Technical article
Lease or Title: What Your Children Get When the Home Abroad Is a Lease
The right you hold is the right your children inherit.
Picture a couple from Ohio who buy a home on a warm coast abroad. They have two grown children, one in Canada and one in Spain. The couple ask a simple thing: when we are gone, what do the children get, and for how long? The place is an example, not a recommendation.
In several countries the buyer does not get a deed that lasts forever. The buyer gets a lease, a time-limited certificate or a share of a building. The word "own" can mean quite different things from one country to the next.
What a foreigner holds, place by place
Here is what the sources show. Most come from law-firm guides and property-advice sites, so the table gives the tier of the main source in brackets. A is an official text, B a specialist news or tax-firm report, C a law firm or property guide.
| Place | What a foreigner holds | Longest term | What heirs get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thailand | Condominium unit within a 49% building quota; land only by lease (C) | 30 years per lease | A lease passes only if the registered contract allows it |
| Vietnam | Time-limited ownership certificate in commercial projects (B) | 50 years, one extension of up to 50 | The home, or only its value if a quota or security rule bars the heir |
| Indonesia | Hak pakai, a right to use (A) | 30, then 20, then 30 | Passes to heirs, who need immigration documents if foreign |
| Philippines | Condominium unit up to 40% of a project; no land (C) | Lease of up to 99 years only for approved investments | Condominium transfer to non-citizens is barred, with succession as the stated exception |
| Malaysia | State approval and a state minimum price (C) | - | - |
| Maldives | Lease; no freehold (C) | 99 years (50 plus 49) | - |
| Kenya | Leasehold only (C) | Typically 99, renewable | - |
| Tanzania | Mainland: investment-linked right. Zanzibar: registered lease (C) | 33, 66 or 99 years | Zanzibar: developed property may be inherited |
| Ghana | Leasehold; building owned outright (C) | 50 years at any one time | Leasehold passes by inheritance; the source does not say whether a foreign heir may hold it |
| Mauritius | Approved schemes only (C) | - | One archived property guide says a foreigner inherits only where the home country gives the same right in return |
| Seychelles | Ministerial sanction needed (A) | - | Succession is exempt from sanction |
Reading the table
Thailand is the clearest case of a right that ends or shifts. One law firm's guide says a foreign heir of land is expected to sell, usually within about one year, though some guidance mentions 180 days. The same guide says a condominium heir keeps the unit only if the building's foreign quota has room. A Thai government site puts the condominium quota at 49% of the building's area.
In Vietnam, the certificate runs up to 50 years and may be extended once. A report on the housing rules says an heir who falls outside the quota receives the value of the house, not the house. What remains of the term for an heir is not stated in the sources.
Indonesia's rules come from the 2021 government regulation itself, tier A. The right to use ends and the land returns to the State at the end of the term. A foreign heir needs immigration documents.
Ghana's 50-year cap applies to a non-citizen, and a company with more than 40% non-Ghanaian owners counts as a non-citizen. In Seychelles, acquiring by succession is exempt from the sanction that a purchase needs.
The Philippines added a 99-year lease in 2025 under a law known as RA 12252. It covers approved registered investments, not homes bought only to live in.
Who it touches
The right you hold is the right your children inherit. If a child lives in another country, the first question is whether a foreign heir may keep the right at all. The second is how many years remain. A third is whether a will from home reaches the property, or whether the local law of the place decides.
You could
You could write down, for each place you are weighing, three lines: what is on the paper, how many years it runs, and what the paper says about heirs who live elsewhere. You could ask the seller or the registry for that paper before anything is signed. You could also ask whether a spouse who is a local citizen changes the answer, as it does in Vietnam.
If you hold a lease abroad, what did the paper say about your children, and how long did it run? Share it here. Someone may be reading a similar paper tonight.
Figures are estimates for planning, based on public data. Date read: October 2026.
Sources
- Indonesia government regulation 18 of 2021, partial English text (A)
- Seychelles Immovable Property (Transfer Restriction) Act on seylii.org (A)
- thailand.go.th (A)
- Luatvietnam on Decree 95/2024 (B)
- Vietstock on Vietnam housing rules (B)
- Globallawexperts on Thai heirs (C)
- Thai-property-docs on Thai leases (C)
- Listd and NDV Law on the Philippines (C)
- Emerhub on the Philippines and Malaysia (C)
- IBN on Kenya (C)
- Tanzaniainvest on Tanzania and Zanzibar (C)
- MyJoyOnline and Afriwise on Ghana (C)
- Expat.com and PropertyCloud on Mauritius (C)
- Global Property Guide on Mauritius (C)
- CTL Strategies and Tata Housing on the Maldives (C)
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