Safety requirements in residential condo building not met

[zappalot]

Would the government shut down a building mixed residential / commercial in case certain safety standards are not be met such as no water hoses in fire cabinets or no water at all available in fire cabinets and many other issues? I mean I never heard of such a case in Thailand.

 

In the building we have an apartment such issues are to be found just everywhere. Unfortunately the district office responsible doesn't care if a foreigner is complaining about such issues. 

 

But when it was mentioned in the Line group of Co-owners that the government would be informed a committee member replied then the government would set a deadline to fix the issues within 30 or 60 days and if the deadline would not be met they would shut down the building and let the people move out.

 

Question is if he just want to scare people from taking action. What is for sure that the committee would not start to take action to solve the problems.

 

Furthermore it would be interesting to know if anyone can recommend a real estate experienced attorney...

[stupidfarang]

just sell, most likly easier in the long run

[cheeryble]

It is a legal requirement for the building to be surveyed by a qualified surveyor yearly.

Previous surveys should be available

[zappalot]

16 minutes ago, cheeryble said:

It is a legal requirement for the building to be surveyed by a qualified surveyor yearly.

Previous surveys should be available

As mentioned in my first post the committee doesn't care about any regulations, requirements or laws. Neither does the responsible district authority

[OneZero]

Shouldn't the city have an office to report discrepancies to? What about going to "City Hall" & discussing with the "Envronment Safety & Health" POC. Or is that the office you already said ...Doesn't Care?

[digger70]

On 5/25/2020 at 12:46 PM, cheeryble said:

It is a legal requirement for the building to be surveyed by a qualified surveyor yearly.

Previous surveys should be available

Sure Fudged Reports.

[MadMuhammad]

You can try to sue but I have a friend now entering his 10th year of legal action against a clearly dodgy developer with majority voting power with approx 20% of the co-owners backing him. 
it hasn’t been an enjoyable experience 

[jojothai]

You are likely to drive yourself daft if you think you will change anything quickly.

If you want to get the committee and juristic person to take notice then you need to get them concerned about who will be liable if there is a serious incident, and get that formally notified to them with your warnings of why they are not complying with requirements. If you can be sure of what the requirements are?

An attorney may not be able to help much to change the situation but may advise you how to best get that documented and recorded so it may prompt their concern.

If the people dont want to know then its unlikely anything will be done until there is an incident.

The other way to approach the situation is to take over management of the condo by getting the backing of enough co-owners. Then you get control of addressing the issue. This could take you a few years minimum.

Ultimately its likely to be very hard for you to do much about the situation.

Bear in mind that many other condos may have a similar issue. Safety certificates may mean nothing.

If you consider that it is a major and serious risk then you should consider what may be the simplest solution of getting out, as suggested by stupidfarang in earlier post.

 

[Yellowtail]

write  a few registered letters, wait a month to see if any action is taken and then send another registered letter telling them you will quit paying until they get it fixed.

[geisha]

I went up to the 8 th floor pool in my condo.Spent an hour or two swimming, chatting with my neighbor. Got to the lift, doesn’t work. Ok, so we walk down the stairs. Floor 7 to floor 2, the doors were locked , luckily the ground floor one was open. I went straight away to the office to tell them. An office girl got very annoyed with me, didn’t want to know, and ended up practically shooing me away shouting ok ok. I had been perfectly polite . Went to my rooms, took a shower, had my coffee, went back out later to eat , checked the floors again, nothing had been done. I called the main office in Pattaya the next morning and the lady was suitably shocked and got the doors opened 30 mins later. That was one of the reasons I moved out. 

[mmail2you]

On 5/27/2020 at 5:57 AM, geisha said:

I went up to the 8 th floor pool in my condo.Spent an hour or two swimming, chatting with my neighbor. Got to the lift, doesn’t work. Ok, so we walk down the stairs. Floor 7 to floor 2, the doors were locked , luckily the ground floor one was open. I went straight away to the office to tell them. An office girl got very annoyed with me, didn’t want to know, and ended up practically shooing me away shouting ok ok. I had been perfectly polite . Went to my rooms, took a shower, had my coffee, went back out later to eat , checked the floors again, nothing had been done. I called the main office in Pattaya the next morning and the lady was suitably shocked and got the doors opened 30 mins later. That was one of the reasons I moved out. 

If they were fire stairs you walked down they are suppose to be only accessible from the floors to go into fire stairs, People  are not able to exit onto the floors except for ground floor.

[scorecard]

On 5/25/2020 at 4:04 PM, zappalot said:

As mentioned in my first post the committee doesn't care about any regulations, requirements or laws. Neither does the responsible district authority

 

So the OP trying to force any action is just wasted time, headaches, money and possibly will create tensions which would be difficult to manage. all the more reason to learn, sell and move on to better things.

 

Good luck.

[scorecard]

On 5/27/2020 at 5:57 AM, geisha said:

I went up to the 8 th floor pool in my condo.Spent an hour or two swimming, chatting with my neighbor. Got to the lift, doesn’t work. Ok, so we walk down the stairs. Floor 7 to floor 2, the doors were locked , luckily the ground floor one was open. I went straight away to the office to tell them. An office girl got very annoyed with me, didn’t want to know, and ended up practically shooing me away shouting ok ok. I had been perfectly polite . Went to my rooms, took a shower, had my coffee, went back out later to eat , checked the floors again, nothing had been done. I called the main office in Pattaya the next morning and the lady was suitably shocked and got the doors opened 30 mins later. That was one of the reasons I moved out. 

Reminds me of a buddy who owned a condo near Silom Road Bkk, committee decided to stop direct employment of office manager and staff, maintenance guys and security guys and hire a condo management company to take care of all of this.

 

A few days later my buddies Thai wife (a lawyer) opened the sliding glass window at lobby counter. Young girl from new management company came quickly to the window and said 'you knock first and wait and do you have an appointment? 

 

Lawyer lady called her husband and called a senior cop who also owned a condo same building and he was at home.

 

They all went to the lobby, snr. cop (in uniform) opened the sliding glass window and said 'bring the manager'. 

 

Snr. cop opened the glass sliding door, young girl again says 'you don't have an appointment'. Two committee members demand the new manger come to the counter, she claims she is too busy but can talk to them about 4.00 pm the next day.

 

A lot more negative incidents in this story, but within a week the snr. cop had contacted all resident owners and all members of the actual owners committee by a letter* under their door to suggest they needed an urgent extraordinary owners meeting. (*the arrogant over-confident new office manager called the snr. cop telling him he was not allowed to put letters under doors or to suggest/organize a meeting. 

 

Moving on, the next Saturday there is a well attended owners meeting, new manager tries to take control of the meeting saying she is the only person who is allowed to talk. She is ignored and most snr. committee member runs the meeting, quickly there is a vote whether to cancel the contact of the outside management company on the spot with an instruction that they leave the premises within 1 hour.

 

All owners vote YES.

 

Snr. cop tells the manager she can go back inside the office for 10 minutes to get her personal belongings accompanied by a committee member and she is banned from taking any documents, and each member of her her staff also accompanied into the office to get their handbags etc. Cop also tells them if they return to the building they will be charged with trespass.

 

Meeting also decides they will return to direct employment and they appoint 2 new committee members to supervise recruitment include the lady lawyer, wife of my buddy and this duty must alternate every 1 year.

 

 

A different example at my old condo in Petchaburi Road, owners gather for the annual general meeting, outside contracted accountant distributes copies of annual income and expenses etc.

 

A new owner reads it and says to the accountant 'do you have proof of actual payment of these expenses', acct. avoids a direct answer.

 

New owner says 'OK I will insist on just seeing the actual insurance policy on the building and the receipt for the 450,000Baht payment for the current year and I want to see it now and I want to also see the receipts for the building insurance for the past 10 years'.

 

Owners start making a lot of noise also demanding to see the documents. Accountant grabs her bag and flees.

 

Within an hour a committee member has called the insurance company and they confirm they have not received payment of premiums for more than the past 10 years.

 

This was only the building insurance. More checking reveals she has falsified many other payments, and changed amounts on invoices and receipts etc.

 

Police from a special unit called, they find the acct. at her house, she's charged and she is ordered to do 2 years jail and ordered to refund every Baht she has stolen etc., also meaning she has to sell her house and her mothers' house to generate funds to pay it all back. She did actually go to jail for the 2 years. 

 

Snr. cop from outside shares that incidents like this are common and very frequent.