dave111223

The only thing that sucks about the free option is that your email shows up right at the top of the payment page.

Sounds like you need to enter your company name in the profile settings, and this will show up instead of your email address. (Or you can have a logo show up instead)

I work as a remote web developer with most of my clients being "face to face" developers (ie they outsource the actual work to me).

I started out as a typically "face to face" web designer until I realized that the people who want to "meet up" or "give you a ring" are the ones who call you 5 times day about nothing issues and take forever explaining them, or just have nothing better to do than sitting in an office talking to you drinking a cup of coffee.

I couldn't stand it, as you are either having someone waste your time, or billing someone for listening to their lost dog sob stories....if I wanted that I would have become a bartender.

The fact is if you want to meet up with the developer that is time you are going to have to pay for, so basically 3 or 4 hours they could have spend actually working, they instead spend it drinking coffee with you. And the kind of developer who are willing to bill you for sitting around drinking coffee are the kind of developers are are probably going to take 3 times as long with your project and charge you 3 times more also. As long as you understand that time is money and are willing to pay for it, then no problem.

And the kind of developer who is willing to sit around drinking coffee with you for free, is the kind that doesn't know how the heck to build a website anyways.

I have been operating this way for years and there is nothing that you cannot say in an email; which is also a permanent searchable record of exactly what was said.

I don't have an issue with trust as I always bill clients 100% on completion, so no risk on their part; and I've never had anyone not pay. Plus at this point most of my clients are repeat clients.

Not to say that all remote designers/developers are on the up and up, as most of the "repair"/"Get me out of hole" type of jobs start with the sentence "I hired a company from Pakistan..."

Agree with you generally Dave, but in my experience these surveyors are professional men and the surveys detailed and various elements.....say fire systems....are scored and criticised in a constructive way. I couldn't imagine why they would be asked to make a false report unless someone was selling a whole building, and my opinion is they would be hard to corrupt.

It would normally be in the condo's interest to have any problems pointed out.

I've had other committee members suggest that we hire XYZ inspection company who was approve without even coming to the building for XX baht. So you hire a corrupt inspector from the start, not try to corrupt the inspect you're already hired.

Don't kid yourself. The manager runs day-to-day affairs, but the power is in the hands of the few Thai majority owners/investors--who appoint the manager, pay no maintenance fees, evade all assessments, ignore elected association committees, and suit themselves entirely. A farang who buys a condominium in Thailand is utterly at the mercy of this establishment.

A case in point... Our condo is installing a new water system, new pipes to every unit. Our manager lamented that there might not be enough money to pay for the project inasmuch as so many absentee owners refuse to pay their maintenance fees and assessment charges. When someone suggested the obvious ("Don't turn on their water; cut off their electricity."), he replied, "Oh, no, cannot! VIPs." .

Quite a few silly points there. Foreign condo owner has the same voting rights as a Thai owner, not at all at the "mercy of the establishment"...

If you refuse to pay your maintenance fees you accrue interest on the fees and you will not be able to sell your condo (land department will not allow the transfer) until the balance is paid (VIP or otherwise).

A survey is required by law every year.

Which law are you referring to?

Our building has to have an inspection done every year...according to the manager "it's the law"...however we (the condo) have to hire our own inspector, so I'm assuming if you wanted to you could just give them a bung to approve the building. As such I wouldn't rely on these inspections too much.

As cheeryble said, request a copy of the last inspection details from the condo office, if they can't provide it that's a red flag.

Use your own eyes, look at the beams/columns if there are cracks in them...don't move in

Also the pictures you posted don't look like they are of the "concrete pillar", it's just a crack in a interior wall which is nothing to worry about IMHO.

Most of the places selling old parts get their inventory for nothing, or next to nothing, from computers that have been thrown out. They are certainly not in the business of shelling out cash for old parts, especially 5 years old.

Seeing as all the components will only be usable in machine of a similar age, there is a very small market for those parts. If anyone offered you money it would be in the 100s of baht or less, and not even worth the effort.

There are some issues that you should sort out:

- Any money deducted from your salary should certainly be listed on your salary slip (ie if it's social security, tax or whatever it should be listed)

- If you are consistently asked to do overtime (more than 30 minutes per day) you should certainly ask them to record this time and pay you overtime.

However there a few things that are kind of make me think you could be (or considered to be) a "problem employee"...

Why do you choose to live 1 1/2 hours away from your work? If one of my employees used that reason when constantly late or leaving early i'd say "Move Closer"

Why are you no longer willing to do half your job? Seems pretty weird; if one of my employees randomly came to me and said "I'm no longer willing to do XYZ of my job", i'd show them where the door is.

Why should you're boss have to constantly explain to other employees why you (the special one) are able to come and go as you please? No crap they don't want to deal with that, and let you deal with it instead.

I once rented an apartment on Phahon Yothin 27 (P Mansion) and they allowed private phone line and DSL to be hooked up. I had a 3 month contract there, it was about 12000per month for 1 bedroom (separate bedroom not studio). That was about 8 or 9 years ago though.

So I'm assuming there are other apartments that will allow it too.

Looks like it's still 12K, 8K for a studio

http://www.pmansion.com/roomrate.html

I wonder how much hiring some of the people on this board have actually done, because in my opinion there is no way you'll find a good developer with all these skills in the 15K-20K range.

Just to find employees that show up to work and are capable of basic manual tasks we now have to pay in the region of 10K a month (in Bangkok). Employees who stay with you for several years and capable of computer tasks (email, word, excel etc..) are closer to 15K.

We simply find it impossible to get employees for less (or just they run off after a few weeks, or even half way through the interview)

To get someone who can read/write English (really a requirement in web development), with experience in web development and will not run off when they receive a better offer...I'd think at least 35K per month starting. And once you actually find out there are good I'd bump that up to closer to 45K immediately to hold on to them.

Your bill sounds about right. I run 2 air conditioners at night in our condo (2 bedrooms), got fridge, stove, water heater, 3 computers, tvs etc...and the bill runs around 4000 per month.

I always get to thinking it's too high and that someone is scamming me, but many times I'd shut all the breakers off and the meter stops, so...I just suck it up and pay.

So you went from wanting your own private house, with a separate group of investment bungalows...

To wanting to have a unit in a 4 floor block with 19 other people? Seems like an odd transition in thinking to me.

I think people should give the seller the benefit of the doubt as he may have meant that 50K was to cover the taxes at the land office and not just "paperwork" (still way to high for 600K land).

I would go to the land office find out the real amount of tax that will be paid and then renegotiate to pay half of it (so it tax will be 15K, offer to pay 7.5K etc..).

4,600,000 at 3% for the first year = 138,000Bht interest per year = 11,500Bht interest per month

BKB like interest + approx 2x for capital repayment for the first year = 11,500 x 3 = 34,500 repayment per month (11,500 interest + 23,000 repayment)

This is not the way loans are amortized in Thailand, the principle in reduced with each monthly payment and the ratio between interested and principle repayment will vary with each payment.

See example of this here: http://www.amortizationtable.org/

I went in BKB and asked them, it's the way they want to do it at my local branch (less than a month ago).

They showed me on their computer, then went through it again on paper.

Maybe something to do with their 3% for the first year special offer currently running.

Maybe they were trying to put it into simple terms, or maybe the officer was just wrong, but they don't calculate the entire year's interested then divide it by 12...doing this would mean the interest rate was actually much higher than the supposed "interest rate".

They send you a bill each month which states how much interest and how much principle your last payment covered. The next interest/principle paid we will be based on the principle outstanding from your last bill.

4,600,000 at 3% for the first year = 138,000Bht interest per year = 11,500Bht interest per month

BKB like interest + approx 2x for capital repayment for the first year = 11,500 x 3 = 34,500 repayment per month (11,500 interest + 23,000 repayment)

This is not the way loans are amortized in Thailand, the principle in reduced with each monthly payment and the ratio between interested and principle repayment will vary with each payment.

See example of this here: http://www.amortizationtable.org/

Ask them if you have to by the banks credit & accident/injury insurance or whether you can obtain a policy elsewhere.

Nope got to buy their policy.

Bangkok Bank are one of the few banks that try and hit you with the 90K upfront fire/health/life insurance tacked on to the loan. You may considering visiting Krung Thai or Krung Sri as they do not charge this. They only charge insurance to cover the first few years of the loan, instead of Bangkok Banks 30 year coverage.

and after the first few years have gone by then what happens ?, you dont carry insurance on the loan ?.....highly suprised if a bank will let you do this on a home loan, you will require some form of insurance, otherwise a big risk is being carried by both the bank and the person who has the loan...

90k for 30 years insurance is only THB 3000 p.a. or THB 250/m....would say thats a very good deal

We paid 2 years upfront with Krung Thai at about 3000 per year, after the first 2 years they never sent us another bill. We have the building insured independently with an insurance company (not a bank), but they (Krung Thai) don't know that.

Let me illustrate how bad of a deal the BKK bank insurance is. Let's say instead of getting a BKK bank loan you put the 90K in a bank earning just enough interest to cover inflation, and you pay insurance 3000 per year, instead of 30 years up front.

The insurance would have cost you 90K (adjust for inflation but still your original 90K)...

With BBK Bank they charge you interest of 7% per year. In the OPs case the insurance value is about 2% of his total loan, so 2% of his monthly payment (680) would go towards paying off the 90K insurance balance. After 322months the insurance would be paid off, and he would have paid a total of 218960THB

Of course this is not even considering the fact that the Bangkok Bank insurance is NOT a "good deal", when compared to insurance companies it is a very crappy coverage.

In the Middle East and some regions of India they continue to find out. Up to 50% of all marriages are between 1st and 2nd cousins. In the West it's 10%, so very common all over the world but China, and the majority of US states that ban it.

Are you seriously trying to tell us that 10% of all marriages in the "West" are between cousins....? lol

If the internet shut down in the US today it would shut down world wide.

I think you need to do a bit of research into the fundamentals of the "internet".

For example if every ISP in the USA decided to cut all their cables at once, we in Thailand would have no problem accessing Thaivisa.com which is hosted in Singapore.

The "30 year term" is in fact variable due to the fact that the interest rate is variable.

They pad the monthly payments so that in the event of future interest rate increases they do not need to constantly adjust your month payment, it will still be enough to pay off the loan by 30 years.

This does not mean you keep paying the monthly payment for 360 times. You will keep paying the monthly payment until the loan balance is zero.

In most cases this will result in you paying off the loan well before the 30 year term. There is no penalty for early repayment, there are only fees if you refinance within the first 2 years.

P.S. Bangkok Bank are one of the few banks that try and hit you with the 90K upfront fire/health/life insurance tacked on to the loan. You may considering visiting Krung Thai or Krung Sri as they do not charge this. They only charge insurance to cover the first few years of the loan, instead of Bangkok Banks 30 year coverage.

Seriously, your clothes stink so bad that they smell even after theycome out of the washing machine...<deleted>?

So someone could steal a photo, post it on Instagram and then instagram could sell it legally? So you could end up randomly seeing yourself on a billboard even though you've never uploaded anything to instagram?

Here is an update from the said bank.

A sale of an agreement / piece of paper will be signed between the buyer and seller confirming that the seller agrees to sell to the buyer. The agreement then gets stamped. This can be drafted by a lawyer.

Payment is then made. Bank releases the documents - i.e. land title, etc. to the buyer. And then off we go to the land office to get everything transferred.

Though I like the idea of everything is done at the land office and everything is signed before hand sounds like a more realistic way of doing things but it is said that this is their common practice. Sigh.

I'd get to walking from this deal. Sounds like someone is trying to hoodwink you. If you did it the way you described there is absolutely nothing stopping the owner from getting in his car at the bank with his fully paid land deed and driving off to who-knows-where. Other than your "stamped bit of lawyers paper", which will be worth f***all.

Personally I have a computer hooked up to my TV and run Windows Media Center on startup, which is useful; but the computer is bulky and takes time to boot up.

hi Dave

compare with the stand-alone media player, what make you take the choice of connecting a computer to a TV ?

Games

The entire deal should be done at the land office on the day of the transfer.

You will be there, the owner will be there, and a rep. from the bank will there. You'll hand a check to the bank rep., then tax will be paid (depending on who has agreed to pay the tax in your prior negotiations) and then the land department will put your name as the owner on the chanote and remove the loan.

Do not hand over any money except while on the premises of the land office.

If someone involved in the transaction (owner or bank) is telling you otherwise, I'd walk away from the deal right away.

Note that all the major banks have personnel permanently stationed at the land offices to handle this.

Pretty sure Central has them.