Art on the Hill condo debacle in Pattaya

[Phil1975]

I'm not considering if you still owe money as that's obvious.

 

So depends if foreign or Thai company what you need.

[banksy35]

Does anyone have the email for the on site manager at art on the hill?  I'm back in Oz now.

[TigerWoods]

Everyone. The Chanotes are finally being issued 

 

You need to visit the Matrix office with your Passport and recent Thai bank statement (foreign name). If Thai company that must be already set up, then you can get the Chanote / have the date arranged to have it processed at the land office and just need your passport.  

 

The person to see at Matrix is Khun Nueng (3rd floor). 

 

Obviously the above only applies to people with a zero balance.

 

Are owners receiving changes already ?

 

You guys plan to get control over the Management/Juristic person thru the committee ?

 

Will you than let the place be managed by a management company ?

[Phil1975]

Are owners receiving changes already ?

 

You guys plan to get control over the Management/Juristic person thru the committee ?

 

Will you than let the place be managed by a management company ?

 

 

Chanotes already? I was told last year 3 to 4 months to receive my Chanote !!! 

 

Matrix started the procedure to set up the Juristic about a month ago, then hopefully in January the call for the first general meeting can go out and i believe it is in this meeting the Juristic is formed with a committee of 3 to 12 people being voted in. 

 

The building should always have an impartial management company running the building, otherwise you are left with Matrix as the building management which would be VERY BAD!!!! 

[RabbitRun]

Going by what was in that contract "template" I posted, everyone receiving a key had to turn over 12 months maintenance fees in advance, and the full one-time sinking fund fee. That was months ago, correct? It'll be interesting to find out how much baht was collected for each of these funds and what the current balance remains in each fund. Also interesting to see how the Land Department treats the foreigners (that have set up a Thai company for the sole purpose of purchasing a Thai quota condo) showing up with just a passport. The Land Department has the right/duty to investigate each of the Thai partners in the Thai company on the day and place of chanote issuance. What will the Land Department do if only the foreigner shows up with his passport? I guess we'll see if the gov't has cracked down or not.

[Ihatematrix]

Are owners receiving changes already ?

 

You guys plan to get control over the Management/Juristic person thru the committee ? A committee has to be voted in,  1 man 1 vote or proxies. This is the only way legally possible

 

Will you than let the place be managed by a management company ? The property will already be managed by the Matrix prefer company and the committee must change this legally if it wishes to do so. 

 

​The challenge is to get up a good committee.

[JAI DEE MAK]

 

Are owners receiving changes already ?

 

You guys plan to get control over the Management/Juristic person thru the committee ? A committee has to be voted in,  1 man 1 vote or proxies. This is the only way legally possible

 

Will you than let the place be managed by a management company ? The property will already be managed by the Matrix prefer company and the committee must change this legally if it wishes to do so. 

 

​The challenge is to get up a good committee.

 

 

 

At the AGM it can be voted on as to who the management company will be ?.

 

 

JDM

[Ihatematrix]

At the AGM it can be voted on as to who the management company will be ?.

 

 

JDM

Yes but you need to select a committee first, get the house in order and understand your buildings financial position, then consider a change of management. The building will function with the present management if you have a strong committee however eventually the committee needs to consider whether a management team that is tied to Matrix is good for the building. Your juristic person will probably be a person from your management team, again this is something that needs consideration. You also want a person on your team who is solid with the current condominium act. Knowledge is strength!

[KittenKong]

Your current management company is an independent company and has no direct connection with Matrix that I am aware of. That said, they do also manage other Matrix properties. Co-owners in AOTH should be aware that the management company is not responsible for rectifying construction problems etc. with the building: it's the developer that has to do this. The management company is responsible for taking care of the operating finances and staffing and general day-to-day operations like cleaning, maintenance, security etc.

 

The committee can select a new management company without consulting co-owners if it wishes to but it would normally be preferable to allow co-owners to have their say at a GM. For there to be a vote about changing the management company at least one alternative offer would need to be obtained. In Pattaya there aren't that many management companies and the one you have may well be better than some of the others that you might end up with if you aren't careful! Whatever alternative companies you may consider you should be sure to visit several other buildings that they manage, and look very carefully at the financial reporting and committee minutes of those other buildings.

 

Potentially it can be a very bad idea for the JPM to be part of the management company and I personally would rather see a co-owner with a financial interest in the building as JPM. Anyone who is not a co-owner may be more interested in looking after himself than in looking after the building (though of course a co-owner could be on the take also).

 

I think that your first task is to select a decent committee of perhaps 5-7 people (the law specifies just a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 9, but I think that 3 is too few and 9 could be a bit unwieldy). They will have plenty of work to do and they should be able to get a better close-up view of how the management company is performing and whether they need changing. The committee should also work on getting the construction/finishing issues solved, with the assistance of the management company.

 

It probably isnt "one man one vote" in your building as normally voting ratio is decided by sqm and relative value of the units at construction time. Your office should have a list of units and what their voting ratio is.

[KittenKong]

Going by what was in that contract "template" I posted, everyone receiving a key had to turn over 12 months maintenance fees in advance, and the full one-time sinking fund fee. That was months ago, correct? It'll be interesting to find out how much baht was collected for each of these funds and what the current balance remains in each fund.

 

Your management company should be posting a cash-flow report every month, and part of this report should indicate the bank balances. If they are not doing this, ask them to do so.

 

A financial report has to be prepared by law and to be submitted to co-owners at an AGM within 4 months of the end of your financial year. As this is a new building you would need to hold your first AGM before this.

[Ihatematrix]

Your current management company is an independent company and has no direct connection with Matrix that I am aware of. That said, they do also manage other Matrix properties. Co-owners in AOTH should be aware that the management company is not responsible for rectifying construction problems etc. with the building: it's the developer that has to do this. The management company is responsible for taking care of the operating finances and staffing and general day-to-day operations like cleaning, maintenance, security etc.

 

The committee can select a new management company without consulting co-owners if it wishes to but it would normally be preferable to allow co-owners to have their say at a GM. For there to be a vote about changing the management company at least one alternative offer would need to be obtained. In Pattaya there aren't that many management companies and the one you have may well be better than some of the others that you might end up with if you aren't careful! Whatever alternative companies you may consider you should be sure to visit several other buildings that they manage, and look very carefully at the financial reporting and committee minutes of those other buildings.

 

Potentially it can be a very bad idea for the JPM to be part of the management company and I personally would rather see a co-owner with a financial interest in the building as JPM. Anyone who is not a co-owner may be more interested in looking after himself than in looking after the building (though of course a co-owner could be on the take also).

 

I think that your first task is to select a decent committee of perhaps 5-7 people (the law specifies just a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 9, but I think that 3 is too few and 9 could be a bit unwieldy). They will have plenty of work to do and they should be able to get a better close-up view of how the management company is performing and whether they need changing. The committee should also work on getting the construction/finishing issues solved, with the assistance of the management company.

 

It probably isnt "one man one vote" in your building as normally voting ratio is decided by sqm and relative value of the units at construction time. Your office should have a list of units and what their voting ratio is.

I basically agree with what you say here, remember the ATOTH management company is probably the Matrix company of choice and therefore gives them a lot of business. Draw you own conclusion here in any part of the globe and more so in Thailand. Two masters perhaps, who knows but who takes the risk!

Anyway the bottom line is, do they do a good job, from my experience - NO.

[Phil1975]

The current management company is much better than the previous FYI. Matrix needs to get the GM organised ASAP and also issue the financial records.

[KittenKong]

The current management company is much better than the previous FYI.

 

Which was the previous company? Was it not Matrix themselves?

 

As far as I know the current company is WAM. I have no personal experience of them but I have visited a few other condos that they manage here.

[KittenKong]

I basically agree with what you say here, remember the ATOTH management company is probably the Matrix company of choice and therefore gives them a lot of business. Draw you own conclusion here in any part of the globe and more so in Thailand. Two masters perhaps, who knows but who takes the risk!

Anyway the bottom line is, do they do a good job, from my experience - NO.

 

What do you specifically feel that they have done badly (bear in mind that they cant be held accountable for faulty plumbing, undelivered gym equipment, unfinished pools etc etc)?

 

The management company should be monitoring and reporting on day-to-day finance/bills, running the office, taking care of cleaning, security, elevators etc etc

[Phil1975]

Which was the previous company? Was it not Matrix themselves?

 

As far as I know the current company is WAM. I have no personal experience of them but I have visited a few other condos that they manage here.

 

 

No it was not Matrix previously, it was a company called QPM.

 

Yes the current company is WAM.

 

I believe QPM are still managing some other Matrix project/s.

[Ihatematrix]

The current management company is much better than the previous FYI. Matrix needs to get the GM organised ASAP and also issue the financial records.

I dont know before or after either because I haven't been told as far as I remember, however the board needs to investigate their worthiness. Who  made the change of management?

Anyway dont wait for Matrix to call a GM, its not in their interest to let go of the reigns of power in AOTH and have others investigate any possible mismanagement, or warranty problems - 5 year warranty, times getting away. Wait for Matrix, wait forever! Time to get organised and get someone into the driving seat.

[Ihatematrix]

What do you specifically feel that they have done badly (bear in mind that they cant be held accountable for faulty plumbing, undelivered gym equipment, unfinished pools etc etc)?

 

The management company should be monitoring and reporting on day-to-day finance/bills, running the office, taking care of cleaning, security, elevators etc etc

Hopeless accounting practices, poor staff management, unprofessional conduct etc. Ok its Thailand and all that but the thing is they have to report to a board and owners who probably have western business principles and reasoning. No slight on any Thai owners but it is what it is.  The board must manage the building management company and not the other way around. By the way of example when the lift breaks down due to construction issues they may well want to spend your money rather than go through the hastle of raising a warranty claim. Path of least resistance!!!!!

[KittenKong]

Hopeless accounting practices, poor staff management, unprofessional conduct etc. Ok its Thailand and all that but the thing is they have to report to a board and owners who probably have western business principles and reasoning. No slight on any Thai owners but it is what it is.  The board must manage the building management company and not the other way around. By the way of example when the lift breaks down due to construction issues they may well want to spend your money rather than go through the hastle of raising a warranty claim. Path of least resistance!!!!!

 

That will be par for the course with any management company, I suspect. In Thailand you have to check everything for yourself all the time. Otherwise it will be done wrong and things will go missing.

[KittenKong]

No it was not Matrix previously, it was a company called QPM.

 

Yes the current company is WAM.

 

I believe QPM are still managing some other Matrix project/s.

 

QPM are the biggest management company I know of. I think they manage some 200 buildings. Most buildings seem function with them OK but as with all management companies you really cant just leave them to get on with it, which is what some bad/lazy committees end up doing.

 

Someone has to monitor everything here.

[vermut12]

Hopeless accounting practices, poor staff management, unprofessional conduct etc. Ok its Thailand and all that but the thing is they have to report to a board and owners who probably have western business principles and reasoning. No slight on any Thai owners but it is what it is.  The board must manage the building management company and not the other way around. By the way of example when the lift breaks down due to construction issues they may well want to spend your money rather than go through the hastle of raising a warranty claim. Path of least resistance!!!!!

 

I have a question for you. Why did you come to Thailand and bought properties here in the first place? You seem to be so negative all the time. This is a country with very lax laws and standards and even their are selectively enforced. If you think there is a management company which is doing business to the highest Western standards then you are deeply mistaken. Do you have an company in mind that you have audited for yourself? There are none. This is Thailand... Nothing is guaranteed to work here flawlessly. You either have to accept it or you shouldn't have come here in the first place to save your sanity.

 

People here are offering constructive advice because it is the only way to get anything done. Your endless rant will get us nowhere. You will still keep ranting 5 years from now how the lift in your building does not work and you need a management company to the highest Western standards because your current one is allegedly robbing you. Meanwhile we will have our problems fixed.

 

I am going to visit Neung on Monday to set an appointment to get my chanote. I fully support the idea that we should gather a GM asap and discuss how we move on from here already. I would like to discuss the improvements that we could do to our building to make it more appealing. Like the coffeeshop downstairs. And maybe the owners could invest a bit of money into some more gym equipment. I say we need to buy a rack on which you can squat and bench press with weights and bars. Divided among everyone the costs should be minimal but the functionality of the gym will improve considerably.

[TigerWoods]

I have a question for you. Why did you come to Thailand and bought properties here in the first place? You seem to be so negative all the time. This is a country with very lax laws and standards and even their are selectively enforced. If you think there is a management company which is doing business to the highest Western standards then you are deeply mistaken. Do you have an company in mind that you have audited for yourself? There are none. This is Thailand... Nothing is guaranteed to work here flawlessly. You either have to accept it or you shouldn't have come here in the first place to save your sanity.

 

People here are offering constructive advice because it is the only way to get anything done. Your endless rant will get us nowhere. You will still keep ranting 5 years from now how the lift in your building does not work and you need a management company to the highest Western standards because your current one is allegedly robbing you. Meanwhile we will have our problems fixed.

 

I am going to visit Neung on Monday to set an appointment to get my chanote. I fully support the idea that we should gather a GM asap and discuss how we move on from here already. I would like to discuss the improvements that we could do to our building to make it more appealing. Like the coffeeshop downstairs. And maybe the owners could invest a bit of money into some more gym equipment. I say we need to buy a rack on which you can squat and bench press with weights and bars. Divided among everyone the costs should be minimal but the functionality of the gym will improve considerably.

I fully agree with you and I like the last part of your post. We are trying to get together at SSB2 and at previous meeting with Co-owners I said, that we might end up and improve the public/social areas at SSB2 on our own. At SSB2 the rooftop area and gym isn't as nice as I think it should be and Matrix so far hasn't really done what we have been asking for, but it wouldn't take a lot to make it really nice.

 

I think with probably less than 1.000.000,-- THB we could really improve things and make it a very nice development and that money divided by all Co-owner would be an affordable amount in my opinion.

 

That would basically mean that Matrix gets away with their bad behavior, but I think at a certain stage Co-owners have to take responsibility in their own hands, take a small loss and move on.

[KittenKong]

I have a question for you. Why did you come to Thailand and bought properties here in the first place? You seem to be so negative all the time. This is a country with very lax laws and standards and even their are selectively enforced. If you think there is a management company which is doing business to the highest Western standards then you are deeply mistaken. Do you have an company in mind that you have audited for yourself? There are none. This is Thailand... Nothing is guaranteed to work here flawlessly. You either have to accept it or you shouldn't have come here in the first place to save your sanity.

 

Actually there are quite a few properly run buildings in Pattaya (and elsewhere here). The trick is to have a decent management company and a sensible committee to keep them in order, and to get a good building manager. A strong farang influence on the committee is vital in my opinion as Thais are far too lax on their own. A willingness to spend more than a bare minimum is also needed.

 

But with some management companies a good result would be impossible to achieve.

 

What annoys me is that even in buildings that are very badly run a huge change could be implemented quite easily if the bad management and weak committees were replaced.

[Ihatematrix]

I have a question for you. Why did you come to Thailand and bought properties here in the first place? You seem to be so negative all the time. This is a country with very lax laws and standards and even their are selectively enforced. If you think there is a management company which is doing business to the highest Western standards then you are deeply mistaken. Do you have an company in mind that you have audited for yourself? There are none. This is Thailand... Nothing is guaranteed to work here flawlessly. You either have to accept it or you shouldn't have come here in the first place to save your sanity.

 

People here are offering constructive advice because it is the only way to get anything done. Your endless rant will get us nowhere. You will still keep ranting 5 years from now how the lift in your building does not work and you need a management company to the highest Western standards because your current one is allegedly robbing you. Meanwhile we will have our problems fixed.

 

I am going to visit Neung on Monday to set an appointment to get my chanote. I fully support the idea that we should gather a GM asap and discuss how we move on from here already. I would like to discuss the improvements that we could do to our building to make it more appealing. Like the coffeeshop downstairs. And maybe the owners could invest a bit of money into some more gym equipment. I say we need to buy a rack on which you can squat and bench press with weights and bars. Divided among everyone the costs should be minimal but the functionality of the gym will improve considerably.

Thing is you have to read back on the previous posts and not be selective in what you read and comment on Vermut12. What you wrote is called getting the wrong end of the stick.  So now you have re-read the thread you will of course realise I originally wrote warning owners to beware of developer inserted building managers and gave my reasons when asked. As for offering advise on selection, its not for me to do your leg work in selecting a building management company.

In regard to being negative all the time, well I am positive with the apartment I own and the management that run it, I love Thailand but read my handle,  I HATE MATRIX you buffoon.

Oh and take note of Kittenkongs comments, one smart person for sure.

[whooshbang]

I have a question for you. Why did you come to Thailand and bought properties here in the first place? You seem to be so negative all the time. This is a country with very lax laws and standards and even their are selectively enforced. If you think there is a management company which is doing business to the highest Western standards then you are deeply mistaken. Do you have an company in mind that you have audited for yourself? There are none. This is Thailand... Nothing is guaranteed to work here flawlessly. You either have to accept it or you shouldn't have come here in the first place to save your sanity.

 

People here are offering constructive advice because it is the only way to get anything done. Your endless rant will get us nowhere. You will still keep ranting 5 years from now how the lift in your building does not work and you need a management company to the highest Western standards because your current one is allegedly robbing you. Meanwhile we will have our problems fixed.

 

I am going to visit Neung on Monday to set an appointment to get my chanote. I fully support the idea that we should gather a GM asap and discuss how we move on from here already. I would like to discuss the improvements that we could do to our building to make it more appealing. Like the coffeeshop downstairs. And maybe the owners could invest a bit of money into some more gym equipment. I say we need to buy a rack on which you can squat and bench press with weights and bars. Divided among everyone the costs should be minimal but the functionality of the gym will improve considerably.

A fair post there! Having just arrived in patts and give my unit a thorough inspection I am pleased to see its in perfect condition and of acceptable build quality. the Thai GF loves it and my brother also. so for now I am happy. I have arranged with nueng for the transfer of chanote around the 12th jan but weather this actually happens or not ís debatable as there's a rather large compo fee attached to it.

As far as the management company debate goes I really can not comment. do we have good reason to start changing this around yet?

 

On another note I agree we need a toilet on the roof. there's a small storage cupboard up there that could be converted or even a partition in the gym, God knows it's big enough! Also more equipment. at least a bench and bar with free weights and barbell set. more than willing to chip in to get this.

 

all in all a positive post here.

 

how many have their chanotes now?

 

thanks all

[devee8]

Just as an FYI and it may have been stated before

 The way managing the condo is done is at the start a matrix person will chair the Condominiums Owners Committee (COC) till such times that over 50% of the chanotes have been handed over then at that stage you can elect a chairperson or management company to run the COC you can have up to 9 members on the COC including the juristic person who has to be a Thai.