Trang: Anantara property demolition begins after court order

[webfact]

Anantara property demolition begins after court order

By The Nation

 

 

Anantara Hotel has started to demolish its property following a Supreme Court ruling this month that the property encroached on the Chao Mai National Park Trang province and the adjacent forest reserve.

 

The director of Protected Areas Office Region 5, Opad Nilmungsor, went to observe the site on Saturday and learned that the hotel had finished demolishing at least three buildings in the compound.

 

He told Thai PBS that the National Parks Department, which won the case, had no idea when demolition of all the properties in the compound would be completed. So the department had filed a plea with the court to enforce the execution so that the work could be finished soon.

 

The hotel had a land-use document for at least 37 rai but the court ruled that it was a fake document and the area in fact was a part of the national park.

 

Opas said the department would have to wait for the court’s order to expedite the demolition work.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30363023

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-01-28

[YetAnother]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

The hotel had a land-use document for at least 37 rai but the court ruled that it was a fake document and the area in fact was a part of the national park.

seems to thais, encroachment is only 'wrong' when the supreme court says it is

[laocowboy2]

Anantara-owned? Or just Anantara-managed? If the latter, the encroaching was by the property 'owner'.

[Trang Farmer]

The property had changed hands several times before it reached Minor Group who obtained it when they took over the Anantara company. The hotel was there for decades. Whether the owners at the time of building knew they were committing an offence, or if it was just a plan between local officials and the original local landowner to get money from foreigners, we can only guess

[Stocky]

It was a great little resort, family had several enjoyable holidays there. The actual encroachment on the mangroves and protected forest was minimal, a far better solution would have been a land swap; the hotel buying an equivalent parcel of land identified by the forestry department as suitable for incorporation into the national park. 

 

But just emphasises the need to conduct a thorough due diligence. When MHG bought the property back in 2008 they failed to properly check the validity of the land ownership documents, which proved to be forgeries (or fraudulent).