The short version
- Hua Hin is removing 15 buildings from roughly 400 m of town beach on Naresdamri Road, between the Hua Hin Fishing Pier and the Chao Mae Thap Thim Shrine, under demolition orders the Supreme Administrative Court upheld. 11 more fall to the Marine Department, whose funding was still under discussion on 15 October.
- Nothing came down on 16 October: the human rights commission asked for a pause, then said on 22 October it would not interfere with the courts’ rulings. Work began on 30 October and the contractor has until 22 January 2027.
- The stated aim is public use, with concrete barriers planned against reoccupation. No promenade, walkway or design has been announced.
- Nothing we list stands on the cleared stretch. The seven town-centre condo buildings in our guide hold 30 units for sale, from 3,300,000 to 57,990,000 THB.
At about 10am on Friday 30 October, excavators began breaking up concrete on Naresdamri Road in the centre of Hua Hin. Hua Hin City Municipality is removing 15 buildings from roughly 400 metres of the town beach, between the Hua Hin Fishing Pier and the Chao Mae Thap Thim Shrine, under demolition orders that the Supreme Administrative Court upheld (Hua Hin Today, 30 October). The contractor has until 22 January 2027. If you read that the Hua Hin waterfront demolition would begin on 16 October, that was the plan Hua Hin Today reported on 15 October; nothing was knocked down that day.
This is the fishing pier in the town itself, not the one at Khao Takiab further south. For a buyer the story is quieter: none of the homes we list stands on the cleared stretch, the land is not about to become a building site, and the case is a plain reminder that a house registration is not a title deed.
What is being cleared, and where exactly?
The buildings stand on the seaward side of Naresdamri Road, along a stretch of roughly 400 metres between the pier and the shrine (Hua Hin Today, 5 September). They are homes, seafood restaurants, guesthouses and other structures, some built out over the sea. The authorities say they occupy beach or tidal land in the state’s public domain, a position the residents dispute. When The Nation reported on the stretch in March 2024, some structures reached up to 20 metres into the sea, there was no space left to walk along the beach, and a Hua Hin Land Office official said the encroachment was more than 30 years old (The Nation, 6 March 2024).
Hua Hin Today traces the case to a final Supreme Court ruling in 2014 that covered 40 owners, of whom 14 complied (Hua Hin Today, 15 October). Of the 26 who did not, 15 fall to the municipality, which is paying for their removal, and 11 to the Marine Department, which on 15 October was still discussing funding and coordination for them. Hua Hin Today describes the work that began on 30 October as part of the plan to demolish the municipality’s 15; none of the reports we have read says whether the Marine Department’s 11 are included. Two owners had said they would demolish their own.
Why did nothing come down on 16 October?
On the morning of 16 October contractors, heavy machinery and nearly 100 police were ready. The afternoon before, the municipality had received a letter from the National Human Rights Commission, dated 12 October and marked most urgent, asking it to postpone demolition and evictions while the commission investigated complaints from 19 residents (Hua Hin Today, 16 October). The municipality agreed to a short delay. Instead, officials photographed and recorded the condition of all 15 properties, which Mayor Nopporn Wutthikul said would give the agencies evidence to proceed legally.
The commission met officials in Hua Hin on 22 October. Commissioner Sayamol Kaiyoorawong said the NHRC does not interfere with court orders and would not reconsider what the courts had decided; it would check how the agencies carried the orders out, such as written warnings and public notices, and how the rights of affected residents were protected: "The municipality may proceed according to the Administrative Court’s ruling" (Hua Hin Today, 22 October; Siamrath, 22 October). Relocation and compensation were discussed, with no outcome announced. A proposal from the commissioner and the province to give the occupants until 22 November then fell through: the municipality wanted them to sign a commitment to comply with the meeting’s resolution. "In the end, the people occupying the area refused to sign," the mayor said, and the municipality moved from weekly to daily site visits (Hua Hin Today, 23 October).
Why are the buildings being removed?
The legal basis is a set of municipal orders. The municipality issued them under the Building Control Act, prohibiting use of the buildings and requiring their demolition; the notice posted on one property on 30 October cites an order dated 26 May 2019 that the owner or occupier had not complied with. The residents challenged the orders at the Phetchaburi Administrative Court, and the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the ruling that they were lawful, which ended those proceedings (Hua Hin Today, 25 September). The dispute itself is far older: Hua Hin Today dates it to at least 2002, with about 40 buildings targeted in 2016 and the Phetchaburi court upholding demolition orders in several cases in 2018.
For the mayor, the decision is no longer his to make. He said in September that officials who failed to act could face charges under Section 157, the dereliction-of-duty offence: "We therefore have to act in accordance with the powers given to us by law." The view that the beach belongs to the public is the authorities’ and the commission’s: on 22 October the NHRC described beaches as national public property and said the cleared area should be used for the common good, with public access and conservation of natural resources (Siamrath, 22 October).
What do the people who live there say?
By their own account, given to Hua Hin Today, the fishing community there is about 190 years old; they point to house registrations and permanent water and electricity connections as proof that the state recognised them, and to findings by the Department of Special Investigation and aerial photographs. Speaking to MGR Online on 25 September, they called themselves "pioneers, not encroachers", said their families had lived there for more than 100 years, and asked for a halt until their rights were proven in court, a negotiating table and a committee to compensate those affected (MGR Online, 25 September). These are their claims, and the courts have upheld the orders against their buildings.
A residents’ representative told Hua Hin Today: "Some may have another home available, but they do not have another place to earn a living." They also argue that the courts upheld the municipal orders without themselves ordering demolition. A court declined their separate petition to establish land rights, which they are appealing, and the mayor said on 15 October that their applications for temporary protection had been rejected. Others in the town take the opposite view: on 22 October a delegation led by Sompong Chitbonnawit handed the commission a letter supporting the return of the beachfront to shared public use and to tourism.
What happens next, and by when?
The first day’s work began on ground already cleared: excavators broke up concrete on plots demolished earlier, working along Naresdamri Road towards the shrine, before demolition began on a nearby section, Hua Hin Today reported. Several structures appeared vacated, and officials were arranging to cut water and electricity to the targeted buildings. The municipality is preparing criminal cases against 26 alleged encroachers, 15 under its responsibility and 11 under the Marine Department’s, and from Monday 2 November, the mayor said, its legal team will begin filing complaints with the police (Hua Hin Today, 29 October). Obstruction will be filmed, warnings issued in stages, and evidence passed to the court for arrest warrants if defiance continues, an outcome he said he would rather avoid (Ban Muang’s report of the 29 October meeting).
The dates in circulation differ in kind:
| Date | What is set | How firm |
|---|---|---|
| 2 Nov 2026 | The municipality’s legal team begins filing police complaints | Announced by the mayor |
| 22 Nov 2026 | Proposed extension for the occupants | Not agreed: occupants refused to sign |
| 27 Nov 2026 | Officials to enter one named property to demolish it | That property only |
| 22 Jan 2027 | End of the 120-day window that began on 25 September | Contract date for the municipality’s 15 |
| Not announced | The Marine Department’s 11 structures | Funding still under discussion on 15 October; no date reported by 30 October |
The mayor says machinery will prepare the cleared sites so that the land can be returned to public use (Hua Hin Today, 30 October), and officials plan concrete barriers to stop the cleared areas being occupied again (The Thaiger, 23 October); none had been reported in place by 30 October. No promenade, walkway or landscape design has been announced. A stretch of town beach where in 2024 there was nowhere to walk is being opened up.
What does it change for someone buying near the town beach?
Nothing we list stands on the cleared stretch, as far as our records show: no listing title of 30 October names Naresdamri Road or the fishing pier. The authorities treat the land as public domain and the stated plan is public use, so no announced plan would turn the cleared beach into a building plot. Until the contract ends on 22 January 2027 the stretch can expect machinery and officials, which matters for a visit or a holiday let on Naresdamri itself rather than for titled property elsewhere in town.
The clearest lesson is legal. The occupants’ house registrations and utility connections did not stop the orders against their buildings being upheld. A house book and a water meter record that someone lives at an address; they are not title to the land under it, which is why a condominium unit on its own title deed, or a plot held on a Chanote, sits in a different legal position. Our guide to what foreigners can own on the beachfront in Thailand explains why the beach and foreshore are public land and how to read a title plan, and our guide to buying a condo in Hua Hin as a foreigner covers the foreign quota and the transfer costs.
If the town beach is what draws you, look at the seven town-centre condo buildings compared in our guide to Baan Sandao and Hua Hin’s town beach condos; two of them, La Casita and Flame Tree, are town buildings, and outside sources place only InterContinental and Baan San Ploen on the sand itself. Across the seven we list 30 units for sale, from 3,300,000 THB for a top-floor one-bedroom at Flame Tree Residence to 57,990,000 THB for a three-bedroom beachfront unit at InterContinental Residences. Our page on beachfront property in Hua Hin covers the wider coast, where we list 120 homes for sale tagged beachfront, from Cha-Am to Pranburi. Erosion and storm waves on the shore are covered in our guide to Hua Hin flood risk, and the mayor’s other plans in our update on what the mayor has funded.
This article is news and general information, not legal advice; before you buy, have a Thai lawyer of your own choosing check the title deed.
Homes by Hua Hin’s beaches
If the town beach is what draws you, start with the beach homes we list from Cha-Am to Pranburi, and ask us to show you the title deed before you view.
