How to check the apartment ownership

[Rob21]

Hi there,

 

Since I think I am in the middle of a scam, I would like to check the apartment ownership of my rental place before paying the rent.

 

Thus, how I can check the apartment ownership of my rental place in order to avoid paying the rent to somebody else.

 

Thanks.

[northsouthdevide]

You can hire a lawyer to enquire at the land office. 

The one sure thing about this country is nobody can keep a secret, so all info is easy to obtain. 

[Swimfan]

May be existing tenant is trying to sublet it and keep the rent,

[Ron Kumpuy]

it is good to check it first.

 

Ask for ownership document which called Chanote in Thai from landlord or real estate agent. look at the back page it will tell who is the owner. pay attention as the condo might be resold over and over and get very messy. the last row should be the name of the owner.

 

Another way which is easier, and faster is to check with juristic person in the building. You take landlord name, condo address and confirm with juristic office if it is the owner. Sometimes they dont tell the name, they just confirm as yes or no, so you need to know the name of the landlord.

 

if this still does not sooth you enough. you can go to land department ( it has to be the one which is responsible to the area though, not just any land department branches). You tell them the address and pay for the fee, they will give you the info. Remember this method would require you to communicate in Thai quite well. This way works for both individual owner and company owner.

[LukKrueng]

15 hours ago, northsouthdevide said:

You can hire a lawyer to enquire at the land office. 

The one sure thing about this country is nobody can keep a secret, so all info is easy to obtain. 

No need for a lawyer and it is no a secret - it's public records

 

 

12 hours ago, Ron Kumpuy said:

it is good to check it first.

 

Ask for ownership document which called Chanote in Thai from landlord or real estate agent. look at the back page it will tell who is the owner. pay attention as the condo might be resold over and over and get very messy. the last row should be the name of the owner.

 

Another way which is easier, and faster is to check with juristic person in the building. You take landlord name, condo address and confirm with juristic office if it is the owner. Sometimes they dont tell the name, they just confirm as yes or no, so you need to know the name of the landlord.

 

if this still does not sooth you enough. you can go to land department ( it has to be the one which is responsible to the area though, not just any land department branches). You tell them the address and pay for the fee, they will give you the info. Remember this method would require you to communicate in Thai quite well. This way works for both individual owner and company owner.

The records at the land department go by chanot number, not by address, so in order to check ownership and status of the chanot he'll need a copy of the chanot or at least the chanot number.

 

I think your advise to check with the condo's offices is the best way to do.

 

From the OP it's unclear if he's been renting there for a while already and something now happened to make him suspect there is a scam going on, or if he is about to sign a contract and something feels wrong. If it's the 2nd option - another good solution is to just move on and look for a better place.

[scorecard]

15 hours ago, Ron Kumpuy said:

it is good to check it first.

 

Ask for ownership document which called Chanote in Thai from landlord or real estate agent. look at the back page it will tell who is the owner. pay attention as the condo might be resold over and over and get very messy. the last row should be the name of the owner.

 

Another way which is easier, and faster is to check with juristic person in the building. You take landlord name, condo address and confirm with juristic office if it is the owner. Sometimes they dont tell the name, they just confirm as yes or no, so you need to know the name of the landlord.

 

if this still does not sooth you enough. you can go to land department ( it has to be the one which is responsible to the area though, not just any land department branches). You tell them the address and pay for the fee, they will give you the info. Remember this method would require you to communicate in Thai quite well. This way works for both individual owner and company owner.

"Ask for ownership document which called Chanote in Thai from landlord or real estate agent. look at the back page it will tell who is the owner. " 

 

Yes but as mentioned later in the message the only way to be sure is to see / photo the original held at the land title office.

 

MAny folks have ben caught before by unethical sellers showing prospective buyers a copy of an old and no longer valid copy of the chanute.

 

When my son got erious about buying 2 plots of land in a new moo baan in Chiang Mai he asked the marketing manager to show him the chanute. The guy was insulted and said so with the line 'you don't trust me?'

 

Son did his detective work and found the name of the actual owner of the land plots, son visited the buy who was very cooperative and he went with my son the the land title office but didn't mention who he was.

 

Son was satisfied, owner in fact thanked my son for being professional and polite. Next time my son visited the sales office, maybe 2 days later, the sales manager quickly said to my son, 'if you like I will arrange for you to go to the land office with the owner to check the name on the chanute'. Obviously the actual land owner had instructed the marketing guy to use this line as a way to prove the professionalism of the sale of the land plots/the development. Quickly every plot was sold. 

[Rob21]

Thank you very much for all useful information.

 

I would like to share my story with you as follows:

 

I signed a 6-month rental contract with an agent (individual person) for an apartment in a condo and regularly paid the rent to the agent's bank account (fortunately keeping all bank receipts). 

 

Recently, I received a message under my door stating that "you have to contact the owner of your property" indicating a telephone number to call. I did so, and the main points of the conversation was that the agent is sick and you should pay the rent to my bank account (the presumed owner). In retrospective, the agent before disappearing asked me to pay the monthly rent one week in advance than the due date and I did so. Then no answer to any call or message. After receiving money he became sick, very strange. I have seen from the beginning that the agent was very hungry of money asking me many times to pay 6 rental months in advance with a discount, which I refused. I though he has some financial problems or something like that.. 

 

Talking with the presumed owner, she did not know the length of my contract, when starts and when ends. She did not know if I paid the last rent or not, so she asked me the last bank receipt for the rent payment. She did not know anything. Afterwards, I asked in which hospital the agent is, she did not know; she told me: he is in ICU (no visit allows or checking, but did not know the hospital). The other element suspicious that the presumed owner told me (without asking) I do not live in your city (meaning we cannot meet up).

 

Now the presumed owner asked me to pay the rent to her bank account. So the bank account and the person name where I should send the money are different from the ones stated in my rental contract. I never met the presumed owner and I do not have any idea who she is. I really concern of the legitimate title of this person. I cannot pay to someone that I do not know.

 

How I may come out from this situation? What I should do to be sure that I pay my rent to the right person and nobody else can ask me more later? For instance checking the ownership of my rental place, asking ID of the owner, sign a new contract directly with this owner, etc.. Please, any advice are very much welcome.

 

Thanks indeed.

[BritManToo]

Just now, Rob21 said:

How I may come out from this situation? What I should do to be sure that I pay my rent to the right person and nobody else can ask me more later? For instance checking the ownership of my rental place, asking ID of the owner, sign a new contract directly with this owner, etc.. Please, any advice are very much welcome.

Ask the condo office/manager who owns the condo and who to pay.

[Ron Kumpuy]

On 5/2/2020 at 8:35 AM, LukKrueng said:

On 5/1/2020 at 8:14 PM, Ron Kumpuy said:

it is good to check it first.

 

Ask for ownership document which called Chanote in Thai from landlord or real estate agent. look at the back page it will tell who is the owner. pay attention as the condo might be resold over and over and get very messy. the last row should be the name of the owner.

 

Another way which is easier, and faster is to check with juristic person in the building. You take landlord name, condo address and confirm with juristic office if it is the owner. Sometimes they dont tell the name, they just confirm as yes or no, so you need to know the name of the landlord.

 

if this still does not sooth you enough. you can go to land department ( it has to be the one which is responsible to the area though, not just any land department branches). You tell them the address and pay for the fee, they will give you the info. Remember this method would require you to communicate in Thai quite well. This way works for both individual owner and company owner.

The records at the land department go by chanot number, not by address, so in order to check ownership and status of the chanot he'll need a copy of the chanot or at least the chanot number.

you can check even though you dont have any copy. Fill in info-requesting form and pay fee, and you will get a copy of Chanote. 

 

For condo, title deed number is the address of the unit. 

 

Hence, you only need to know building name, room address and floor, then you all set.  

[LukKrueng]

48 minutes ago, Ron Kumpuy said:

you can check even though you dont have any copy. Fill in info-requesting form and pay fee, and you will get a copy of Chanote. 

 

For condo, title deed number is the address of the unit. 

 

Hence, you only need to know building name, room address and floor, then you all set.  

My bad. Checked many chanots for land parcels but never looked closely at a condo's chanot (until just now...).

for a condo the actual chanot number is for the building (on the top left) - so the chanot number for all condos in the building is the same, but the house number + room number are mentioned on the chanot as well (top right).

so yes, the land office should be able to find the chanot by the building address and room number.

 

[scorecard]

 

Do you pay by cash or electronically. If electronically (much more preferable) then you have a record of what bank account has actually received your payments. 

 

Perhaps this information is important to establishing whether the owner* is receiving the rent payments. (*When you do establish clearly who the owner is.)

[markeewan]

My experience with going through an agent and the renter paying them directly is that the agent is skimming some off the top.

 

For example, the owner wants 8000 baht per month for the condo, the agent will tell the renter it is 8500 baht per month and they will pocket the 500 baht per month and just remit the 8000 baht to the owner.

 

So not only does the agent get paid one month's rent from the owner, they also get 500 baht/month from the person renting the condo.

[Rob21]

Thanks everybody for very useful comments...

 

So, I will go first to the condo office/manager to figure it out.

 

Thanks very much.