Four people who had illegally occupied a Bangkok townhouse for more than six years have been sentenced to nine months in jail but the terms were suspended by a criminal court.
The Min Buri Criminal Court on Tuesday sentenced Sriwan Samakkhee, Nittaya Samakhee, Pholkrit Thongkham and Malee Kinnoi to one year in jail and fined each of them 20,000 baht for trespassing, theft and illegally occupying the house owned by a man known only as Hemmathas.
The court, however, reduced the sentences to nine months and the fines to 11,000 baht each after the four pleaded guilty. The sentences were suspended for two years because they were first offenders and due to their ages, which were not disclosed.
The case was the talk of the town when it first came to light in Thai media earlier this year.
Mr Hemmathas bought the townhouse in Ramindra Soi 58 in Khannayao district in 1991 but did not live there. He gave it to his nephew, known only as Sun, as a wedding gift last year.
The squatters, who are the owner’s neighbours, seized the house in 2017 and even renovated it after moving in.
When the nephew went to see the house last year, he was not allowed to enter. The defendants claimed they had exercised adverse possession to take control of the house because the owner had left it unattended.
Adverse possession, commonly known as “squatters’ rights”, is made possible when a person acquires ownership of a property if the person has, for an uninterrupted period of 10 years, “peacefully and openly” possessed property belonging to another with the intention of being its owner.
The occupants came under immense pressure from the public after their act was widely reported by the media. One of them committed suicide in February after the publicity started to affect her family.
The woman had been named as a defendant but her name was struck from the case by prosecutors after she died.
The defendants agreed to pay Mr Hemmathas 1 million baht to compensate for their illegal occupation before the court ruling on Tuesday.
Amnuayporn Maneewan, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the case had come to an end as the defendants did not appeal the ruling to a higher court.
The wife of Mr Hemmathas’ nephew, identified only as Sarocha, said after the court hearing that the ruling should be a lesson for any illegal occupant that their wrongdoing must be punished.
Squatting in other people’s property should not be treated as normal in society, she added.