Lawyer + General questions about buying a Condo

[supergeil]

1 hour ago, JAI DEE MAK said:

And to cheat him you would need to be a highly professional con man/woman and they were.

We are not talking small change here several million baht was involved and lost.

I think your comment has just made us more curious about what this scam was about.

Are we talking about falsified documents, corrupt government officials, people posing as something they were not (like fake police officers) or just misplaced trust in someone?

You bring up intelligence, but regardless of how smart you are, sometimes you just have to trust the other party. For example our building manager could withdraw everything on the expense account and do a runner, the only thing we can do is minimize the amount he can steal by not keeping too much on the account…

Edit: And come to think of it, I’ve had plenty of opportunity myself to take money that did not belong to me, quite sure I could have done so without anyone even noticing, as I’m often the person in charge of handling finances, and no-one ever checks my work (at least not thoroughly).

[GorGuy RIP]

41 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

1 hour ago, JAI DEE MAK said:

I don't think he will or should tell it .  What I will say is he is a very street wise highly intelligent and well educated man.
And to cheat him you would need to be a highly professional con man/woman and they were.
We are not talking small change here several million baht was involved and lost.
I am sure he will not mind me responding for him believe me he did all the checks and balances ( legal)  and still he was burned.
JDM

What can we learn from it then? Sounds quite a sophisticated scam

I will not go into details, what I will say, is that if you are from the UK, and you want to invest Mr Scuba, a house in a University town, somewhere like Brighton, that has more than one University and a nursing school and a technical college and lots of people, when they leave University want to stay in the town.

Get a centrally located house with as many bedrooms as you can. Then get a good agent and they can rent it. A one year contract.

A contract that puts them jointly and severely liable for the rent with a guarantor (normally one of their parents). This maximises income.

Not telling you what to do, just my opinion from experience.

Other things to consider: Is the market going up or down, interest rates (you can get fixed interest rates).

[GorGuy RIP]

28 minutes ago, supergeil said:

I think your comment has just made us more curious about what this scam was about.

 

I am sorry supergeil, I will not go into details on an open forum.

[Scuba+]

I will not go into details, what I will say, is that if you are from the UK, and you want to invest Mr Scuba, a house in a University town, somewhere like Brighton, that has more than one University and a nursing school and a technical college and lots of people, when they leave University want to stay in the town.

Get a centrally located house with as many bedrooms as you can. Then get a good agent and they can rent it. A one year contract.

A contract that puts them jointly and severely liable for the rent with a guarantor (normally one of their parents). This maximises income.

Not telling you what to do, just my opinion from experience.

Other things to consider: Is the market going up or down, interest rates (you can get fixed interest rates).

I'm not looking to invest I'm already fully invested incl property in the UK, I just find scams and things quite interesting. I watched a program about an investment broker type scam here in Thailand, fronted by a plausible American who even issued contract notes and valuations, all fake of course.

I certainly wouldn't invest via Thailand

[supergeil]

11 hours ago, GorGuy said:

I am sorry supergeil, I will not go into details on an open forum.

So what you have told us is “someone (that you think is intelligent) got scammed in Thailand” with no further details. Guess what? Someone (intelligent) also got scammed in Germany! Without context, this information is rather useless, you don’t even say if it has any relation to what the OP is asking about.

[gusincebu]

So what you have told us is “someone (that you think is intelligent) got scammed in Thailand” with no further details. Guess what? Someone (intelligent) also got scammed in Germany! Without context, this information is rather useless, you don’t even say if it has any relation to what the OP is asking about.

I don't think this guy GG made that statement about himself.
It was JDM who said that ..

Sent from my vivo 1713 using Tapatalk

[Larssonn]

waterfront is a perfect example , or did ANYONE buying when construction was ongoing  predict current chaos ?

there are some BIG money lost in there and customer rights is ............

 

[JAI DEE MAK]

22 hours ago, supergeil said:

I think your comment has just made us more curious about what this scam was about.

Are we talking about falsified documents, corrupt government officials, people posing as something they were not (like fake police officers) or just misplaced trust in someone?

You bring up intelligence, but regardless of how smart you are, sometimes you just have to trust the other party. For example our building manager could withdraw everything on the expense account and do a runner, the only thing we can do is minimize the amount he can steal by not keeping too much on the account…

Edit: And come to think of it, I’ve had plenty of opportunity myself to take money that did not belong to me, quite sure I could have done so without anyone even noticing, as I’m often the person in charge of handling finances, and no-one ever checks my work (at least not thoroughly).

No if you are smart you do the maths and trust no body.

And to you comment regarding the (building Manager) checks and balances are in place I do not see any  in you deal.

JDM

 

 

[JAI DEE MAK]

9 hours ago, Larssonn said:

waterfront is a perfect example , or did ANYONE buying when construction was ongoing  predict current Chaos ?

there are some BIG money lost in there and customer rights is ............

 

A good friend of mine did not he purchased 18 apartments.

JDM

[usexpat46]

8 minutes ago, JAI DEE MAK said:

And to you comment regarding the (building Manager) checks and balances are in place I do not see any  in you deal.

JDM

 

At our condo, the management company writes the various checks but the checks are signed by 2 of the committee members.  I was chairman for 2 years and was one of the signees along with an Aussie owner/committee member.

[JAI DEE MAK]

11 hours ago, supergeil said:

So what you have told us is “someone (that you think is intelligent) got scammed in Thailand” with no further details. Guess what? Someone (intelligent) also got scammed in Germany! Without context, this information is rather useless, you don’t even say if it has any relation to what the OP is asking about.

I don't think so. I know he is altho you may consider a guy who is a professor in a given field is not an educated person.

For your ease of understanding the relationship is that anyone  even those who have lived here for many years and are highly intelligent can be scammed in Thailand. If you did not make the connection one may wonder the level  of your intelligence Ha Ha.And the OP should take care and be very careful of a deal that on the surface looks to good to be true.

JDM

 

[JAI DEE MAK]

2 minutes ago, usexpat46 said:

At our condo, the management company writes the various checks but the checks are signed by 2 of the committee members.  I was chairman for 2 years and was one of the signees along with an Aussie owner/committee member.

Yes in almost all condos it is fine I was referring to the purchase deal the OP is considering and countering the comparison that was being given by a BM to a managers ability to cook the books.

JDM

[usexpat46]

1 minute ago, JAI DEE MAK said:

Yes in almost all condos it is fine I was referring to the purchase deal the OP is considering and countering the comparison that was being given by a BM to a managers ability to cook the books.

JDM

I was supporting your comment.

[supergeil]

35 minutes ago, JAI DEE MAK said:

No if you are smart you do the maths and trust no body.

And to you comment regarding the (building Manager) checks and balances are in place I do not see any  in you deal.

In another post you say that even if you are smart, you can be scammed in Thailand, I agree with that, but then above, you seem to imply that we are missing checks and balances if our building manager can run away with the amount on the expense account.

Expense account = the account that gets refilled monthly with approximately the amount of money that our building manager need to cover expenses (according to budget).

Do you approve every single bill with a co-signed cheque explicitly written out to the recipient and then have your building manager physically deliver this cheque? Because that seems to be the only way to remove all trust from the process, but at a significant overhead.

[KittenKong]

10 hours ago, supergeil said:

Do you approve every single bill with a co-signed cheque explicitly written out to the recipient and then have your building manager physically deliver this cheque? Because that seems to be the only way to remove all trust from the process, but at a significant overhead.

 

I would say that is the only valid way of running a condo here. The overhead is minimal.

The only exceptions would be small (ie less than a couple of thousand Baht) purchases made from petty cash, which should still be fully checked and documented.

A person who trusts anyone in Thailand (that's Thais and farangs) is simply an idiot.

[KittenKong]

On 25/10/2017 at 15:44, mas188 said:

If there is a contract signed, in front of a lawyer, i believe he can't sell to anyone..

 

Contracts in Thailand look great but are very hard to enforce. You could spend many years and more than the cost of the condo in legal fees trying to get justice if it goes wrong.

[KittenKong]

The downsides to company ownership of condos here are many and varied.

Your condo will basically never be in your name. It will be in the name of some Thai(s) who you may or may not know, and who may or may not be honest. Even if you take legal steps to protect yourself your lawyer could be a complete crook and in cahoots with the Thai nominees.

When purchasing a company you also purchase all its liabilities, past present and future, known and unknown. I would not do this at any price. If you create a new company to avoid this then you will have company creation costs and also property transfer costs.
Either way you will have ongoing yearly audit fees and taxes, and possibly some property ownership taxes that seem to be being applied erratically to company-owned property. You may also have company closure costs one day. All these costs are likely to increase over time.

Company-name ownership of property by farangs is seen in a very poor light by the Thai government. One day they will probably do something about it.

Most condos here are hard to sell: a company-name condo may be extremely hard to sell.

[KittenKong]

On 25/10/2017 at 14:56, mas188 said:

Considering now, october 2017 (i have read many forum about this topic but mostly were about years ago), do you feel safe to open a thai company for buying a condo paying with a payment plan that will make you became the owner in january 2019?

Anyone who hands over money in Thailand before getting what he is buying is a fool. The scope for fraud and loss is endless.

[supergeil]

2 hours ago, KittenKong said:

I would say that is the only valid way of running a condo here. The overhead is minimal.

Do you have experience running a condominium here?

As for your other statement, trusting someone else does not make you an idiot. Maybe it makes you naive, or maybe it’s just a calculated risk. Say our building manager does a runner with 100,000 baht, well, for our condo, it’s not really that much in the grand scheme of things, so not having to cosign dozens of cheques is worth the risk, plus our building manager would throw away his career and limit the number of buildings he can work in, so it would be a shortsighted move on his part, and he doesn’t match the Thai stereotype of greed and shortsightedness.

[KittenKong]

34 minutes ago, supergeil said:

Do you have experience running a condominium here?

I do indeed.

 

35 minutes ago, supergeil said:

As for your other statement, trusting someone else does not make you an idiot. Maybe it makes you naive, or maybe it’s just a calculated risk. Say our building manager does a runner with 100,000 baht, well, for our condo, it’s not really that much in the grand scheme of things, so not having to cosign dozens of cheques is worth the risk, plus our building manager would throw away his career and limit the number of buildings he can work in, so it would be a shortsighted move on his part, and he doesn’t match the Thai stereotype of greed and shortsightedness.

 

Up to you. I have a very simple outlook that has served me well: I trust no one here, regardless of skin colour or status.

Some of our staff have apparently happily traded their jobs in return for just a few tens of thousands of Baht stolen, others have stolen much more due to the crass incompetence (collusion?) of many of our committee members and management. In all cases the thefts were covered up, apparently to save the faces of management. Much more money has disappeared due to overpaying of services etc., and outstanding common fee debts have been written off without the authority of co-owners whose money it is. Co-owners remain blissfully unaware.

Thais I've seen just seem to have no notion of work ethic or conscientiousness, but maybe that's the stereotype you mention. Either way, I dont see much evidence to indicate that the stereotype is in any way imaginary.

[supergeil]

51 minutes ago, KittenKong said:

Some of our staff have apparently happily traded their jobs in return for just a few tens of thousands of Baht stolen, others have stolen much more due to the crass incompetence (collusion?) of many of our committee members and management. In all cases the thefts were covered up, apparently to save the faces of management. Much more money has disappeared due to overpaying of services etc., and outstanding common fee debts have been written off without the authority of co-owners whose money it is. Co-owners remain blissfully unaware.

So when you basically said that using a dedicated cheque for each expense item (over some threshold) was the only way to run a building and it had minimal overhead, I am assuming that you never got to that point in your building, given all the issues you mention? And thus, you are only guessing that the overhead would be minimal?

I am the treasurer of my own building, which did have questionable bookkeeping prior to me stepping in, mainly out of incompetence, but exploited by staff to pocket money, because it would go undetected.

Now that we do real double-entry accounting, inventory counts, send all receipts to an external accountant for checking and entering (who is not affiliated with our staff / building manager), and then have me approve the general ledger each month, there are no longer any irregularities with our finances.

Two things that can happen: 1) building manager can make fake receipts, but this has a good chance of being caught be either the accountant or me (both building manager and accountant know that I will ask about anything unexpected), 2) building manager runs off with the amount on the expense account. I have set up automatic debit / transfers for all known bills / expenses, so the actual amount on the expense account is generally low (this is effectively his petty cash).

You may call me an idiot for trusting our building manager with the expense account, but as I see it, showing him trust leads to a better relationship, and honestly, I don’t want to sign half a dozen cheques every month. The other committee members seems to have little problem with signing cheques, but none of them have any idea if what they are signing, as I realized when I took over as treasurer: Whenever I brought up a questionable expense (from the past), none of the committee members had any knowledge of it, even though at least two of them had signed the cheque to pay for that expense.

 

[supergeil]

1 hour ago, KittenKong said:

Thais I've seen just seem to have no notion of work ethic or conscientiousness, but maybe that's the stereotype you mention. Either way, I dont see much evidence to indicate that the stereotype is in any way imaginary.

Of course the stereotype is based on true experiences. What people often forget is that Thais struggling to make ends meet are not representative of all Thais, and Thais coming to make money in Pattaya (which is a city built on prostitution) is a special kind of Thai.

I spend most of my time in Chiang Mai and have seen many Thais take pride in their work, do selfless acts, and our building manager even insisted on paying for what he considered “his mistake” out of his own pocket (even though I refused).

[dexxter2010]

On 10/26/2017 at 06:28, mas188 said:

Rent is always a waste of money, no matter what.. especially if you already know where you like to be and you are not someone who like to change every 1/3/6 months.. i will live in Thailand 8 months a year, as a life choice..

I would rather lose a years rent than the purchase price of a property. I would NEVER buy anything of value in Thailand. You have to realise that you will always be a foreigner here with far less rights to any local citizen.

Renting in Thailand is not very expensive and far more flexible then buying. A downside I see to buying is that the value of the property will probably not increase over time, in fact it will probably fall in value as the building ages. It is a bad financial decision. I read elsewhere that Thais prefer to buy new properties and many older buildings remain partially empty. I know in the 6 yo building I live there are well over a hundred empty units. ALL of my investments are in Australia, my home country, where they are secure, increasing in value and LEGAL.

As for changing every 1/3/6 months, I have just signed my 3rd annual lease for the condo I live in so that is fairly permanent. I am sure I can stay there for years to come if I chose. If not, there are many other units in my building to chose from.

In any case, unlike you, I would not want to lock myself into long term commitment in Thailand. I don't see it as a secure future.

[KittenKong]

39 minutes ago, supergeil said:

So when you basically said that using a dedicated cheque for each expense item (over some threshold) was the only way to run a building and it had minimal overhead, I am assuming that you never got to that point in your building, given all the issues you mention? And thus, you are only guessing that the overhead would be minimal?

No. All our expenditure (in excess of small amounts of just a couple of thousand Baht) was made by cheque and all cheques required the co-signature of two co-owners plus the JPM. No exceptions. This has always been the case since the building was new and has never changed.

Our building manager (not the JPM) is only responsible for amounts in petty cash.

So I'm guessing nothing.

 

45 minutes ago, supergeil said:

honestly, I don’t want to sign half a dozen cheques every month.

As far as I'm concerned, signing cheques is something that is mandated when elected to the committee. I would consider any failure to do so a matter of dereliction of duty and potentially of gross criminal negligence.

You can do what you like, of course, but I would never do that. Signing a dozen cheques takes all of two minutes and if you cant spare that time then I dont think you deserve to be on a committee.

 

50 minutes ago, supergeil said:

The other committee members seems to have little problem with signing cheques, but none of them have any idea if what they are signing, as I realized when I took over as treasurer: Whenever I brought up a questionable expense (from the past), none of the committee members had any knowledge of it, even though at least two of them had signed the cheque to pay for that expense.

I can certainly believe this. With just a couple of exceptions the committee members in my building have mostly been complete morons with no comprehension of anything at all, apart from a handful of them who were out and out thieves and were helping themselves to our money by the process of buying services and materials from companies that they controlled.

However as far as I can see that does not relieve them of the duty of care regarding the building's assets.

 

58 minutes ago, supergeil said:

Now that we do real double-entry accounting, inventory counts, send all receipts to an external accountant for checking and entering (who is not affiliated with our staff / building manager), and then have me approve the general ledger each month, there are no longer any irregularities with our finances.

You have a good system. Congratulations. In my building (and, I suspect, in many others) our accounts are a mess and there are no proper checks and balances in place.

[dexxter2010]

On 10/26/2017 at 09:17, Gnorman said:

Invest in your own country where there is no risk, use the rental income, share dividends, etc to rent in Thailand. I will never invest one baht in Thailand, it's a fucking nightmare I'm not prepared to even start looking into.

This is probably the best advice you will receive.

I now have 3 properties in Australia, all of which are skyrocketing in value, compared to the very risky financial situation in Thailand. The rental income from just one of these properties is funding most of my living expenses in Bangkok, including condo rent, utilities, and airfares (but not TGF expenses 5555). All of this with zero risk. Why abandon an asset that is growing in value for a risky "asset" that you may not even be legally allowed to own?