning in this guide: time is never on the side of those who stay silent. Don't sign to certify a boundary line you don't agree with just because someone is rushing you, and don't let others use your land without written evidence that they are there because you permitted it. Doing nothing, year after year, is what turns "a person who came to stay" into "a rights claimant" without any warning in advance.

What each title document actually gives you

Ownership is full ownership backed by official state registration, while right of possession arises from actually holding and making use of the land. It is weaker and can be lost far more easily.

This table states only the legal status. Whether any particular bank will actually accept a document is each bank's lending policy, which can change at any time — you must ask separately. This information is current as of August 2569.

Nor Sor 3 Kor differs from Nor Sor 3 and Nor Sor 3 Kho in the transfer procedure. Nor Sor 3 Kor is issued using an aerial-photo map sheet that fixes the plot's position, so the position is clearer, and registration of transfer generally does not require publication. Nor Sor 3 and Nor Sor 3 Kho, which have no such aerial-photo map sheet, must complete the publication procedure before the transfer can be registered. But all three types can be registered as a mortgage under the law — whether the law will accept a mortgage is not something you have to gamble on. What must be checked for each plot is the accuracy of the boundaries, existing encumbrances, the history of the document's issuance, and each lender's collateral policy — not the legal power to mortgage.

Sor Por Kor 4-01. The holder has no ownership, so any dispute must go to the agency that allocated the right, not to a lawsuit for partition of ownership. But the belief that it "cannot be used as collateral in any case" is no longer correct. At present, Sor Por Kor states that it can be used as collateral for credit with Thor Kor Sor (ธ.ก.ส., BAAC) in specified contexts, and there is a policy to increase access to capital for agricultural title deeds. The regulations change frequently — ask the Provincial Sor Por Kor office.

Phor Bor Thor 5 is evidence of tax payment under the old system, which has since been replaced. Long, unbroken receipts do not prove that you are the owner.

Boundary Disputes and the 90-Day Deadline You Must Not Miss

Having a title deed does not mean the actual boundary on the ground is correct. Many old title deeds were surveyed using the methods of their era. As for Nor Sor 3 (น.ส.3) documents without the "Kor" (ก.) suffix, they are among the group most frequently found in boundary disputes, because there is no aerial-photo map overlay fixing the plot's position. The recollections of both parties are not evidence. What decides the matter is the land registry records and the survey. You file an application for a boundary survey; the official schedules a date and notifies the adjoining owners to attend and point out the boundary line. If all parties certify the same line, the matter ends at the Land Office. If there is an objection, the official will investigate and mediate first.

⏱ 90 Days from the Date of Notification

If mediation fails, the land official will notify you to bring the case to court within 90 days from the date of receipt of the notification, together with evidence that the lawsuit has been filed. If no lawsuit is filed within the deadline, the applicant is deemed to no longer wish to proceed with the boundary survey. The boundary survey matter then concludes at the Land Office stage. The consequences of not filing are not equal for both parties. If you are the survey applicant, allowing the 90 days to lapse means the matter you initiated falls away, and you must file a new survey application and go through the entire process again. But if you are an objecting adjoining owner, the fact that no one filed within the deadline does not mean you have lost, because the original boundary entries are not amended. Therefore, before deciding whether to file, you must read every line of the notification to see which capacity you are in, and have a lawyer read it together with you. Do not rush to file just because you see the number 90 days. ⚠️ This deadline applies only to disputes arising from a boundary survey under Section 69 bis of the Land Code. It is not the general prescription period for boundary cases or land cases. The fact that the survey process has concluded does not mean you have lost your rights in the land, and it does not mean the other party has obtained the boundary line as they claim. Rights in the land itself must still be determined under the principles of ownership, possessory rights, and the prescription periods of those respective cases. ⚠️ And do not apply this 90-day deadline to applications for issuance of title documents or registration of inheritance, which are separate processes with their own time limits.

This notification letter should be taken to a lawyer to read immediately, because the date in the letter determines everything that follows.

Three prohibitions: Do not sign to certify a boundary you do not agree with, because a signature carries weight in court. Do not demolish the other party's fence yourself, because you risk criminal liability. And do not let construction continue to completion without a dated written objection.

Right of Way: Do Not Assume That "When the Owner Changes, the Right Disappears at Once"

The phrases often heard are "the neighbor has always let us pass" and "once he sold the land, our right ended immediately." Both statements are far too crude. Because using a passage over another person's land can have several legal statuses, and the consequences when the land changes hands are not the same.

Therefore, it cannot be said in every case that once the new owner bought the land, your right of passage "disappeared immediately." What must be done is to look back at how you have used that passage: in what capacity, for how long, whether openly and continuously, or occasionally and with permission sought each time, and whether your land has another exit to a public way. These answers change the entire shape of the case.

However, the safest path remains registering an easement while you are still on good terms, because a registered right appears in the land registry records. A new buyer sees it before purchasing, and there is no need to prove it again in court. As for the way of necessity under Section 1349, it has its own conditions — both that the route chosen must cause the least damage to the surrounding land, and that compensation must be paid to the owner of the land crossed. It is therefore not always a right obtained for free.

Adverse Possession: For Both the Side That May Lose Land and the Side Claiming the Right

This is why people lose an entire plot of land without ever having sold it to anyone. For land with a Chanote title deed, a person who possesses another person's land peacefully, openly, and with the intention of being the owner (not as a tenant or licensee) for a continuous period of 10 years acquires ownership under Section 1382.

The last element is the key in almost every case. If they are on the land because you permitted it, the countdown does not run as long as the nature of the possession has not changed (see the conditions of Section 1381 at the end of this section). And the starting point of the count matters more than the number of years, because each side starts counting on a different day.

Ownership arises when the conditions are met, not because a court orders it

When possession meets all the elements and completes 10 years, the possessor acquires ownership by operation of law under Section 1382. The court is not what creates ownership; it functions to certify a right that has already arisen, whether when there is a dispute or so that the possessor can take the court order to correct the registration records at the Land Office. But as long as it has not yet been registered, the right thus acquired has a significant weakness: it cannot be asserted against an outside transferee who acted in good faith, gave consideration, and registered the right in good faith, under Section 1299.

This difference of two lines has real practical consequences for both sides. The possessor side may wrongly think, "without going to court, nothing has been gained," and let time pass until the original owner transfers the land to a new buyer, which may make the right so painstakingly acquired unenforceable against that buyer. The landowner side may wrongly think, "as long as the court has not ordered anything, nothing has happened," and remain idle, even though the legal conditions may already have been met and what remains is only a matter of evidence in court.

Land without title deeds and land with only a Nor Sor 3 / Nor Sor 3 Gor certificate of land use (น.ส.3 / น.ส.3 ก.) are governed by the principle of adverse possession (dispossession), under which the time for the original owner to sue for recovery is much shorter than for land with a Chanote title. This category of land cannot afford to wait.

State land is not of a single type. Public utility land, state property land, ecclesiastical land, land in forest areas, and land in land reform areas are governed by different statutes, different agencies, and have different channels for challenge. As a principle, adverse possession cannot be claimed against state land, but to know which agency and which court to approach, the type must be correctly identified.

If you are the owner, go inspect the land once a year with a date-stamped photo. If someone is living there, make a lease agreement or a written permission to reside, because possession that began with permission is not possession in the character of an owner from the outset; the prescriptive period for adverse possession has therefore not yet begun to run, and this document is the best evidence to confirm that fact later. But before handing over the paper to be signed, you must first be able to answer when they moved in and in what capacity. If they moved in on their own without ever asking permission and have been there for a long time, a document signed today does not retroactively erase the time that has already passed, nor does it retroactively erase a right that may already have arisen by operation of law as explained above. In such a case, you must promptly have a lawyer assess whether a lawsuit is necessary — do not rely on a single piece of paper.

⚠️ But a permission letter is not an absolute guarantee forever, because the nature of the possession may change later under the conditions of Section 1381. A person who holds property on behalf of another may change the nature of the holding only by giving notice to the possessor that they no longer intend to hold it on the other's behalf, or by entering into possession in good faith under a new authority obtained from a third party. When such an event occurs, the counting of time may begin from that day. Therefore, when you receive a letter or notice of this kind, do not file it away in a drawer, because the date on the document may be the starting date of the period in which you will lose the land.

If the other party refuses to sign any document, send a notice letter with proof of delivery. But do not assume that a single letter always stops the countdown. What carries more weight is filing a lawsuit in court.

If you have been on the land for a long time, the key question is whether the land has already changed hands, because a person who bought in good faith, paid consideration, and registered in good faith may receive protection. But this is not a shield that protects every buyer in every case. Good faith can be proven in both directions.

Inherited Land Held Jointly by Siblings

The land still being in the deceased’s name does not mean the heirs can do nothing until they ask the court to appoint an estate administrator. This misunderstanding causes many families to waste time and expenses on unnecessary procedures. Under Section 1599, when the decedent dies, the estate passes to the heirs immediately. The heirs therefore have rights in that land plot from the date of the decedent’s death. What is still lacking is correcting the registered name to match reality, which heirs can request directly through registration of inheritance at the Land Office under Section 81 of the Land Code, without needing a court order appointing an estate administrator in every case.

So when should an estate administrator be appointed? Appointing an estate administrator is one method, not a compulsory gateway, but it is often genuinely necessary in these cases:

• The heirs have disputes among themselves, or someone objects as to who the entitled heir is.
• Some heirs are not ready or unable to act themselves, such as being unreachable, living abroad, being minors, or refusing to sign.
• The estate is complex: there are multiple land plots in multiple provinces, debts of the decedent, bank accounts, shares, or other types of property mixed in.
• External counterparties, such as banks or contracting parties, require a single clearly authorized manager to enter into juristic acts with.

See estate services to determine which group your case falls into, because choosing the wrong path from the start wastes several months without gaining anything extra.

In the inheritance registration stage, if the heirs dispute, the land official will first conduct an inquiry and comparison. If they cannot agree, the official will issue an order. The dissatisfied party must file a lawsuit with the court within 60 days from receipt of notice, together with evidence of the lawsuit. This 60-day period applies only to disputes in the inheritance registration process under Section 81 of the Land Code. It is a registration procedure, not the limitation period for an estate case or the original case, and it is a different period from the 90-day survey objection period. Do not confuse them, and the consequences of letting the period lapse are also different. In the 90-day survey case, if no one files a lawsuit, the survey matter simply ends. But in this 60-day case, if no lawsuit is filed within the period, the land official will proceed according to the order already issued, and the land will be registered accordingly. The dissatisfied party therefore loses the opportunity to object at the registration level. This 60-day period is thus a period in which you cannot remain idle.

What can co-owners do on their own?

A co-owner has rights to “the entire plot according to share,” not “that corner of the plot.” As long as it has not been partitioned, no one can point out where one’s own portion lies within the plot. At this point, two matters that people often confuse must be clearly separated. Under Section 1361, a co-owner may dispose of, mortgage, or create an encumbrance over “his or her undivided ownership share” without obtaining the consent of other co-owners. One sibling can therefore actually sell his or her share to an outsider, and that outsider becomes a co-owner in place of the seller, which is something many families never thought could happen. However, disposal, pledge, mortgage, or creation of an encumbrance over the property itself, namely the entire land plot, requires the consent of all co-owners under Section 1361, paragraph two. As for leasing the entire land plot, it is a separate matter from disposal or mortgage because it is management of co-owned property, which follows a different set of rules. See details in the table.

In practical terms, one sibling can indeed make the entire plot unsellable, but you also cannot stop him or her from selling his or her own share. Furthermore, an heir who has long occupied the land may later claim that he or she possessed it for himself or herself, not on behalf of the siblings, which is a different matter from the registered shares and is the most common source of litigation over inherited land.

The fastest path is to agree and then go to the Land Office to partition the land together. The next step is mediation by an intermediary. The last resort is to sue for partition of co-owned property. What siblings often do not know is that auction sales actually occur in many cases; land guarded for three generations may therefore fall into the hands of outsiders.

Land Attachment — 30 Days and Not "Seizure"

When a dispute arises, many people think that anyone who is affected can walk in and request a land attachment. In reality, the qualifications for a person requesting an attachment are much narrower than the broad term "interested person." The applicant must be a person with a direct interest in that specific land plot who has a claim of such a nature that they could sue to compel registration or a change in the land registry records for that plot — not merely someone who would suffer disadvantage if the land were transferred.

Examples that typically meet the conditions include: a party to a sale and purchase agreement who has paid a deposit but the seller refuses to register the transfer, an heir entitled to inherit that land plot, a person claiming to have acquired ownership by adverse possession and who is pursuing a case, or a spouse claiming that the land is marital property.

⚠️ A general creditor is not always entitled to request an attachment. A creditor under a loan agreement where the land plot is not provided as security and where there is no obligation for the debtor to transfer or register anything to the creditor has no claim that can be enforced through the land registry, even if the creditor fears that the debtor will sell the land to evade the debt. The correct channel for this type of creditor is to file a lawsuit and seek interim measures from the court, not to walk into the land office. Filing through the wrong channel wastes time at the very moment when time matters most.

• There is a limit of 30 days from the date the land official orders acceptance of the attachment, and a repeated attachment request on the same grounds is not allowed. Those 30 days are therefore the only opportunity — and it is not merely a matter of filing the lawsuit in time. What keeps the registration suspended after the period expires is a court interim protection order, not the attachment request itself. Therefore, you must file a motion requesting the court to issue an order prohibiting disposition or transfer along with the lawsuit, and then present the court order to the land office. If you file the lawsuit in time but have no court order, the land can be transferred once the period expires. As for the details of the time limits and procedures at the land office level, you should ask the officer receiving the filing on the day you submit, because these regulations are amended periodically.
• "Attachment" is not "seizure." Attachment is a temporary suspension of registration at the land office, while asset seizure is enforcement of a court judgment — a different process and a different authority. See debt enforcement and collection

Which matters end at the Land Office and which must go to court

The Land Office handles registration and matters on which all parties agree — boundary surveys, subdivision, combining title deeds, registering easements, and registering inheritance when all heirs agree. The court decides contested rights, including adverse possession, eviction lawsuits, lawsuits over ways of necessity and easements, and lawsuits to partition co-ownership. As for cancellation of registration entries issued unlawfully, it may begin at the Department of Lands, but in many cases it ends in court.

Damrongdharma Center may help set up a mediation table, but it has no power to decide ownership. Once the case is over, the result must be taken to be registered, because a judgment that has not been registered is not fully safe.

The cost of waiting and watching for one year is often far higher than consulting to get clarity from the first month, because this matter is decided by the calendar, not by who is right or wrong.

We have handled land cases and land disputes for landowners and their families since B.E. 2529. Call 092-254-2045 — tell us what type of land document you have, when the matter began, and whether you have already received any letter from the government. Or write to us at contact us.

Read more

• Land due diligence before purchasing a project — for corporate buyers
• Real estate for foreigners
• Judgment enforcement and debt collection
• Lawyer fees

This guide was prepared by Suwanvara Law Firm — a law firm in Khon Kaen, established in B.E. 2529. It is general information and not legal opinion for any particular case. The outcome of each matter depends on the title documents and the facts on the ground.