w11guy

Just an update to let you know that I got my notification back today. I had only put a 3 baht stamp on the envelope, but they added another 2 baht. There wan't anything enclosed to tell me to put 5 baht next time or to say I posted late. But in future I'll post 15 days before with 5 baht stamp.

produced by Doctor Company were tainted with Carbofuran at a level of 0.007mg per kg. The EU prescribes a safe level of Carbofuran as not exceeding 0.02mg

Isn't 0.007 less than 0.02?

Guessing that was a type o. I am assuming it should have been 0.7mg per kg. or it would not have been mentioned.

Our someone doesn't even knew rudimentary maths and just landed the newspaper with a lawsuit.

Could be a nix up between milligrams and micrograms.

Good to see how well regulated things are here. Wonder if the conforming veggies went to the EU

The same happens in the UK. Lots of fruit and veg sold in leading supermarkets have been found to be contaminated with pesticides. The UK even gave the world mad cow disease. You are seriously mistaken if you think this is just a Thai problem. And in the US millions of tons of unfit meat has been sold. It should have been recalled but wasn't. In the USA the FDA as let many drugs be sold that they knew were unsafe. So let's not single out Thailand here. Take a look at your own countries. Their food and drug safety standards are shockingly bad and riddled with corruption.

There are so many retired expats who could do this for a few hours a week for years not months.

Oh, I forgot the work permit issues

But no expats volunteered.

That "owning a house" verbiage we use is so off too. You'll own it in 10 or 20 years anyway, assuming ALL goes well, every single month, and assuming the house doesn't fall apart, flood or burn. Structures are made so poorly here, who wants to own them? Renting is great in Thailand. I would think you could get a 2M baht loan with about 2 or 3 hundred thousand down. Payments maybe 15k per month.

That is a load of garbage. Have you ever been to Thailand? Most are still standing after much longer than that and many are very valuable. So you think they were stupid to buy a house that is now worth a small fortune? Obviously finance isn't your strong point.

Wish my mrs earned that sort of dosh, in fact l wished she earned something.

Why don't you help her start a business. Doesn't she get bored?

A person would have to be crazy to take out a 50 year mortgage, the interest paid on the loan over 50 years alone would be astronomical. Wait a minute where am I ? Okay now it makes sense.

If the alternative is renting then it is still a good bet. The interest paid in the lat 20 years will be a pittance. Inflation will have completely eroded it by then.

A sad reflection on the state of a nation when this is a news item! I am amazed Yingluck hasn't done a runner to Australia before such an announcement.

They also have these awards in UK - http://www.loo.co.uk/. And probably in many other countries. It's no reflection at all on the state of a nation. It's for people that manage/look after toilets.

I hate it when some muppet revives an old post!

Why? What's the point of starting new post if there is already an appropriate thread?

Khao Takiab has many condos with very few lights on, however they were all sold befor completion and most started at over 5 million.....its not an indicator as to whether they are sold or not. People own condos for holidays or maybe just a crashpad in the city. Thailand is a totally different market to Spain so thats like apples and oranges.

But check individual buildings and you'll find that many units and for sale/rent. So they really are empty.

I know 'lights on at night' is hardly any official benchmark but its all I can go on right now.

Totally misleading. Please don't perpetuate that silliness.

Even if a condo is empty, it may have been sold. I know old condo buildings in prime locations where every unit was sold many years ago. Yet you often don't see many lights on there at night--at the particular time you look. And that has been the case through boom and bust.

You can check w/ the condo office you want to know how many units have been sold in the building.

This thread has certainly brought out all our resident Chicken Littles.

But that means they've been bought by speculators, so still proves that market is massively oversupplied. They can't be rented on sold on, so what is the point of having them. There are still no people to actually live in them. I often see condos sold at 20-30% discount. I think the discounts will be getting much bigger over the next few years.

Evrywhere you look building. it reminds me of 1997! just the same

In Pattaya, they never stop building. Why ?

Because lots of Russians have the cash to buy them. No bank borrowing needed.

The parlous state of the world banking system is starting to look increasingly shakier every day and this

will surely affect Thailand eventually?

There is np need for me to say anything about the banks in Europe but even the Gov of the Bank of England is sounding gloomy ( http://www.bbc.co.uk...siness-18587254 ) and there are some very sinister theories regarding the National Westminster bank computer glitch in UK which some are saying now will go on for many weeks more.( some are saying they are short of cash )

We all know also about the banking downgrades even in USA so where is all this money to buy more property coming from ?

There is nothing sinister about the RBS computer glitch. A junior support staff deleted the batch schedule and they didn't have a back up. That would be a complete disaster to recover from. Computer glitches happen every minute of every day; there is nothing sinister about it.

Where is the money coming from? Russia. There is an avalanche of money leaving Russia. Not many Russians with money would invest in their own country, so they need to invest in places like Thailand.

Japanese and other foreigners are currently enjoying low rents, Sompop said.

Really? Maybe in Sukhumvit. If you look to rent a new apartment, it's expensive. Even in low key areas people are asking for 15,000-20,000 for a 42sqm apartment. Just because it's new.

You often see the same apartments pop up time and time again. The prices stay the same.

Those are just the asking prices, not what people actually pay. The condos in my building are advertised at 30-35k. I pay 23k. That's the reality.

An easy way to find out if you have bird flu...

Do I have bird flu?

My condo building is a few years old and it is pretty perfect. Everything seems to be maintained properly and there is never any major disruption. The place is absolutely spotless. They management team are superb. You can't always blame the condo management, as it is the owners that have chosen them, or chosen not to replace them. Sounds like most owners in your building don't care. If they don't care, then why should the management team care. It's not good for people like you, and that's why it's always best to rent for 6-12 months in a building you're interested in buying in. Also check out other condos run by the same management company and build by the same development company.

Ive found renting it out remotely to be less than easy and so after being approached by a Russian agent I intend to offload it.

Russian agents may well be able to achieve the best price at the moment. I'm constantly amazed by how much Russians here will pay for crap products that I wouldn't pay half the amount for, both for purchases and especially rentals.

That said, I would never consider letting just one agent advertise and attempt to sell/rent any property of mine in any country. This is the way to get soundly ripped-off. Get several agents on to it and always negotiate the commission down. If the agent doesn't want to negotiate just get another. Pattaya is crawling with them.

But Russians buying abroad have a lot of cash to get rid of. Better to overpay in Pattaya than have the authorities back home confiscate your money. Most people who make money in Russia seem desperate to invest it out of the country where they consider it to be safe.

Well, there must be so many lonely hermits here, if you dont have a single friend that you can trust.....what kind of life do some people have.

This is thaivisa; people don't even trust their own wives and relatives, let alone their friends. they are mostly very paranoid.Of course there are some exceptions.

He he...I like the "Flying Freehold"....

But yeah, it is quite childish...almost as childish as the law that forbids the farangs to own land here ;-)

Not childish at all. It's a very sensible law that ensures rich foreigners don't buy up all the good land.

It works the same both ways. For example, rich foreigners are allowed to buy land in Thailand. So that means a tiny proportion can buy land here. Thais can buy land in the UK, but it's so expensive that in reality only the rich can afford to. So in practice it works the same both ways. UK don't have a law forbidding Thais to buy land for the simple reason that they don't need to. Thai can't afford to so why bother having a law for something that won't happen.

To pay for the common facilities electric usage and maintenance, unless you don't want a lft to take you to the 13th floor? or a pump to run the swimming pool filtration system? or a pump to get water to your apartment? or electric lights at night in the corridors?

Those costs should be covered by the rent.

But it's just a way for the owner to make a little more money. In the hotel example above you already paid fro your room so why should you pay so much extra for water and other things. The answer is because the hotel makes money on them. If they didn't then the room rates would go up. Same with a condo.

A great location at a great price will usually sell quickly. But I know some condos in Silom that have been up for sale for 2 years or so. I know some that were sold in that building and the prices was dropped 20-30% for a quick sale. There is a new condo building on Surawong Road that I think was finished well over a year ago. I walked passed the other day and there are still 9 units for sale. Seem very overpriced to me. Also only half can be sold to foreigners, so often there aren't enough Thais to buy the other half. I also saw one advertised the other day that was the last unit for sale in a building that was 4-5 years old. Just think about that. 4-5 years and they still haven't sold all the condos. That is the reality of the Bangkok market. Offer a great price and you might sell quickly. Offer what everyone else is offering and you may still be trying to sell in a few years time.

The one that's been on sale for around 2 years recently had its priced increase from 5.4 to 5.7M. The owners are probably bragging to their friends and family about how their property has increased in value. There is a similar condo in the same building and the owner said he'd take 4.1M for a quick sale.

Is it possible for you to rent the condo in your name and then re-rent to your wife? That would solve the problem.

I think you'd be crazy to live anywhere near her family.

Being holed up in a small condo with them would to me be total hell.

Land+house is giving your money away to them, you'll be tolerated as a guest only as long as you kowtow to their wishes, another kind of hell.

**YOU** decide where **you** want to live at least a six hour bus ride away from her family, invite **her** but not her family to come along and live with you in your place.

Strictly financially my opinion is better off renting, not buying.

I agree - my in laws are 400 km away.

Please explain how financially renting is better than renting.

I've rented for the last 17 years and now realize that if we had bought somewhere it could have been paid by now.

If you are planning to stay in the same condo for 17 years then you may be better off buying, but I'm not convinced. But most people move more often. So if you moved even a few times, that's lots of buying and selling costs, including 6% tax each time you buy. After 17 years you may end up with a huge bill to renovate the condo building. Have a look around at 10-20 year old condo builds. Most are in a really bad state.

Renting is also more flexible. You may want to leave the country for a while, move to another area, etc. It's very difficult to sell condos in bangkok, so you may be stuck with a condo you don't want to live in.

If you were talking about UK, I'd say buy, but in Thailand I think the property market doesn't function properly. There isn't any transparency, so you don't know what other properties have sold for. Most condos seem overpriced to me and I have seen people offer 20% discounts and still not be able to sell.

Give us some rough figures to see how you think you would have been better off. And don't forget to add in all the maintenance costs of owning a condo for 17 years.

All the land and the houses we bought are in my wife's name, I had to sign a piece of paper at the Land Office every time when we bought something, that the land is not mine and that I can't claim it when we get divorced (or something like that)

Edit: //

Every time I transferred the money to her Bank Account just days before the purchase. But if that is legal I don't know as it clearly shows the money is Sin Som Rod and not as should be Sin Son Tua.

Yes you can claim a 50/50 split on the property, no matter what paper you have signed in the landoffice, as the courts will throw it out. It is consided signed under duress=no signature, no landbuy. This piece of paper is only for the landoffice to cover their backside. Can in a divorcesituation even work against the Thai wife for being an agent for an alien. (section 267 of the penal code)

If you get divorced and then claim half the property that you gave your wife money to pay then you would most likely be charged with illegally owning land and maybe also fraud - for signing a form that claimed the money was your wife's but then later claiming it was not. Foreigners are not allowed to own land here (except in certain circumstances), so why would anyone have a claim on something that they can't legally own.

What does your contract say? If you rent monthly then it would be normal in any country to charge the full month's rent. Usually the daily and weekly rate is more expensive, so maybe one month is cheaper than 2 weeks, so that is why the charged one month. You could demand to pay 2 weeks instead and end up with a bigger bill. But it all depends on your initial agreement.