This is my buying thai property story. It was such a hugely stressful situation that just thinking about thailand makes me stressed and I would never ever go back.

1./ Purchased a property (3.2mill) under leasehold (Kamala , Phuket) and then the land owner tried to kick me out due to a management dispute. The dispute was over the fact that she had suddenly decided that she wanted back in the property management game and told everyone she was now taking over managing the entire estate. Apparently in the past she had managed it and it was a total nightmare. The current management company was Knight Frank. I received legal letter (along with the rest of the owners) telling us to vacate immediately as well as lots of other crap that would come up all the time. She forced us all in to a court dispute.

2./ Management dispute dragged on for years resulting in the end that grounds and pool no longer being maintained. There was also many little things like access to the power meters being cut off so no one could check if we were paying the correct amount.

3./ Management dispute eventually resolved by a payout to landowner. I think it was like 3 years long in total the total dispute and cost me 250,000thb

4./ As soon as this was all resolved , I'd had enough and put the place on the market for 3mill. I got talked into a huge discount of 2.4mill and was just so tired I took the offer. The agent recommended a lawyer whom he said his firm gave a lot of work to. It's always these little things that screw you over in hindsight. So the lawyer did the deal and then basically kept my money. Every week was another excuse. The main two were: New thai laws make it hard to get the money out of the country AND Bank requires more information. It dragged on and on. Eventually I complained to the agent and he let it slip he had another customer who never got there money from him. Damn, information I would have liked to have known a long time ago. I immediately contacted my original law firm who did the purchase and appointed them to take the dodgy lawyer to court. When I informed my dodgy lawyer about this he said I was stupid and this would only add more time. The new lawyer asked the dodgy lawyer  to transfer the money to them immediately and his reply was that he needed to have a meeting first (which he delayed time and time again). He eventually admitted he didnt know where the money was and that he had a plan try and find it. What it seems was really happening was that he used it on another property deal. My new lawyer took the case to the Thai Law board or whatever its called in order to have him disbarred. He shat himself and said he’d need 30 days and he’d have it. So after 10 months of stress I got the money.

 

The lawyer that really saved the day was on

JPK Counsel Company Limited -  big firm with 3 offices and roughly 3 times the price of other lawyers I got quoted.

 

Question : Am I allowed to post the details of the dodgy lawyer here ?

 

 

Name & Shame is NOT permitted.

 

Thank you.

 

6) You will not post comments that could be reasonably construed as defamation or libel.

Defamation is the issuance of a statement about another person or business which causes that person to suffer harm. It does not have to be false to be defamatory. Libel is when the defamatory statement is published either in a drawing, painting, cinematography, film, picture or letters made visible by any means, or any other recording instruments, recording picture or letters, or by broadcasting or spreading picture, or by propagation by any other means. Defamation is both a civil and criminal charge in Thailand.

 What a nightmare for you, however you did eventually get your money back even though it was a reduced amount, but no amount of money can make up for the stress, in my opinion.

 

I have friends to whom this has happened, not only with crooked deals and crooked lawyers, but also buying condos which have no end of problems with leaking and cracking et cetera, some after being built for seven years or more.

 

That is why I have always railed against owning property here in Thailand because so much is stacked against you and often remedial actions are not available or are expensive.

 

If you choose to stay here then find a nice place to rent, and if you have any problems with it, then you simply move out to another one.

What were the lessons learnt? What would you have done differently?

What would i have done differently:

Rent !!! I really regret buying. rentals are cheap and you can move around.

Concerning the deal : Never ever go with a cheap lawyer. Get a big firm and pay thrice the money and get it done.  

 

For the dodgy lawyer, I will be posting this exact text on my website, so in the future I suggest you try and google search some of the exact text from this post to find it. There wont be any issue of defamation. He was caught red-handed including emails and tape recording from my lawyer when she met with him. He admitted everything. I've emailed all the contacts I know in Phuket to warn them about him. I went through hell for like 6 months chasing the money. FYI once my new law (JPK Counsel Company) got the money, I received it 3 days later. So from the get go his excuses were all bs.

Lawyers huh....thieves and liars all of em. Lucky you at least got some back

Wondering why the lawyer ever received funds to his name rather than you getting them direct.

(not pointing out possible mistakes to criticise just trying to help others avoid.)

I have also always researched parties involved to make sure say a condo building (or in your case moo bahn) has a history of running properly and the finances are in order.

 

What I don’t understand is that in your point No 1 you say you “purchased a property” - which you actually never did if I read that right ?

You purchased a lease not a property.

 

Which means somebody else owned the property in the first place or at least the land this property is on.

 

Which is something one should never ever do in Thailand unless the legal property owner is your family here and you trust them.

 

There is just too many crooks around here and specially in Phuket to hand over 3.2 million baht for something you don’t really own.

 

It’s like handing them 3.2 million in rent advance and then they kick you out and you try to get your money back - which could have made you roughly 70.000 baht in interest a year even at the lousy fixed deposit rates currently.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

 

 

8 hours ago, boonrawdcnx said:

What I don’t understand is that in your point No 1 you say you “purchased a property” - which you actually never did if I read that right ?

You purchased a lease not a property.

Yes. Leases in Thailand appear to offer nothing but disadvantages for buyers. I doubt that the OP would have suffered any of those problems had be bought freehold.

12 hours ago, KittenKong said:

Yes. Leases in Thailand appear to offer nothing but disadvantages for buyers. I doubt that the OP would have suffered any of those problems had be bought freehold.

Which of course he can't do (apart from the 40 million baht exception), so the merry-go-round goes on.

21 hours ago, xylophone said:

Which of course he can't do (apart from the 40 million baht exception), so the merry-go-round goes on.

Condo purchase would be possible, and even company-name purchase of a house would be more appealing to me than leasehold purchase (not that I would do either).

 

Phuket has a lot of leasehold property, unlike Pattaya which has very little.

On 10/1/2018 at 3:20 AM, andyexp said:

There wont be any issue of defamation.

As many have found to their cost, the truth is no defence against defamation in Thailand. Please be very careful if you are planning on returning to Thailand at any stage. 

1 hour ago, KittenKong said:

Condo purchase would be possible, and even company-name purchase of a house would be more appealing to me than leasehold purchase (not that I would do either).

 

Phuket has a lot of leasehold property, unlike Pattaya which has very little.

Yes, a condo purchase would work, but as has already been discussed at length on another thread, the company name purchase whereby the company's sole purpose is to "own" the property, is illegal and although a lawyer may do it for you, you do stand a chance of losing it...…….very risky given what is happening around the place now.

I am sad for your loss of money and the stress this must have caused you.

Buying property in Thailand for a foreigner does not need to be a nightmare.

Do your homework on the seller and the lawyer and best use a lawyer by way of recommendation from someone who has used them.

The way around this type of thing is to have a sales contract that is in English or your home language and Thai and it must cover everything.

The sale of the house can go in your name 100 per cent so if 4million that is what you pay.

2.8m for the house 120k for the lease which is a paid up lease 30 years 4000 a year

within contract it can include guarantee to transfer and renew lease at the same price

the seller has to have in the contract undertakings to have a will for themselves to enable the contract to be executed without hindrance the buyer must do a will at the same time listing who they leave the house and right of succession to.

the house sale and lease must be registered at the land office.

The supreme court of Thailand enforces real agreements that are made within the law.

The key is make sure you know what you are doing if not dont do it!!!

 

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