On July 10, 2026, officials posted eviction and demolition notices at a hotel in tambon Sakhu, Thalang district, enforcing a Supreme Court ruling that upheld revocation of the Nor Sor 3 Kor certificate covering more than 13 rai inside Sirinat National Park. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment’s release, dated 10 July 2026 — and the identical release from the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation at news.dnp.go.th/news/47245 — describes the operation as covering two Sirinat encroachment cases in which judgments are final, recovering a combined 25-plus rai: the Sakhu hotel plot and a second plot in tambon Choeng Thale.
Minister Suchart Chomklin ordered the operation but did not attend. Per the release he delegated it to his secretary, Pol. Maj. Gen. Surapol Boonma, alongside ministry adviser Pol. Lt. Gen. Itthiporn Phothong, deputy permanent secretary Nipon Jamnongsirisak, and DNP director-general Atthapol Charoenchansa, working with Sirinat National Park and the Phuket Legal Execution Office. The release names the deputy interior minister who joined for the Choeng Thale site as Polpee Suwanchawee, and frames both cases as part of a government programme it calls “Phuket Model,” under Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul.
The government release does not name the hotel — it says only “a certain hotel in tambon Sakhu.” Two outlets, Thaiger and Thailand Hotel News, identify it as the Pullman Phuket Arcadia Naithon Beach Resort, a 277-key hotel managed under an agreement with Accor, and Thailand Hotel News reports the land is held by Fair & Firm Co., Ltd. Those identifications are press attributions, not government record; Houseviser has not verified them against a Land Department or DBD filing and does not treat them as established. Whether or how day-to-day operations are affected is Unknown — Houseviser found no dated, sourced account of the resort’s operating status and is not inferring one from booking-site availability.
What the Supreme Court case covers
The government release is specific about the legal basis: the Supreme Court upheld revocation of the Nor Sor 3 Kor certificate — a use-rights document below Chanote in Thailand’s title hierarchy (see our guide to Nor Sor 3 Gor, the second-tier land title) — over the Sakhu plot, and ordered eviction plus demolition of all structures. Inspection found 39 hotel and villa buildings on the land. The release adds a step the press coverage does not: the Thalang branch of the Phuket Land Office has already revoked the title documents, and Sirinat National Park has begun enforcement.
One important limit: the judgment itself is not publicly retrievable. The release publishes no case number, and the Supreme Court’s own judgment database at deka.supremecourt.or.th returns no result for “อุทยานแห่งชาติสิรินาถ” (Sirinat National Park). The fact of a final ruling rests on the ministry’s assertion, not on a judgment text Houseviser could open.
On the wider caseload, a separate DNP release dated 19 June 2026 (news.dnp.go.th/news/46485) is more precise than the press summary: it counts 104 Sirinat encroachment cases between 2009 and 2025, of which six are cases of public significance: two final, one with the title already revoked, five not yet revoked, and two expected to reach demolition soon. These are overlapping descriptors of the same six cases, not a six-way partition — a case can be both final and revoked, as Sakhu is. “Six cases of public significance” is also not the same claim as “six cases being pursued,” which is how the figure has circulated in English coverage.
A second case, a different location
The second case is a roughly 12-rai plot in tambon Choeng Thale, inside both the “Khao Ruak–Pa Khao Mueang” national reserved forest and Sirinat National Park. Here the government release resolves what press coverage left ambiguous, and the sequence matters:
- A court ordered the occupants to vacate, after a forged So Kor 1 document was found to have been used to obtain the Chanote.
- The director-general of the Department of Lands has already revoked that Chanote.
- The occupants have filed in the Administrative Court, but the release states the eviction judgment remains in force regardless.
- Officials posted a 15-day notice; if it is ignored, the ministry says it will act under section 35 of the National Parks Act B.E. 2562 (2019) to demolish.
So this is a court-ordered eviction with a live parallel challenge — not merely an agency finding, which is how some English coverage framed it. What remains Unknown is who currently occupies or holds the plot: no source Houseviser opened, government or press, names a business or individual there.
A Bangkok Post follow-up published in mid-July, “Phuket beaches to be ‘restored,’” reported that the DNP had posted demolition notices at “two large hotels” whose owners had litigated for more than a decade before accepting the court rulings, with operators given one month to remove structures, and said the ministry plans to convert the reclaimed sites into public recreational forest. Given the government’s own framing of the 10 July operation as covering exactly two final Sirinat cases totalling 25-plus rai, that “two large hotels” reference most plausibly describes the Sakhu and Choeng Thale sites — though the follow-up does not say so explicitly. The one-month removal window here and the 15-day notice in the government release are different figures for what appears to be the same enforcement; neither source reconciles them, and Houseviser is not assuming one supersedes the other.
An older conviction in the same subdistrict
Thai-language reporting — the Department of Special Investigation’s own case record, corroborated by Bangkok Biz News and Nation TV’s reporting on the same verdict — describes a criminal conviction over a separate Sirinat encroachment matter in the Sakhu area: a defendant, Anek Leepracha, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay the state roughly THB 800 million in damages, with four land plots ordered returned to national park status. This is a verified fact about a distinct, already-concluded criminal case — Houseviser has not found a document establishing that it involves the same 13-rai parcel now occupied by the Naithon resort, and does not assert that link. It is offered here only as background showing that Sirinat encroachment litigation in this subdistrict predates the current enforcement wave by years, consistent with Bangkok Post’s framing of “owners who had fought legal battles for more than a decade” before this month’s action.
What is allegation, and what is settled
Neither case is an allegation in progress. The government states both judgments are final (ถึงที่สุด): Sakhu on a Supreme Court ruling upholding revocation, Choeng Thale on a court eviction order with the Chanote already revoked by the Department of Lands. What is still underway in both is the enforcement stage — notices posted, a compliance clock running, demolition to follow non-compliance. The Choeng Thale occupants’ Administrative Court filing is live but, per the release, does not suspend the eviction judgment.
What is not established by any government record: the identity of the Sakhu hotel (press attribution only), the ownership of either plot, and the Supreme Court judgment text, which is not retrievable from the court’s own database.
Houseviser analysis: why this matters beyond one resort
Most of Houseviser’s Phuket coverage this year has concerned nominee-shareholding risk in villa-scale company structures. This case is different in kind: it is a title-document risk, not an ownership-structure risk, and it has reached a hotel with 39 buildings on the plot — not a small villa. The property consequence is that a Nor Sor 3 Kor certificate, even one that has supported years of lawful-looking hotel operation, remains vulnerable to retroactive revocation if a court finds the underlying land falls inside a protected area’s boundary. The Choeng Thale case sharpens the point: there a full Chanote, not a second-tier certificate, was revoked because the So Kor 1 document behind its original issuance was forged — decades of clean-looking registration did not cure the defect at the root. For a Phuket buyer or owner, the practical takeaway is that title-type and title-history diligence — tracing a Nor Sor 3 Kor or older document back through its issuance history, not just confirming it is currently registered — is a real and demonstrated risk category on the island’s coastline, not a theoretical one. See our guides to Nor Sor 3 Gor and Thailand property due diligence.
What remains unknown
- The identity of the Sakhu hotel. No government record Houseviser opened names it; the Pullman identification is press attribution.
- Whether the hotel has closed, is winding down, or continues normal operations during the demolition process.
- The Supreme Court judgment itself. The release publishes no case number, and the court’s judgment database returns nothing for “Sirinat National Park” — so the ruling’s date and text are both unavailable.
- Who currently occupies or holds either plot, and any response from those occupants.
- Whether Fair & Firm Co., Ltd. or Accor has issued a public statement; Houseviser found none as of this writing.
- Any relationship, if one exists, between the Anek Leepracha conviction and the current Sakhu title revocation.
- Whether the 15-day notice or the one-month removal window governs, given that two government-sourced accounts give different figures.
This article reports the public record as found; it is not legal advice, and it does not establish the legal status of any property beyond what the cited sources state.