From Las Vegas to Bangkok: BAANLYY Co-Founder on Buying Property, Opening a Company and Moving to Thailand With Dogs

Before a 30-plus-hour flight to Bangkok with his two dogs, Kirby Scofield explains the visa, tax, company and pet steps that led him to build BAANLYY.

LOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, November 9, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Kirby Scofield, co-founder of BAANLYY (baanlyy.com), the Thailand rental, property and relocation portal, is spending his last days in the United States on the Manhattan Beach boardwalk with his two dogs, Chance and Jaeger. On Tuesday the three of them fly from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) through Istanbul to Bangkok, more than 30 hours of travel.

"Everything we put on BAANLYY, I've done myself," Scofield said. "Buying property, setting up a company, the visa, the taxes, and getting two dogs to Thailand. Every hard step became a free tool or a guide."

The visa: picking the right route
Scofield applied for Thailand's Destination Thailand Visa (DTV) and was turned down twice. He is working toward the Long-Term Resident (LTR) visa, whose Wealthy Global Citizen category requires a USD 500,000 investment in Thailand, and he is at about USD 406,000 in Thai property today. Because he needed to relocate now, he took the Thailand Privilege visa.

"Immigration told me it was the right order," he said. "Get here properly now, then apply for the LTR when I qualify, with nothing for them to question later."

Buying and owning property as a foreigner
Foreigners can own condominium units in their own name within each building's foreign-ownership quota, but generally cannot own land. Scofield owns condos in Bangkok and had his Thai-language purchase contracts translated and reviewed by a lawyer before signing.

A Thai company, set up the legitimate way
Scofield and his business partner, BAANLYY co-founder June Pichaikamolchat, set up a Thai limited company. "Companies are highly scrutinized here because of nominee fraud, so we set everything up by the book," he said. The company is not used to buy property today. It exists so they can run other businesses in Thailand in the future.

"Company taxes in Thailand are very different from the U.S.," Scofield said. "Your accounts are audited every year and every receipt has to match. It's harder than in the U.S. and it costs more to file, so we hired Siam Legal to run our books and audit. It keeps everything clean and complete."

The hardest part: the boys
Chance and Jaeger are snub-nosed breeds of about 43 pounds each, the combination many airlines will not fly. One airline's website said yes; at the booking step, their weight triggered a refusal, and no other carrier would take them. A pet relocation company found a route through Istanbul on Turkish Airlines after about a week. The flight was held until November because tarmac heat in Las Vegas and Bangkok is dangerous for snub-nosed dogs. Only Los Angeles, Denver and New York JFK were allowed as departure airports, and the booking could not be made more than 21 days ahead. Before any of that came vet work, rabies vaccination, a rabies titer test, microchips and USDA paperwork.

"If you're moving with pets, start a year out," Scofield said. "That's why we built the pet import timeline and the pet-friendly building pages. I wish I'd had them."

Every step, now free on BAANLYY
- Visa options: https://baanlyy.com/visas and https://baanlyy.com/learn/dtv-vs-ltr-thailand
- Thailand Privilege visa guide: https://baanlyy.com/learn/thailand-privilege-elite-visa
- Buying through a Thai company, the rules: https://baanlyy.com/learn/buying-property-through-a-thai-company
- Condo foreign-ownership quota: https://baanlyy.com/learn/thailand-condo-foreign-ownership-quota
- Rental income tax and compliance: https://baanlyy.com/learn/thailand-rental-income-tax-and-compliance
- Moving pets to Thailand: https://baanlyy.com/relocate/pets and https://baanlyy.com/tools/pet-import-timeline

"BAANLYY is the site I needed when I started," Scofield said. "Now it's free for everyone who comes after me."

About BAANLYY
BAANLYY (baanlyy.com) is a Thailand rental, property and relocation portal operated by BAANLYY LLC and co-founded by Kirby Scofield and June Pichaikamolchat. It brings together live homes for rent and sale, building-by-building condo research, developer profiles, city and neighborhood guides, visa and relocation guides, and free planning tools in English, Thai, Chinese, Russian and Japanese. BAANLYY does not own the homes listed by its partners and does not take referral fees; visa, tax and property-law guidance on the site is cited to official Thai government sources.

Kirby Scofield
BAANLYY LLC
hello@baanlyy.com
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