Construction Warranty in Thailand: How Long and What It Covers

How Many Years Does Thai Law Guarantee?

The question of how long a construction warranty lasts has two layers of answer: what the law provides, and what the contract says. Under the hire-of-work provisions of the Civil and Commercial Code, Sections 600 and 601, unless the parties have agreed otherwise the contractor is liable for defects that appear within one year of delivery, but where the work is a structure attached to the land, that period extends to five years.

This is where the five-year figure that homeowners hear so often comes from. As a matter of principle it protects the structural elements of the building: columns, beams, slabs and foundations. It does not, as many people assume, cover everything in the house for five years.

There is a further point to understand. Once a defect has appeared, the law also sets a limitation period for bringing a claim in court. So when you notice an unusual crack or settlement, do not let years go by before raising it. Put it in writing as soon as you find it.

The Warranty Periods Actually Used in Residential Contracts

Most house-building contracts in use in 2026 split the warranty into tiers. Structural work sits at around 5 years. General and finishing work such as rendering, paint, tiling and ceilings sits at around 1 year. Roof leaks and the electrical and plumbing systems are usually set at 1 to 2 years, depending on what is negotiated.

There is a logic to that split. Structural faults show themselves slowly and are expensive to put right, while surface and finishing work reveals its problems quickly, within the first season. A house in Korat or Roi Et that has been through one full hot season and one full rainy season will have shown you almost everything it has to show in terms of hairline cracking and water ingress.

Manufacturer warranties on materials and equipment form a separate layer from the contractor’s warranty: roof tiles, exterior paint, air conditioners, water pumps and the like. Keep the warranty cards and the receipts for these items, because some of them run considerably longer than the warranty covering the installation work.

What a Construction Warranty Usually Does Not Cover

The exclusion found in virtually every contract is normal wear and deterioration with age, such as paint fading, grout shrinking or silicone perishing. These are maintenance items for the homeowner, not defects in the construction.

The second exclusion is alteration or extension work carried out by the owner or by another contractor: knocking through a wall to add an opening, extending a kitchen at the rear on a separate foundation, or cutting through the roof to install equipment. When cracking or leaking appears around the altered area, the original contractor can generally decline responsibility under the terms of the contract.

The third exclusion is force majeure and natural events such as storms, flooding or earthquakes, and the fourth, the one people most often forget, is material supplied by the owner. If you bring your own sanitary ware and the item itself turns out to be faulty, the contractor warrants only the quality of the installation. The sensible course is to have every exclusion written into the contract from day one.

How to Make a Warranty Claim That Actually Works

The first step is to notify in writing rather than relying on a phone call. A LINE message or an email is perfectly adequate provided it records the date, the symptom you have observed and the exact location. What you should always include are photographs showing both the overall context and a close-up, with the date they were taken.

The second step is to set a timeframe: ask for an inspection within, say, 7 days, and for remedial work to begin within 15 days of that inspection. Without a timeframe, a claim simply turns into indefinite waiting. A well-drafted contract will already contain these periods; if yours does not, put them in your own written notice.

The third step is to keep a record every time someone comes to carry out repairs: the date, what was done, who attended and what the outcome was. Where a defect is repaired and then recurs, that record is your evidence that the underlying cause was never addressed. If the contractor has genuinely become uncontactable, you can still engage an independent engineer to assess the cause and the cost of the damage in a written report and use that as the basis for further negotiation.

What a Good Warranty Clause Looks Like

A warranty clause that works in practice needs four things: separate periods by category of work, a defined scope of what is and is not covered, a claims procedure with contact details, and a timeframe within which the contractor must attend. Leave any one of those out and the clause becomes a pleasant-sounding promise rather than an enforceable obligation.

The clause should also state when the warranty period starts running. Normally it runs from the date of delivery recorded in the handover document, rather than the date you actually moved in or the date the final payment was made. Left unstated, it becomes another thing to argue about when you need to know whether the cover has expired.

One more provision worth having: if the contractor fails to attend within the agreed timeframe, the homeowner has the right to engage someone else to carry out the repair and recover the cost, or deduct it from the retention money. That single sentence changes the homeowner’s position from someone who can only wait to someone who has a way forward.

Retention Money and Looking After the House in Its First Year

Retention money held back at roughly 5 to 10 per cent of the construction cost is what gives the warranty clause real force, because while money is still outstanding the contractor has every reason to come back and put things right. A home builder such as OBILIS attaches the warranty terms and the release date for this retention to the contract itself, and that is a document you can ask to see whoever you end up hiring.

To get a rough budget before you talk to anyone, try our house price calculator, or contact the OBILIS team to talk through your plot.

The first six months to a year after moving in is the period to watch the house most closely. Walk the junctions between walls and columns, the corners of door and window frames, the ceiling under the roof and the area under the kitchen sink from time to time. If you find anything out of the ordinary, photograph it immediately with the date, even if you have no intention of reporting it just yet.

The first heavy rain after you move in is the best test the roof and the drainage will ever get. Walk around the house while it is raining, and again about an hour after the rain stops, because points where water is getting in show up as staining most clearly during that window, not once everything has dried out.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are cracks in rendered walls covered by the warranty?

It depends on the character of the crack. Fine hairline crazing on a rendered surface is a normal feature of cement work and is usually treated as maintenance. But diagonal cracks at the corners of door and window frames, wide cracks that run right through to the other side, or cracks that keep widening are signs of a structural problem and should be reported for inspection straight away.

My contractor has closed down. Can I still claim?

If it was a company that has been formally dissolved and liquidated, pursuing a claim becomes extremely difficult. If it was an individual, you can still trace them from the details in the contract. This is exactly why you should check the status of the party you are contracting with before signing, and why retention money should always be held back.

I extended the kitchen myself and the wall cracked. Is that covered?

Generally not, because it is an alteration carried out by someone else. Extensions built on a separate foundation that settles at a different rate from the main house are the single most common cause of this kind of cracking. If you plan to extend, tell the original contractor and have an engineer design the junction between old and new first.