Awk

<snip>

Mrs. Awk and everybody else tell me not to worry about that first part of the road, shared by a dozzen or so other people who also need to use it to access their land, but but. :-/

Fine for the poor locals, but the minute a 'rich' farang turns up and there is the smell of money then 'customs' soon change. I personally know at least 3 farangs who had this access rights problem and ended up paying near enough the same again for access rights.

Yes, that is a bit of a show stopper unless it can be resolved in a good way before buying. It now appears that part of the road may indeed be "almost government road". The owner (or rather, his niece, who is fronting for the older owner which we only met once) has procured a copy of some paper where the owner of that part of the road says he donates it to, what I from Mrs. Awk understand, is more or less the municipality. Hopefully our agent (and in the end, a decent lawyer) can verify this tomorrow.

This donation was apparently done some years ago, where somebody else from outside voiced similar concerns.

If two other people were viewing the land last time you looked, sounds like the agent is a crook. and hired them to make you a bit keener.

How else could they be there?

Walk away.

Another poster just bought over a rai near Hang dong for 1.5M

Thanks for the warning, but I do not think so. Unless the agent is tracking us with a gps sensor or similar, he should not have had any idea we were there at that time. We visited a couple of days before with the agent, and then went to have another look by ourselves.

Been shown around by this agent for some months now, and I think he might be a decent fellow.

1 million for water and 1 million for electricity for the area you are talking about is all wrong. i ran elecity in doi saket off the grid 10 kilometers cost 25000 baht. i have run elecitry in pai buying second hand electrical cememt polls and rented an off the clock electrical worker with truck for 35000 including second hand cement polls 5 of them . large ones if you pay 1 million you are getting rip off....do not do it there is some much stuff avaiable in the area in chiang mai you are talking about just be patience and look.

Not sure what you mean by off the grid. The quote we have gotten from the electric company is around 60,000B, and that is for doing the job in "off duty" hours. The distance is certainly less than 1km, 3-400 metres at most. I would be surprised if, in this case I guess it would be our agent, is trying to rip off us. Does the price sound equally crazy to others?

1M baht for electricity plus 1M Baht for water, does this mean 2 Million or 200,000?

You can probably drill a deep well, put in a submersible pump and filters if needed and get a lot of good water for 100,000 to 200,000 depending on depth of the well.

For the access, you can get a legal document prepared that says if you purchase you will get free unlimited access (right to use the road) signed by the road owners before you make a deal. Then the deal should be a legal document that says the purchase will be done at the land office at the same time that your road access rights are registered at the land office. Same time.

Two million unfortunately. Thanks for that, that price is more along of what I would expect for water. Still trying to sort out the right of use. Understood today that it is only the last part of the road, as far our usage is concerned, where a verbal yes has been given. The part of the road prior to that is apparently shared by enough people that "a problem is impossible", according to the puu yai and everybody else, our agent included. I am not so sure that it is so impossible though, so trying to sort out the right of use for the whole road/dirt-track. Not sure why it should be a problem, if that road is "almost a government road" already, and there can not be more than 2-3 additional land owners tops for that part of the road, in addition to the 2-3 that have already given their verbal yes.

Mrs. Awk and everybody else tell me not to worry about that first part of the road, shared by a dozzen or so other people who also need to use it to access their land, but but. :-/

All good points.

One thing though '2M would change the desirability of the land'.. Does that mean that the selling price is sort of up there?

Because from everything you wrote and a little between the lines, it sounds to me like the land shouldn't be more than 250K per rai as a maximum. (And quite possibly less, if you're buying more than a rai or two).

I ask because you said 'change the desirability' instead of "completely rule it out, obviously".

Yes, very much so. It is 1M per rai. One neighbour paid 750,000 per rai 6-7 years ago. Sounds steep given my description of lack of this and that, but the location makes it look very attractive. Other land at a similar distance from CM that we have looked at is both a lot more expensive and ugly. The agent, who I have grown to like somewhat, thinks it is a very good price, though he has showed us a lot of other more expensive places, both with and without a house on the land.

It looks like electricty can be provided at a much lower price to us, though I am not yet sure why the neighbour had to pay so much.

Perhaps remarket your guest house slightly.

- Experience the genuine Thai country life, smack in the middle of the city with all its accomodities.

- Be awoken at 5am by roosters.

- See real (not staged!) cock fights right outside your bedroom window*.

- Participate in gambling and betting on cock fights with real Thai people, including real Thai policemen*.

*We cannot guarantee that cock fights will be held on every night.

The land is a bit out in the wilderness, and as-is I can understand that not everybody may want to stay there. One of the neighbours paid a very hefty sum in order to get electricity and water (a well was the only option at that time, but he thinks that particular aspect may have improved recently). Also not yet sure who owns the dirt-road used to access this plot, and the 2-3 surrounding plots. Mrs. Awk says "nobody" owns it, but I can't imagine that is correct. Hopefully we will get some more answers next week as she starts visiting the various governmental offices, and the dirt road will turn out to be government owned.

• Don't be overly concerned in itself that other people didn't buy it. You have very different requirements to local buyers, who will judge it for example on the availability of water for agriculture, and not -for example- how pretty it is and that it has nice views.
• Electricity availability is important, but this is just a matter of establishing the distance to the nearest connection. Based on that you get a fee that you pay for getting connected. How much your neighbours paid is not relevant, it's relevant how far it is from your land to the neighbours.
• Getting water is a puzzling statement: land in the boonies (or even villages in the boonies) will not have a municipal water supply. In almost all cases this means getting a well, pump, storage tank (on a tower preferably), etc. Ground water access is where the geological survey could come in, though if your land is situated similarly to your neighbours then it will likely be the same in how deep you go to get water.
• Not knowing who owns the road to access the plot however is a MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR red flag. Please stop doing anything else until you figure this out. First of all figure out if it is a public road or not. Even if it's not then the owner of that land can still guarantee your access (in an official document). Personally though I would want my land to be accessible on a public road, and then ideally with lots of meters facing the road. Public roads also tend to get paved eventually, but if someone else owns that road then they're not required to do anything with it and you don't want to do a 4x4 Camel Trophy trial every time you go to Big C.

With the land not being the regular moo ban plot surrounded by countless other houses, where one can at least assume that everything important is in order, and it already having been for sale for a while with no buyer, I think it will also be important to, once Mrs. Awk to the best of her abilities, has determined everything seems to be in order, including that connecting to electricity and city water is not cost prohibitive, have a decent lawyer review everything again.

I have not previously had a good reason to contact a lawyer, but many here seem to recommend a particular lawyer at 29 Tanin, so will try her first, unless others have some other recommendations.

I would only use a lawyer if you have a legal matter to settle. Looking at your water or electricity supply really isn't a lawyer's job. Possibly obtaining guaranteed road access to your land from a person owning the road/land in front of it would be, though this is also a common transaction.

Either way a lawyer is no substitute for first-hand knowledge when it comes to these matters.

Go figure out if your land has public road access. It matters a lot more than arranging electricity, digging a well or doing geological or legal surveys. I'm guessing actually that it doesn't, or else the chanote document would mention it. And this could actually be the reason others didn't buy it; also for agriculture you want to be able to get your produce out.

The dirt road that provides access to the land is unfortunately owned by two other owners. Our real estate agent, who I have grown to slightly trust, or at least, not actively distrust any longer, as I would most of his ilk, has had a talk with these owners today. They have said they won't have any problem going with us to the land office, should the day come when we will really buy the land, and officially give us the necessary right of way permission. Them both being relatives of the owner of the land we are looking at, and thus also having his best interests in mind I would hope, this is perhaps true and no problems will unexpectedly materialise on the final day.

It is however an unpleasant and non-trivial complication in my worry wart mind, of course. Nonetheless it seemed to become quickly resolved, at least apparently so, when we said there was no point for us in checking other things before an answer to this problem could be found. As we are told the story, these people have owned this land, divided into several plots, for many, many, generations, and are part of the same family. If so, I can understand that this has never been thought of as a problem before and they think of the dirt-track as a common road for them all.

An immensely better solution, first suggested by our agent, would be if we could purchase the last end of land from one of the two other owners whos plots provide the dirt road used to access the land we are looking at. This would provide much better and more direct access to "our" land, yet constitute a fairly small part of the other plot, and that part being at the very end of the other plot I think. Unfortunately the other owners are not currently interested in selling their land, and if they sell that small plot at the end to us, they might need to get a right of access permission from us instead, to access their own land (not sure, will have to go back and check the land again to see). Not that we will mind providing that access of course, but I can understand that not being in their best interest unless we paid a lot extra for that small plot. Will see how this idea goes.

The problem about electricity is that the closest neighbour paid 1M for it a handfull years back. This was probably mainly because he had to install and purchase his own transformer, for some reason. As I understand it, this should only be necessary if he for some reason was fed high voltage from the power company, rather than the regular low 230 voltage the rest of us are getting in to our house, though I'm not an EE so not sure how this works. Why this was necessary I do not yet know, but it is of course something it is necessary to find out, too see if it will apply to us also.

Unfortunately, this neighbour paid roughly the same amount, 1M, for the water. He naturally indicated the expense would depend much on what quality of water we wanted. I guess the quality of his water is quite good, pumped up from 90 meters and passing through four filters. He thought it may now be possible to connect to city water, as of half a year ago or so, but was not sure, so want to check that also of course.

An additional 2M in costs would change the desirability of this land very much, so I would obviously like to be certain the costs for us will be more reasonable than the costs our possible future neighbour incurred some 5-6 years ago. That, or we may have to live in a large tent on that land for many years to come, while I continue slaving and earning money on various off-shore contracts.

There unfortunately seems to be a fair amount of things to check and verify here, which is one of the reasons we were looking for an already built house initially. The land is however also unusually nice and and well priced, much better than anything else we have seen these last 3-4 months since we started looking. The closest thing we saw before this was a single-floor 3BR house on almost 200 TW, next to a river, located roughly between Central Festival and Promenada. Unfortunately, we would like at least two more bedrooms, otherwise we might have tried for that house. If anybody else might be interested in that house, I can perhaps put you in touch with our agent. Price was about 3.5M.

As a right of access permission now appears to at least be likely, we will continue checking the other things. And since the geological survey I would like to have done, at least on one part of the land (presumably roughly in the middle of where the house will stand), is not exactly free either, right to access can hopefully be formalised before paying for the survey, perhaps as the last step before paying for the land. Unless there is a non-symbolic cost involved in this, I do not see any reason why this can not be formalised as soon as possible, as even if we do not buy the land, other prospective buyers would presumably request it.

Many thanks to you and the other members who have provided insightful comments and suggestions so far. It is much appreciated.

With kind regards, a very novice land-buyer.

Are you aware of these facts?

A farang may own the following types of properties:

1) a condominium.

2) a house as a structure, having no interest on the land on which it sits

3) one rai (or less) of land, provided at least 40 million baht is brought into the country, and permission is obtained from the Minister of the Interior.

4) If purchase of the land is bought under a registered company that meets all the imposed requirements of the foreigner business and company acts.

Yes, thank you. Though I am unsure about whether 3) has ever been granted, in the entire lifetime of that law.

Thanks for the interest. The main plot of the land has a proper paper (Chanote/Nor Sor 4), and is in a fairly even rectangular shape. The land without paper is a small plot extending on one side, which I think is of little consequence, except that I am not interested in paying anything extra for it, and as far as I am concerned, is not part of the deal.

Aside from that I think we have to be extra careful here, as the land has apparently been for sale for many years already, yet it looks like quite a good deal to me, so I am not sure why nobody has snapped it up before. When we visited again yesterday, we also saw a Thai couple looking at it.

The land is a bit out in the wilderness, and as-is I can understand that not everybody may want to stay there. One of the neighbours paid a very hefty sum in order to get electricity and water (a well was the only option at that time, but he thinks that particular aspect may have improved recently). Also not yet sure who owns the dirt-road used to access this plot, and the 2-3 surrounding plots. Mrs. Awk says "nobody" owns it, but I can't imagine that is correct. Hopefully we will get some more answers next week as she starts visiting the various governmental offices, and the dirt road will turn out to be government owned.

With the land not being the regular moo ban plot surrounded by countless other houses, where one can at least assume that everything important is in order, and it already having been for sale for a while with no buyer, I think it will also be important to, once Mrs. Awk to the best of her abilities, has determined everything seems to be in order, including that connecting to electricity and city water is not cost prohibitive, have a decent lawyer review everything again.

I have not previously had a good reason to contact a lawyer, but many here seem to recommend a particular lawyer at 29 Tanin, so will try her first, unless others have some other recommendations.

I don't think anything is cheaper in Singapore.

Some years ago, some top of the line motorcycle helmets (Shoei, Arai, etc.) cost twice as much in Thailand. 20,000B vs 10,000B. Perhaps still the case, but I don't know.

Notwithstanding the response from the local village idiot, if somebody has compared the price of the same brand of good quality suitcases in the different countries, perhaps he would be able to answer intelligently, rather than talking about pieces of string. Lack of local market/competition and special taxes make some imported things very expensive here.

To all most some of the other members: many thanks. One respectable member messaged me in private that he hopes to find the contact info for somebody who can examine the soil properly, having previously having had that done himself. In case he does not manage to find that info, contact info from other members would sure be appreciated, if anyone has it.

Thanks.

Fortunately the info from the previously mentioned highly respected member still worked, though the company had changed name.

Price was a bit more than I hoped, quoted at 15,000B per drilling, and with at least two drillings at different places recommended. So that's something I will put of for last, when everything else, which can be checked much cheaper, has been found to be in proper order. That being mainly connecting to the power grid, water, access to land, and land papers of course. The latter appears to be mostly in order, but one small section at the end of one side, which I at first thought was not part of the plot, is supposedly part of the plot, but with "no paper".

I am assured by the Thais involved none of this will be any problem, not even the paper-less land, but being a worry wart personality that has strong control freak flare- ups (thanks for that free diagnosis. Was worth every penny), Mrs. Awk will have to check this for herself with the relevant departments, hopefully getting a written quote too if that is possible. While the land area without paper is not a deal-breaker if not included, I cannot imagine paying any money for that land either. Hopefully it will be possible to get papers for that section also without too much cost.

A worry is also flooding, and the dirt road that provides access to the land. I might have to exchange the Bentley for a 4wd pickup, as strongly recommended by the neighbour who could not imagine us accessing the land during the rain season with our current mode of transportation.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far.

Land and house?

Under the current old fashioned criminal Thai law foreigners in Thailand can certainly pay for any land however you will never own or control that land...

So in case you like to donate your investment over to your wife go for it.I sure have many nice land plots out there..

If that is not your plan then better start looking for condos freehold and can in the name of the person who puts the money on the table !

Actually I am planing to put the land in the dogs name.

To all most some of the other members: many thanks. One respectable member messaged me in private that he hopes to find the contact info for somebody who can examine the soil properly, having previously having had that done himself. In case he does not manage to find that info, contact info from other members would sure be appreciated, if anyone has it.

Thanks.

first stop is to pick up a flood plane map from the local ampur for the area, then look at zoning (ampur has access to this also) for the area of intrest. water, electric avaliablity, airport, schools hospital, temple near by etc.

good luck

Thank you for the tips. Hopefully I will in the not to distant future be asking for tips on a good building crew. :-)

Hi. We've been looking around the last few months for either a house, or land to build house on, and have now found what looks like a nice plot of land.

I wonder if any members can recommend some competent people/businesses who can help us evaluate how well the land is suited for building a house?

"sister high up in the government helps too."

Really, don't brag that your wife's sister is a security at a local amphur. No one gives a crap.

If she isn't mayor or governor, which she isn't, then she isn't high up anything.

I hate braggards, especially when it has nothing to do with anything. Unless you are admitting on a public forum that your in law is corrupt and uses her power to get her family advantage.

Besides that bosting on your part how succesful a wife you have, the story is great. Just because there are morons on here that tear you down, you don't need to inflate your ego or situation by boasting.

Why do guys need to give their wive's resume to justify the validity of their relationship?

While I agree with you in general, I think those statements are misplaced in this story. Rather the op was honest and indicated his own wife was not "high up", and thus negotiations were better done by somebody other than his own wife. It just added a little to a slightly amusing story and is nothing to berate the op with. Best of luck to him with the new land.

http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/ This place will cost 2500 Baht per a person, but in my opinion is the best place to go to see elephants. You do not get to ride them but spend a full day interacting and observing them. They also treat the animals much better than the majority of places.

This is the place I also went to many years ago. While I do not remember the prices, I do remember it was the most expensive. So what made us go there was that I read some good things about this place, including that they take care of the animals well, are run by a person that seems to have the animals best interest in mind, and the money is used for taking care of the animals, and not for profit.

That was my impression then. Not sure if it was right then, or now. Perhaps the OP, if interested, will do his own research and report back. Thinking about making another trip to such a place in the near future, so also interested in what place would be best to go to.

No meter is my experience also, though my experience is that the price is fair also, relative to CM's red bus and tuk-tuks. Slightly more expensive than a red bus, depending on how much time you want to spend haggling for the cheapest fare with various red bus drivers. On the plus side, you get picked up at your door, sit in a normal car with AC, don't waste time haggling over the price with various drivers passing by, and no detours to pick up unknown passengers.

053 262 878 is the number I've used for going to the airport. I also have another number, used for going other places: 053 279 291 (Taxi Lanna I've written this down as). Possibly Taxi Lanna only operates during the day, which is why I have had to use the other number also. I might remember this wrong though.

In all cases a driver has turned up on time, or even 10-15m before. No complaints from me regarding CM's taxis.

Some keep missing the point others have made. It's not offensive in general (all by itself) but is offensive to many (including yourself, obviously, and even to me to some degree) who have at least a reasonable understanding of what Hitler and the Nazis preached and did;

And for the N'th time..

Ignorance is sort of fogiveable.. Tho preferable would be for them to get the education..

Ignorance on the part of educators.. Is far more of a problem.. Teachers, in an english language catholic school should know far better.

Indeed, teachers should obviously know better. How else can they teach? With teachers as ignorant as those at the Chiang Mai Sacred Heart school have shown themselves to be, I would not trust them to learn my child what two plus two equals. I can only wonder where they found such bums. A parade like they did is so far out there in "how stupid can you get?"-lalaland it is difficult to believe.

There is however not much point in being offended by the motorcycle sticker in OP I think. In all likelihood the motorcycle owners teachers were ignorant on the subject and did not teach it, so why should he as a student know any better, unless he had a special interest in history? I'm sure he just thought the sticker looked cool, and one can see his point. If one can ignore what the picture depicts, it does look cool.

If it was a friend of mine, I'd show him some videos and pictures, and educate him a little on the meaning of the symbols on the sticker. Any person of normal intelligence would then remove the sticker himself. Offending through ignorance is not a serious crime in my book, unless it is your job to not be ignorant, of course.

They also have a small outlet at Central Festival, by the entrance to the supermarket. Has tables and chairs, but not all that comfortable or well placed, which is a pity as the location is nice.

Thanks to everyone who kindly replied. I went to Pantip and found a guy to help me.

Just curious, but who was that?

I posted a recommendation here some years ago for a guy in Pantip Plaza. He fixed a laptop for me, at the cost of 1000B or something. That same laptop I had brought with me to Beijing, China, where I at the time was working on rotation (in/out of Thailand every month) for a very large company. A manager at that company called up Lenovo and asked them about it, and they seemed happy to send somebody to my office to have a look. The Lenovo guy took the laptop with him, and returned a day or two later I think, saying it could not be fixed without an expensive motherboard replacement or something like that. But that guy at Pantip fixed it while I waited, explained what the problem was, and the laptop worked fine until some years later it developed a completely unrelated problem. I was more than a little impressed.

I've ordered tickets online departing from CNX before without problems. Perhaps it was a temporary error? I just tried CNX - SYD now on the Thai air website, leaving Dec 15, returning Jan 06. Routed via BKK and a total of 41,750 with taxes.

A tip may be that sometimes cheaper airlines have a codeshare with Thai air. Last time I flew away for work, I ordered on the website of an european airline that serves the country I was flying to. That european airline has the usual crappy service most european airlines have (not that I consider Thai to be great, but it is a step above most european carriers IMO), but from past experience I knew they only fly to Thailand some part of the year, while the rest they codeshare with Thai, so you end up flying Thai instead. Price was about 70% that of Thai. Guess the chance of this applying to a given destination is pretty small though.

Also remember to check out the promotions on their webpages. Usually the duration of the trip is too short for me, but now and then I luck out. Don't think you can order them and start in CNX though, so will have to order the CNX - BKK leg separately.

Referring to the recent post in the CM news forum regarding a new highway to Lampun possibly going through a residential area, where can one find information about such plans? I.e., before buying house/land, that's one of the things I'd like to check. Obviously things can change, but if already there are plans for a highway a stone throw away, then that is obviously a place one can cross of the list.

Many thanks to all for the helpful posts.

If my understanding is correct, cracks like these are not a serious problem as the walls are not intended to carry load. It is mostly expected here, but can to some extent be avoided if the house is built properly, perhaps particularly with regards to compacting the ground firmly before laying the foundation.

In my opinion compacting the soil has nothing to do with it, as a house in Thailand is built on footings,columns and beams that hold the construction, and can you imagine a compacted soil that doesn't drops even 1 cm over the years? So if the soil under your floor base drops 1 cm it has the same effect as a soil that drops 10 cm, e.g. there is empty space between.

Most important in a built in Thailand are the size, space, amount and depth of the footings.

Thank you, that also makes sense. I assume the factors you mention would depend on various things, including not only the house that is to be built on top, but also the soil the footings are placed in? If I assume that your opinion is that many of these problems are caused by errors in the factors you mention, then I guess many of the people who create the footings do it wrong. Any tips for how to find somebody who knows how to do it correct, especially in the north/Chiang Mai area? Or is it something we can not expect in our price class (e.g., for a house that costs 2-3M to build, excluding the price of land)?

Many thanks to all for the helpful posts.

If my understanding is correct, cracks like these are not a serious problem as the walls are not intended to carry load. It is mostly expected here, but can to some extent be avoided if the house is built properly, perhaps particularly with regards to compacting the ground firmly before laying the foundation.