NightSky

Where is the Face palm emoji, you gotta feel sorry for the TAT they’ve lost the plot.

????????????????

7/11

6 hours ago, Oxx said:

 

Why the delay? They presumably already have a spreadsheet with the cost appraisal.  It would take just a few minutes to put it up on their website.

 

Or are the appraisals going to change mysteriously over the next few months?

I imagine that the next logical step in the project before final release to the public is 'the brown envelope procurement stage'.

One thing to consider is that when my wife got a mortgage after the initial 3 years she wasnt then able to obtain another remortgage from elsewhere to transfer to another good rate after the initial 3 year period. It felt as if the banks were conspiring against us since she applied at 2 more banks and she seemed to meet the criteria but they all declined her which of course meant we had to stick with the same bank and the same mortgage on a higher rate.

It was the Government Savings Bank since that is the bank that was linked to an apparent promotion. My wife was also told the life insurance was mandatory which we didn't really want to buy.

Ive found if you can get around 4% rate over the 3 or 4 year initial term then that the going rate.

We were however able to secure another fixed term deal with the same bank which provides us with about a 4% rate again for 4 more years. 

Another suprize to me was that Thai banks don't calculate over payments like a UK bank would. I heard it was more like the US system although I dont know about that. Basically we paid down 50% of the loan in the first three years whilst the interest rate was low thinking this would lower our monthly repayment amount however the repayment amount didnt decrease-the monthly repayment amount.

To change the monthly repayment amount we needed to apply specifically to reduce the monthly payment amount and secure agreement from the 'people in the ivory towers' who we were never able to speak with and we could only send official requests to via the shop floor bank staff.

Oh and we needed to travel to the head office at the other side of Bangkok to make this application in persona at the head branch only -- other branches could not help and directed us to the head office branch which was literally at the opposite side of Bangkok.

Also, any early repayment penalties are based on the original loan amount even though we have paid down 50% of the loan and the 'new agreement' after 3 yers was for half the original amount borrowed.

Its a scam. Who can argue though!

The banks have it all sewn up and seem to have an unofficial agreement not to steel customers away following other banks moving from initial special offer deals -- my advice is only borrow in Thailand if you can afford to repay the loan in full at any time without concern.

If they did this who would clean the floors, cook the food, wipe babies behind and risk life and limb to build houses?

the system is already perfect for the elites surely?

20 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

I got what appears to be a real-estate tax of 72 baht for my condo, which probably have a registered value of about 4 million baht.

First time I got this bill, so something new is happening.

Someone else posted the threshold is 10 million baht so according to this your condo is exempt at 4 million baht.

Are you sure its not the freeholder/management company of the building billing you and they in turn were billed by the government if they own the land as such.

In any case the tax doesn't begin until 2020 so your bill is likely something else.

I can concur I have seen some silly pricing at Makro's and Tesco's recently.

For instance 8 wholewheat wraps total weight 300 grams cost about 80 something baht. But the same brand slightly larger sized wholewheat wraps total weight 360 grams cost about 260 something baht.. so that just doesn't make any sense whatsoever unless some businesses need to buy the larger ones for some specific reason.

I pointed this out to a member of staff that the pricing was probably a mistake and she looked at the packet and just said ''ahhh ya-gi-in jang" meaning oh she would like to eat one. .

..its a bit like living in 'none-sense-land' sometimes ????

I've seen similar silly 4 x pricing on Kellogg's corn flakes but they were priced normally again the next time I visited (just 2 x the western price) so I think they might try on different pricing to see what they can get away with charging before they stop selling.

This is why I do not pay over the odds otherwise they will think they can charge the higher price and get away with it. 

Light

As I have suspected since 2016, many crackdowns are about tax residency and meeting the CRS requirements;  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Reporting_Standard

Duck

He will need to sell a few more bird spittle drinks to pay for that lot. 

Money laundering regulations require an Id card apparently..

..foreigners were not included in the thought process apparently.

Blah blah blah. Too little too late.

Every time I drive in Thailand I end up cursing fools on the road -- as a comparison I drove recently in a European country which was an absolute pleasure to drive in mainly the UK. I used to love driving but here in Bangkok I despise it.

1 hour ago, toofarnorth said:

Streuth ! That's not an insect , this is an insect .

Amazingly my wife recognises both the insect image posted by the op as a poisonous one and the one posted by you as not poisonous.

she asked if the person bitten is still alive which is always a worry?

You have 20 seconds to comply!

At Bangkok bank they told me 'cannot' every time I asked the same question about a business debit card.

They still require you to queue for ages, use over counter service and show a company stamp - its all the modern advancements for Thailand 4.0 you know!

.. meanwhile the people crushed to death down below by the falling wall were not fortunate enough to be blessed by the dead monk..?