GeorgeCross

3 hours ago, Just Weird said:

Really?  Nowhere near a meter high?  I bet you don't have any photos that prove that any of those several alleged railings that you are so concerned about were that low.

i've been in hotels here with very low railings too, older buildings mind. the worst one had a half height wall at knee height with another railing about knee height to that if standing/balancing on the wall below. easy to see how one could fall over, especially if drunk, very angry and standing on the wall baiting someone else.

however, i never for one second, thought of photographing it just to prove some future argument with a thaivisa member.

how stupid of me not to have that foresight 

24 minutes ago, Benroon said:

where ?

 

sexy rich Bangkok girls looking for octogenarian Leo vested sloths - my 'dubious' radar is going mental !

as it should be, other end of town btw

and no, singlet wearers need not apply 

though i have seen some amazing chicks dropped off by their drivers (lol) at the hilton end of bintabaht around midnight.. heaven knows where they were heading, shhh ????

2 hours ago, owl sees all said:

If the BinB, the IO, or the army, arrived at my door, the first call would be to my agent.

hahaha if i had a penny for every i've heard something like that!

good luck to ya

13 minutes ago, sungod said:

No good for the old codgers from HH, not zimmer frame friendly.

actually a good late night scene in hua hin especially at weekends when all those sexy rich bangkok girls come down looking for a few hours away from their parents..

only old dudes wearing linen allowed mind you ????

2 hours ago, cmsally said:

One of my favorite ones on an inspection we had at renewal was " we should separate the first aid box into 2 parts ie topical medicine and ingested medicine" 

So my immediate response was " oh for those stupid people who eat band aids "

actually to their credit they were being very strict on fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, fire exit signs and emergency lighting.

luckily anyone staying longer than 30 days would be alright to fumble around in the dark eating band aids! ????

36 minutes ago, ChipButty said:

Only yesterday I was talking to a guy who was staying at the Hilton for just a double room 6500 Baht per day you could rent an amazing villa for that without all the +++++

if you mean hilton in hua hin then yes you could get an amazing villa for that, think 5 bed+ on a golf course

but you'd have to stock your own minibar & face the shame from TV condo owners 

3 hours ago, wisperone said:

If they wanted to shut down Abnb, I'm sure they could do that by ordering abnb a cease and desist order for the country as it is against the law.  Abnb would have to comply.

like the way facebook took down AMM and the other activists pages you mean?

(note: they refused)

thai gov is toothless against international companies, the best they can do is block access country wide. but airbnb is only a small part of the problem, much much bigger players like booking.com are now involved. block them too and it risks collapsing the whole of thailands local tourist market as well.

hotels would go ape over that

2 hours ago, DrDave said:

When I checked into this situation, it seemed that he would be taxed as an annual percentage of the advertised rate, assuming 100% occupancy.

In this case, his annual taxes would have been several hundred thousand baht, which he avoided by going under the radar.

and people wonder why taxes don't get paid on these. awful system to expect taxes on 100% occupancy before expenses and not on profits.

tough game the hotel business

7 hours ago, Wilsonandson said:

 

interesting quote at the end that the (illegal) market is too big to just shut down (at 60% of all accomodation) so a law change is needed in order to regulate.

i guess if they shut down every illegal place they will crash the whole tourist market.

who wants to come and see a bunch of empty buildings?

yeah would be the sensible option but i feel some regulation would help for instance party houses (1/2 night rentals) shouldn't be allowed on moo bahns but weekly rentals should be if allowed by the residents authority. we have one house on our village that does this and its never been a problem in fact its quite refreshing to have some new faces to talk to by the pool. the owner never allows party rents and its always a group of scandinavian, russian families etc. no problem.

likewise why blanket ban party groups? thais have no problem with this and at my main house (which is standalone) we have many of them nearby and again its not a problem for us or anyone in the area as the houses are standalone and no-one is getting annoyed. to be honest the local temple markets are a lot more disruptive!

the condo issue would require a lot more thought as i understand the problems there. maybe leave it up to majority vote or something?

either way a one size fits all regulation is gonna need a lot of sub-paragraphs to keep most people happy.

8 minutes ago, bluesofa said:

"The meeting was set up following inspections conducted by the Office of the Ombudsman which found that such property rental businesses are unapproved by law and can lead to various problems relating to unpaid taxes, guest safety, neighbourhood disturbances and contractual disputes."

 

"unapproved by law" - is this a translation error?

I thought short-term rentals of less than thirty days were 'illegal'?

 

its a whole new class of accomodation, not quite hotel, kind of like how online work is not clearly defined in the work acts. i guess their options are shut it all down completely or come to a position were it can be regulated (read: taxed most probably). time will tell their true intentions but i'm leaning towards taxed and regulated as the current hotel act is unworkable for say a luxury villa but it could be construed as a a valuable commodity for the local market.

Quote

Officials also discussed the benefits of the market and its impacts, as well as potential rules, regulations, definitions, lessor and lessee obligations, and the assignment of agencies to be responsible for regulating and overseeing the market.

looking more and more like they are not going to shut it all down but regulate instead.

early days but a good step forward as things are getting out of control

will be interesting to see what they come up with

i got the feeling everyone hoping this is gonna shut the partyhouse or condo next door down is in for a shock.

this sounds like he is green lighting the accomodations not shutting them down. 

Quote

The PM, acting in his capacity as the head of the NCPO (in the days before it is dissolved), says he will bring an estimated 20,000 illegal hotels and accommodations around the country under control so they run under the same rules as licensed hotels and to boost safety for paying guests.

couple of fire extinguishers and a safety check and they are good to go.

18 hours ago, justin case said:

soon AIRBNB will be outlawed

not really sure their is much the thai authorities could do even if they wanted to. i mean what are their options? take airbnb to court? well that wouldn't work, firstly i dont think they are breaking any laws they just take bookings they dont run illegal hotels and many legal hotels also list on there so cannot be up to airbnb to check all the docs for every listing. plus they arent a thai company and also wouldnt be scared by any fines even billions. 

so only thing thailand could do is block the site but even that wouldnt work as firstly it would only be blocked in thailand and secondly most bookings are from outside of thailand! then on top of that would they block expedia too? what about agoda or booking.com?! that would be a big problem for legal hotels and upset many thai legit tourists.

so i think at best the only thing they could do is ask the booking sites to take down any illegal listings via court order but i am not sure there would be a law for that. its not LM content or similar after all. we only have to look at thai efforts to stifle dissenting voices on platforms like facebook to see how toothless they are in the face of silicon valley behemoths.

nope i think only recourse they have is to hit at source and prosecute the 'hotels' here. as they are doing.

1 hour ago, hotchilli said:

8 years in operation, that's a nice income for the operators and individual villa owners, hope they are all traced & fined accordingly!

doesn't look like they have been shut down yet major booking sites are still listing them and taking bookings

3 hours ago, evadgib said:

No they didn't.

well last i checked there are 195 countries in the world and so far only 4 refuse to issue income affidavits.

so do you want me to do the maths or would you like to borrow my calculator?

edit: haha just realized thailand is one of the countries so i guess i was wrong..

190 managed it.

there ya go feel better now?!

4 hours ago, evadgib said:

Thailand demanded cast iron guarantees that couldn't possibly be complied with; not least due to privacy laws in the real world and the increased man hours that would have entailed.

and yet 191 other countries managed to do it.

strange.

5 minutes ago, PoorSucker said:

A simple search, one site offers 1400 private rentals on Samui 

and only 2 people following this thread 

hahaha the blissfully unaware..

would you have to pay tax here? is this salary? maybe thats what they want?

they just keep winning here..

whats next to 'clean up'? after hours clubs or airbnbs?

this place IS the poster child for villa rental operations here. if they remain taking bookings after today it will say a LOT about law enforcement on Samui.

watch this space.

and if they do shut down operations there is gonna be a lot of puckered <deleted> on this island.