digbeth

If what I understand is true, would this make leasing long term worse than renting or buying freehold? you own nothing, your rent is paid upfront and if <deleted> hit the fan you're left with nothing, sure you might end up being a 'creditor' to the company/trust if they goes under but when it comes to that I doubt the company have any assets left, at least with a freehold condo, there's the value of the land that can be divided up should the worse come to worst. 

for developments like office building, hotels and malls it's understandable that the landowner expects increase and re-negotiation every now and then, but for a wholly residential building where most of the lessee paid upfront, I don't see why would periodic rent increase be in the contract between the landowner and the developer, it's not like they can magically find the extra money 

After a  high profile case in Bangkok surfaced this week where a leasehold condo run by a REIT funds were found to be unable to pay the annual rent towards the ultimate owner they were built on, which could mean dissolution of the condo,

apparently this is common practice in leasehold condo where the lessee paid upfront or mortgaged and the bank paid upfront for the value of the room for 30 years, but the contract between the landowner and developer is for annual payment and provision for increases later on, why would developers expose themselves for a risk like this? the landowner might get better deal ultimately but I don't see any upside unless the the developer intend to invest in their customers' money to do something else 

So if you're 'buying' a leasehold condo and the developers/Reit's finance is rock solid you could find yourself being kicked out before the lease is up? Granted most of the leasehold in Bangkok is on very high profile plot rented from you know who, but the fact that this even happen is a big question mark on the whole scheme 

Not just foreigner, they seem to despise Thais tourist from other province coming in and complaining about the rip-off price and taxis mafias in Phuket too

apart from filing tax returns on the behalf of the employee, employer might need all the details of what their employee's tax allowance are for the year ahead to put into their payroll system in order to make appropriate tax withholding, otherwise they could over/under pay the tax  

usually the condo's line group is a good indicator of how much mess you'll be dealing with 

Rumour has it the PM has an Aston DB5 in a garage overseas

also rumoured that looks like it'll be year based, ie prior to certain cutoff date, so 'Classic 60-70s cars but nothing 80s or 90s as they reached 20-30 years like the US 

disadvantage of separate dehumidifier is that the water collection needs to be emptied whereas the aircon is plumbed in 

also the hot site of the dehumidifier is in the same room, producing heat 

But for the air conditioner to be able to be run cheaper in 'dry' mode vs full on cooling, the compressor would have to be invertor type that can 'throttle down' and run slowly right? or does the dry mode in non-invertor aircon just turns on and off like you're setting the temperature to not too cold?

58 minutes ago, JayClay said:

Cardless ATM services are provided by banks for their own customers only. You will not be able to use cardless ATM services with your American card.

 

Having 5 cards eaten in 8 years seems excessive. Are you making sure that you're waiting for your card once the cash has been dispensed? I don't know how ATMs in America work but in England, in order the prevent people forgetting, the ATM card is returned before your cash. If you're used to that system, it's easy to get caught out and forget to take your ATM card after collecting your money. I have been caught out by this a couple of times in the past.

 

Having said all that; why not save yourself the troubles, and the excessive ATM fees, and get yourself a bank account here?

 

Google Pay/Wallet are not useful in any way for achieving what you want to achieve.

Thai ATMS are worse in this regard in that not only the card don't come out before the cash, they don't come out at all unless you press the button confirming if you want the receipt or not,

if you'd walked away without pressing anything they'd spit out the card after what seems like a minute with loud beeping, any passer by could have taken the card, if not it sucks the card back in to be destroyed. 

Or on the rare occasion of power failures then it just eats your card right away

Modern water cooled automatics are certainly lot more powerful than the air-cooled Waves

Until you look at servicing and maintaining them, cleaning and servicing he belt is a lot more involved than just lubing chains that is not necessary in most wave use, lots of Thais seem to abuse them and survive without much attention. whereas you start loosing acceleration and power on the automatics if the belt is not maintained 

The bigger wheels also rides a lot better on potholed roads 

The Bangkok ones like the ones in underground station and shopping mall are deserted, booking in advance only saves the time for the clerks to type up the details as you'd already fill in the details when you booked online, in and out in 20 minutes, 

The booking slots seems to be every half hour, so even if the place is packed if you'd booked the wait shouldn't be long.

23 hours ago, zhounan said:

Isn't the license plate itself an identifying sign? Why should security guards check whether you have attached the building sticker and not simply look at the license plate?

Checking a license plate would mean looking at the license plate then going to a book or a list of 'allowed/registered' vehicles, the regular guard might be able to recognize on sight some of the cars but you think they get paid enough to care? 

It's also good to have the sticker displayed when parked in case some accidents happen like a water leaking onto your car or in case of people blocking other people in while leaving the cars in gear they know which door to go knock on, sure they can have a list of registration in the book, but try making Somchai read that off a book in an emergency

If you're concerned about privacy, stick the sticker on a transparent plastic and put them up on the dash and take it down when you go outside

having just the access cards that open the gantry to the parking might not be enough as how it is setup you might be able to sneak multiple cars in on the same card, and again you'll have issue with identifying which rooms the car belong to

Automatic numberplate recognition are used in shopping malls now, it's only time when it is used in residence too

Thai persons also gets a grilling over FATCA as well 
Out of the boondocks, the banks might know what to do if someone tick the "Yes, I'm an American" , box on the application

1 hour ago, zhounan said:

Speaking of condos and parking: does your building require you to put a sticker on the windshield of your car signaling that the car owner resides there?

 

Why should I drive around in my car and let everyone know that I live in that condos building?

 

Isn't the license plate itself an identifying sign? Why should security guards check whether you have attached the building sticker and not simply look at the license plate?

 

Maybe I don't know Thais way of thinking, but I don't understand the logic of these decisions. 

Privacy wise if you're concerned you can stick the sticker on a card, and put that on the front of your car when you come in
most buildings have access control gate with rfid card or remote that open the gantry that alone should be enough but some with multiple cars might be able to sneak second car in if the system is not too smart

24 minutes ago, Robert Paulson said:

So what if some people used their carS many times a day. Should we then make the people who only move their cars once a day move them more? It’s all relative. It makes zero sense. As I was saying I’ll just deal with it, I guess not everything needs to make sense

It's what's the co-owners, or the committee agreed on, if enough people want to change it, bring it up at the next meeting.

from the perspective of those that came home from work and has to circle around the carpark trying to find a spot and see the Farang pensioner's car sitting in the same spot sitting there collecting dust for months, they could feel unfairly treated, why does that guy get to hog the space while the rest of us has to play musical chairs,

not saying that it is right of course, but situations change, when you moved in years ago the parking lot could be empty due to being full of renters with no cars or just that the whole building was vacant. In my very old condo while we don't have assigned parking spot and could comfortably park two cars, the past year more tenants has moved in and the car park has been more crowded, I rarely used my car whereas my wife drives almost every day, If I'm being courteous, I would park my car on the floors with no direct elevator access and leave the convenient floors for those that need it more like contractor moving stuff in or parents with children and lots of stuff, If it comes to worse, I could leave the car at our house instead, but that option is not available to many people. 

11 hours ago, Robert Paulson said:

I thought about what you said for 5 minutes and I still don’t get it. Why would a car that isn’t moving be a problem when compared to a car that’s just been moved within the garage. Anyway it doesn’t matter. I have inquired a bit about it all, I need to further it seems. It just makes no sense to me at all. 

It's not a problem if there are space enough for everybody, 

if someone park their car and use it once a week, it just shows that they don't need the car that much compared to those that drive to work and go out everyday. making it inconvenient for them enough that they get the message that maybe they should park somewhere else 

3 minutes ago, Crossy said:

An increasing number of condos seem to be being constructed with less than one slot per unit! It's all about the $$$.

The law seem to define it as ratio per square meters of usable area depending on size, works out to about  40-60% as in 40 spot for every 100 units as legal minimum, 

Unless the condo's couple of decades old or new ultra luxury high-end development 1:1 parking is rare

29 minutes ago, Robert Paulson said:

One of the things I don’t understand is how is moving a car from one spot to another, helping relieve any sort of parking shortage? I mean I can see it of course, people have to move, but as you say most people who only use their car a few times a month just move it and repark. Policy seems crazy to me. I’d totally support car removal or fees that have flat tires and cobwebs on them. 
 

I’ll try to get some more information. From what I could gather there were no waivers for when one is on vacation.

It's not the act of moving car, but rather that stationary car means it's just being 'left' there, this is a problem with condos full of workers during the week, if there are cars they don't use, maybe they should have parked at their house or someplace else like parents' house.

It doesn't solve the oversubscription of cars vs parking spot issue, but it makes it inconvenient for those that don't use their car often enough that they may seek parking/storage of their rarely used cars elsewhere

If you want to have a garage where you can park without being bothered, 1:1 or 2:1 parking spot ratios condos or even with assign parking spot are available. 

If these were Motorcycle Taxis turf battle or Marijuana Stalls trader brawl the public would have a different reaction

54 minutes ago, khunjeff said:

 

That seems to be the case:

 

"When travelling abroad and using credit cards for purchases at international stores, individuals will be presented with the option of paying in the local currency of the country or baht. If the user chooses to pay in baht, an additional 1% fee will be charged."

 

Of course, choosing to pay in baht overseas via DCC is already a terrible idea, since it will be quite a bit more expensive than opting for local currency.

 

And no, this is not a way for Thai banks to cover currency conversion costs. If you choose DCC overseas, the bank in that country will do the conversion. If you choose local currency, conversion will be done by Visa or Mastercard. In neither case will the Thai bank do any conversion or bear any exchange rate risk - the transaction will be submitted to them in baht.

 

https://www.nationthailand.com/blogs/thailand/economy/40036058

In case of online subscription or delivering, you don' get to choose, Amazon Prime or Netflix set their price in Thai Baht which will now incurs the DCC rate + this new 1% charge, Previously this won't incur 

Ordering things from the Apple Stores for delivery withing Thailand gets processed from Singapore, Some legs of Air Asia gets charged from Malaysia for example 

This is not just the 1%, but the DCC currency conversion rate which is worst deal always

In this case the service providers like Netflix of Apple has decided to set their price in Thai Baht already and are prepared to absorb any fluctuations and the DCC rates shouldn't apply