newnative

I'm waiting for Georgia, which I feel is even more serious than his NY crimes.

I suppose it might be useful to have this information available somewhere. For our purposes, it was only necessary to check the projects we might have been interested in. At this point, we have moved on to a house and no longer own any Pattaya condos.

It's a 'big deal' for places like Pattaya, where many of the most desirable condo projects have foreign quota that is full. To buy into one of those projects as a foreigner, you would have to use either a Thai to purchase in Thai name or set up a company and buy in company name--both options considered by many foreigners to be inferior to owning the condo in foreign quota in their own name.

We've always checked with the Juristic for foreign quota available at any condo project we have been interested in.

The 'percentage ownership of condos' has nothing to do with leases. When you buy a condo in foreign quota, Thai name, or company name, you are normally not buying a condo with a lease, unless it is in a condo project that has been built on leased land. Easily avoided if you want to own a condo without a lease, which I always do.

Primarily personal experience in trying to buy desirable condos in foreign quota in Pattaya for the past 14 years. As soon as we heard about the 75% proposal, my spouse and I joked that there will be a stampede of Northshore owners switching their company-owned condos to foreign quota.

Nor FDR. So much for stamina in walking being important.

Uhh-oh. 'considering'. Me, too. I'm 'considering' losing 5 pounds. Also not going to happen.

Yes, that's the problem with trying to get anything done--owner-residents vs. investors doing ST rentals. And, more of a problem, in many cases, with newer, large projects with lots of the smaller-size condos new projects have, vs. older projects with fewer and larger unit sizes. And, easier for investors to buy blocks of small condos in new projects. Northshore in Pattaya has less than 200 units, with the smallest unit 64 sqm. New projects often have 1000 units and 64 sqm would be one of the largest units, in a project of mostly 25 to 35 sqm units.

Likely true for a lot of places but not Pattaya, especially for desirable projects.

Totally agree. I think there are glimmers of hope here and there. At one condo project I owned at (not the one in my other post), the management is now making an effort, this after being very lenient in the first years of the new project when I lived there. New technologies, if adopted by a project, can make the illegal renters have a more difficult time getting in and out, and make it more difficult for the owners doing the illegal rentals.

The condo building industry may have greater clout but, I think, less incentive to use it with this issue. In the example I just posted, the condo builder sold 40 units to the Chinese man. The builder was happy to sell the units, get the project sold, and move on to the next project, with likely no thought given to how those 40 units were going to be used.

There are plenty of rich that can buy whole blocks of condos. At one of the condos I lived at, a Chinese man had bought at least 40 condos in the project, probably more. At one of the annual meetings, he stood up and said he pays over a million baht a year in condo maintenance fees on the condos he owns so why shouldn't he be allowed to rent his condos on a daily basis. Well, it's illegal, dude, that's why. And, your fellow condo owners don't want to live in a busy hotel. Basically, he, and many others, have bought multiple units in condo projects and have set up boutique hotels within the project. That's how you make money with daily rentals--you need volumn to offset the costs for room cleaning staff, staff to handle the check-ins, scheduling, billing, etc. These jokers save a lot of money by using the condo staff to handle all the other hotel staffing duties--guest issues, problems, emergencies, complaints, etc., building, swimming pool and gym maintenance, gardening, garbage, security, building cleaning, etc. Cheaper to buy 40 condos in a condo project than to build, staff, and maintain a 40-unit hotel that meets all the licensing requirements of a hotel.

Agree. The hotel group should use its clout to get more enforcement of the daily rental ban.

Jerk.

Color me wrong regarding my previous postings where I thought the foreign quota owner votes would be diluted to accommodate the new owners while also maintaining the 49% vote. Instead, with projects where the foreign quota already is at 49%, apparently the new foreign quota owners will get no vote at all at the AGM. I don't think this is a good solution and I believe it's very unfair for some owners to not have a vote at all. I would rather have a diluted vote, even if I am an owner from the original 49%, rather than see some owners with no vote at all.

Bangkok

I find myself with plenty of money these days but for 30 years while I was working in the US, it was a struggle. I had to be thrifty but, luckily, I had learned thrifty habits from my parents, who had grown up in the Great Depression. I can still remember my Mom saying 'save the bows' Christmas morning when we were unwrapping our presents, so we could use the bows for next year--and sometimes she saved the wrapping paper, as well, even in their later years when they were quite well-off. My Dad often joked that he could have bought a new Cadillac every other year if he hadn't have had 6 kids. But, when the kids were grown and he could have easily afforded a Cadillac, he never bought one. Too thrifty--and he wanted to leave us kids a nice inheritance, which he did. I still find myself being thrifty, as is my Thai spouse. We have never flown Business Class--ever. But, next flight we may splurge on Economy Plus. Or not. We have pretty much all that we need or want so life is good here. My spouse is younger and my main goal is to make sure he is well-provided for, as he will likely out-live me.

What's stopping you from dealing with an owner directly? My property is listed with agencies but that doesn't mean you can't deal with me directly if you prefer to not use an agent. We sold our last condo directly to a buyer who saw our ad posted on the condo bulletin board.

Yes, and I was one of those assuming just that and I posted about using a weighted vote on the other thread. Apparently, they will not be using this method. If the PM is correct, I am quite surprised that owners in the 26% will not get a vote at all at the AGM. That seems totally unfair, and not in the best interests of the condo project. As a condo owner, I would rather have a diluted vote than no vote at all.

Nonsense. There is no MLS system in Thailand. In most cases, a property is listed by multiple agencies to gain as much exposure as possible to potential buyers. Right now, I have a property listed with probably at least 25 agencies. Although I provide photos and a description, a number of the biggest agencies have come and taken their own photos of the property, with several going to the expense of sending videographers to do videos of the property. They then have the work of making the listing for their website, choosing the best photos, writing the description, and putting in all the relevant information, etc. Some will also do the work of putting postings on social media, such as Facebook. These agencies have done all this work on their dime knowing that the property will also likely be listed by their competitors. Now, with each agency wth the listing, it's a race to find a buyer for the property and get the commission before some other agency gets there first. So, once again, nonsense to say that an agency will not pass along a low offer but, instead, as you say, 'wait a couple years' for a better offer to come along. Totally laughable--the property will be long gone in a couple years, sold by one of the other agencies. With the agents I know, they live, as I do, by 'the future is now'. Not waiting your 'a couple years' for something that may or may not happen. Will they waste their time, and the seller's time, passing along a 2MB offer on a 10MB property? Probably not. But, any other offer that has the remotest chance of working? Yes.

Not the only one. I think it is definitely a positive development if it goes through.

I don't think that is how it will work. As I said before, I think it will be a weighted vote. Every condo owner will have a vote, but the foreign quota owners will have their votes adjusted so the total percentage of their vote does not equal more than 49%, to maintain the 51% Thai control. Realizing that it wll be much more complicated, here is a very simple example: A condo project with 4 equal-size condos, 3 owned in foreign quota and 1 in Thai name. The 75% foreign quota limit has been reached. If the Thai decided to sell his condo, it could not be moved to foreign quota. To maintain Thai control in the 4-unit project, the voting will be weighted. The Thai owner's vote will have a weight of 51%. The 3 foreign quota owners will have a weighted vote of 16.33% each. Even if the 3 voted in favor of a proposal, they would still lose 49% to 51%, if the Thai owner opposed the proposal. As I said, just the simplest example possible. In reality, it will be much more complicated, with condo ownership sqm percentages to be figured in, in addition to units held in company name. I definitely do not want to be the one tasked with figuring all that out before the AGM!

The 'others' in my post refers to developers and Pattaya projects they have built to sell condo units to buyers. It had nothing to do with any after sale rentals by the buyers of those condos. Hipflat listing 410 units for rent in a 501 unit project does not automatically mean there are 410 condos actually for rent in the project. Many listings are the same rental listed by different agencies. The same goes for condos for sale. The last condo I had for sale was listed by at least a dozen different agencies on Hipflat. One condo for sale, 12 agencies listing it. 10 condos for sale in a project could easily show up as 30 or more listings. That same project I owned at now shows 76 condos for sale and 71 for rent. The entire project, an older, higher-end project, only has 198 units so, obviously, 147 out of 198 units are not actually for sale or rent. There are also listings that are no longer active but still there. Windows showing lights at night is also not necessarily a reliable gauge as to how many units have been sold--or rented--in a project. Lots of condo projects have absentee owners. My spouse and I have a Bangkok getaway condo that we visit maybe once a month for a few days. Most of the time the windows are dark at night. In our case, and many others, it just means the owners are not there.

All foreign condo owners in a project should still get a vote. The condo vote will likely be weighted so that the foreign quota owners will not have more than 49% of the vote.