condo still no juristic person but asking management fees

[Frank67]

Our condo in central Pattaya finished with a delay of a few years and receiving the chanote took another two years. Anyway, finally got it last year.

Despite chanotes being distributed we still did not have an owner meeting and therefore did not establish a justistic person according to the law.

The developer nevertheless installed some administration staff who call themselves "juristic office". Now they ask condo owners to pay the management fee on behalf of the development companies name and bank account.
I understand than running and maintaining the condo costs money and I am more than willing to pay for it, BUT I do not want to encourage the developer to keep control over the project and spend money on his will. There are no publications about what money is spent for and who is going to pay maintenance fee. The developer most likely still holing units and a hotel sharing the facilities makes this even more complex.

I would like to see the owner meetings being held and juristic person elected according to the law and book keeping available to owners.

 

What would you do?

[uncleP]

You need a lawyer.

[kingofthemountain]

The more i read the forum

particularly this part about real estate

the more i am happy to rent my condo (For a ridiculous price)

no any worry, no any bad surprise, free to move in another location

at any moment, aaaahhh it's what i call a nice retirment plan

 

for the OP i feel sorry for you and i wish you good luck

sincerely

[smutcakes]

If there are title deeds issued for units then its already a Juristic Person. There would be a Juristic Person Manager registered when they registered the Condominium Rules and Regulations which are necessary to be a Condominium.

[Mikkihiiri]

Dear Frank67,

 

1 - "smutkakes" is correct. If Chanotes were distributed that means that a Juristic Person was registered at the Land Office and a Juristic Person Manager was registered as well;

 

2 - After that, and by the Condominium Act Section 42, the first AGM (Annual General Meeting) should be done within 6 months. In this first meeting the Committee Members must be elected and so, from that moment on, the Condominium will have a Committee that should meet every month (if possible) and decide about several things like the Maintenance to be done, the monthly Financial Statement, etc.;

 

3 - I have been for more than 11 years in the Committees of 3 Condos, serving a Chairman as well, and I perfectly know what is the Business Model of the Developers. They will drag as much as possible the period during while they will control the Condo for reasons that are easy to understand. The Developer is as strong as the Committee is weak;

 

4 - Another thing to take care and check every month is the Financial Statement but you need to have Accounting skills and to have a strong past experience on the numbers of condo Accounting. I have been a Business Consultant for more than 20 years around Europe and Asia and I can easily spot if the Accounting data of a condo make sense or not;

 

5 - There are more topics to care care and, with a good Lawyer, you have good chances to put the Developer in a corner. I did it 3 times and won.

 

6 - If you have a Management Company and there is not an internal Committee to manage the condo itself the expenses will be terribly high and most of the time unnecessary

 

Having said all that it should take a dozens of emails to explain everything you should take care and to get some knowledge before any moves. It is not an easy ground to move into.

 

If you want to meet for a beer that would be much easier. Even to asses how much is your knowledge of Condo Management. Let me know.

 

TRB

 

[Frank67]

I am locked out from Thailand as may others right now. So unfortunately no chance to share a few beers.

 

Anyway, I understand that a registered juristic person (JP) established by the developer is in place and therefore has the rights of such role.

The only way to change anything is to organize the first owner meeting.

Laws in place to organize such can simply be ignored by the JP and there is no penalty for this. So this part of the law saying it must be organized within 6 month is simply a joke. Law does not name the responsibility nor the consequences. Better see it as a kind recommendation.

 

In short: as long as we owners do not take initiative we will be kicked around and screwed.

[Delight]

 A meeting of the co -owners is essential. All agenda/minutes must be in Thai-English also for convenience.

The purpose of this meeting is to send   an official notice to the current JPM.

The notice details time and place for an Extra General Meeting(EGM)

At this EGM the JPM will be replaced.

You must have a replacement  JPM  available  You must win the vote.A minimum 25% vote in favour is required.

 You also must have a detail of who is going to manage the condo after the change.

 I was the lead man when my building went thru the same process.

Organising both meetings was not too difficult.

Setting things up  post the EGM was very difficult , Why -no money. The developer has no legal requirement to return any monies.

It is a failure of the condo act .When the building achieves Condominium Juristic Person status-then, in my view, a co -owners bank account should be established . Relevant monies from the developer's account should be transferred to this new account

Suspect that  nothing can  happen  for you until things return to normal.

I attach a JPEG giving detail of this first co -owner meeting

 

[smutcakes]

6 hours ago, Frank67 said:

I am locked out from Thailand as may others right now. So unfortunately no chance to share a few beers.

 

Anyway, I understand that a registered juristic person (JP) established by the developer is in place and therefore has the rights of such role.

The only way to change anything is to organize the first owner meeting.

Laws in place to organize such can simply be ignored by the JP and there is no penalty for this. So this part of the law saying it must be organized within 6 month is simply a joke. Law does not name the responsibility nor the consequences. Better see it as a kind recommendation.

 

In short: as long as we owners do not take initiative we will be kicked around and screwed.

 

Frank67, just to give a little bit of the Developer side of the story. Obviously after registering the condo it takes time to transfer the units. Many Co-owners particularly now may not want to transfer or may not be able to transfer, so this process may take many months or even a year or two. Some developers delay the initial General meeting as their simply are not enough Condos being transferred and they would still have a very high % of the vote, which if they did hold the GM it would be a waste of time as their vote would be reduced to the level of other Co-owners who had transferred and it simply would not be possible to do any business or get a quorum to open the meeting.

 

Some developers obviously are crooks, but other ones do have the best interest of the Condo (and themselves) in mind, they do after all need to sell the remaining units and its counter intuitive to make huge issues and reduce the value of their remaining units.

 

The punishments in the Act are really not strong enough, but it would be difficult to ever find a JPM if they were really strong as roles of the JPM are sometimes up to interpretation.

[Cake Monster]

12 minutes ago, smutcakes said:

 

Frank67, just to give a little bit of the Developer side of the story. Obviously after registering the condo it takes time to transfer the units. Many Co-owners particularly now may not want to transfer or may not be able to transfer, so this process may take many months or even a year or two. Some developers delay the initial General meeting as their simply are not enough Condos being transferred and they would still have a very high % of the vote, which if they did hold the GM it would be a waste of time as their vote would be reduced to the level of other Co-owners who had transferred and it simply would not be possible to do any business or get a quorum to open the meeting.

 

Some developers obviously are crooks, but other ones do have the best interest of the Condo (and themselves) in mind, they do after all need to sell the remaining units and its counter intuitive to make huge issues and reduce the value of their remaining units.

 

The punishments in the Act are really not strong enough, but it would be difficult to ever find a JPM if they were really strong as roles of the JPM are sometimes up to interpretation.

Developers delay handing over the Condo or Moo Baan to the residents for as long as possible.

This is in order to extract your Management Fees for doing little as possible for as much reward as possible.

The main issue with Juristic Person is in getting the Residents to be cohesive in doing this.

Many are just out for point scoring, and only have their own interests at heart, and not those f the overall Community.

[smutcakes]

20 minutes ago, Cake Monster said:

Developers delay handing over the Condo or Moo Baan to the residents for as long as possible.

This is in order to extract your Management Fees for doing little as possible for as much reward as possible.

The main issue with Juristic Person is in getting the Residents to be cohesive in doing this.

Many are just out for point scoring, and only have their own interests at heart, and not those f the overall Community.

Some may do but i hardly think when they have plowed 100's of millions into a condo they are going to be going all out to snaffle your 40 baht per sqm. What do you want them to do call an AGM straight after registering when they are the only ones who are owners or a handfull have transferred? Damn if they do damn if they dont.

 

Dont get me wrong there are some wronguns out there but there are two sides to every story.

[Frank67]

Thank you very much for the many helpful replies.

 

I get the clue that the developer also has his difficulties to hand over the management responsibility within the mentioned 6 months.

I can also imagine that many of the owners have no interest at all to get their final legal ownership as they have to pay land office and management fees. Especially those owning a few condos and renting them out over air bnb - probably in trouble now with this business model anyway.

 

Taking a look around at other developments, also from our developer, I must say that we were lucky not loosing our money - our developer failed in the waterfront and other projects.

 

For what ever reason they prefer to behave like a dictatorship. Communication did not happen at all, if so it is and was mainly false information and if you contact them with whatever issue they behave very rude. Customer relationship management is a completely unknown term to them.

 

Unfortunately this is the same for the condo management in place.

Nobody showing interest in what the owners are interested in. Nevertheless they do something, so it could be worse. Ask them about anything they immediately turn aggressive and you may end up with emails threatening you.

If they just did some professional communication and transparency most people as me would probably be OK with it.

 

As the vast majority of foreign owners is locked out it does not make sense to do anything but to wait for borders opening and people returning.

 

This leaves the question: pay management fee now or wait with this as well?

[kingofthemountain]

3 hours ago, Frank67 said:

For what ever reason they prefer to behave like a dictatorship. Communication did not happen at all, if so it is and was mainly false information and if you contact them with whatever issue they behave very rude. Customer relationship management is a completely unknown term to them.

Unfortunately as soon as you bought the condo, they don't consider you anymore like a customer

they see you now like the captive provider you are and it's why they consider they can act in this way

[Frank67]

4 hours ago, kingofthemountain said:

Unfortunately as soon as you bought the condo, they don't consider you anymore like a customer

they see you now like the captive provider you are and it's why they consider they can act in this way

 

Confirmed 100%, I learned this lesson years ago by my own experience.

Overall in this country you better get used to be perceived as a living ATM instead of a guest, customer or whatsoever. Better accept this as a fact.

Still there are good things here to compensate this. So lowering your expectations is the clue to happiness ????

[scubascuba3]

5 hours ago, Frank67 said:

 

Confirmed 100%, I learned this lesson years ago by my own experience.

Overall in this country you better get used to be perceived as a living ATM instead of a guest, customer or whatsoever. Better accept this as a fact.

Still there are good things here to compensate this. So lowering your expectations is the clue to happiness ????

You could fight to get the AGM you want, apply to become a committee member and you get voted down because a big % holder thinks you are potentially trouble, happened at my condo. They act like it's Dallas controlling oil rather than a Thailand condo

[Cake Monster]

4 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

You could fight to get the AGM you want, apply to become a committee member and you get voted down because a big % holder thinks you are potentially trouble, happened at my condo. They act like it's Dallas controlling oil rather than a Thailand condo

The main issue is with the Thai Owners.

They believe that they, and with the backing of the Law over Juristic Persons, are the only people that matter.

Had this issue in a Moo Baan several Years ago, and it ended with no Farang at all on the Committee due to the " You are Farang, this my Country attitude ".

Needless to say that with all the Committee and Jusistic Person being Thai, things progressed very slowly, and sometimes backwards 

[smutcakes]

1 hour ago, Cake Monster said:

The main issue is with the Thai Owners.

They believe that they, and with the backing of the Law over Juristic Persons, are the only people that matter.

Had this issue in a Moo Baan several Years ago, and it ended with no Farang at all on the Committee due to the " You are Farang, this my Country attitude ".

Needless to say that with all the Committee and Jusistic Person being Thai, things progressed very slowly, and sometimes backwards 

Plenty of Farang nutters in condo's, not just Thai's.  What backing of Laws over Juristic Persons are you referring to?

You appear irrational, and the exact type of person who should not be on a Committee.

[Seeall]

On 10/26/2020 at 9:58 PM, Frank67 said:

Our condo in central Pattaya finished with a delay of a few years and receiving the chanote took another two years. Anyway, finally got it last year.

Despite chanotes being distributed we still did not have an owner meeting and therefore did not establish a justistic person according to the law.

The developer nevertheless installed some administration staff who call themselves "juristic office". Now they ask condo owners to pay the management fee on behalf of the development companies name and bank account.
I understand than running and maintaining the condo costs money and I am more than willing to pay for it, BUT I do not want to encourage the developer to keep control over the project and spend money on his will. There are no publications about what money is spent for and who is going to pay maintenance fee. The developer most likely still holing units and a hotel sharing the facilities makes this even more complex.

I would like to see the owner meetings being held and juristic person elected according to the law and book keeping available to owners.

 

What would you do?

It s a well known scam....  the aim is to pocket as much cash as possible, then move to another company then you cannot retreive it because MAI MEE LEO....  Then threre are the oh so many sub scams under all that...... the well written thai condo law makes interesting reading as does your contract but... GOOD LUCK....

[Seeall]

On 10/26/2020 at 10:47 PM, uncleP said:

You need a lawyer.

The obvious right?  well, think about this, lets say the developer gets 100 rooms x 20 000/year = 2 000000 so whats 100k to pay of the investigating lawyer who also pockets your money then makes some excuse?  GOOD LUCK

[uncleP]

tilleke.com will not be bought ????

[Frank67]

Simply trust in an email from a Gmail account written in lousy English, chaotic layout and with a lot of typos and send money to an bank account mentioned in such email???

 

This is raising another question: how can you identify the juristic person?

 

Certainly, going to land office could be a way, but this is no option right now.

Ask the email sender to send you documents proving that he is the JPM plus copy of ID card, proof relation to the bank account?

Anybody can say that he is the JPM. Is there a smooth way to verify this?

[Seeall]

1 hour ago, Frank67 said:

Simply trust in an email from a Gmail account written in lousy English, chaotic layout and with a lot of typos and send money to an bank account mentioned in such email???

 

This is raising another question: how can you identify the juristic person?

 

Certainly, going to land office could be a way, but this is no option right now.

Ask the email sender to send you documents proving that he is the JPM plus copy of ID card, proof relation to the bank account?

Anybody can say that he is the JPM. Is there a smooth way to verify this?

 

Again, ha ha, some of them wont even say who they are, just email from "jurastic team" with a bank account on it and a due date, then no pay elec and water gets cut off

and a "fee" to reconnect.....   its just an endless scam..

[scubascuba3]

7 hours ago, Frank67 said:

Simply trust in an email from a Gmail account written in lousy English, chaotic layout and with a lot of typos and send money to an bank account mentioned in such email???

 

This is raising another question: how can you identify the juristic person?

 

Certainly, going to land office could be a way, but this is no option right now.

Ask the email sender to send you documents proving that he is the JPM plus copy of ID card, proof relation to the bank account?

Anybody can say that he is the JPM. Is there a smooth way to verify this?

They should issue an invoice like you get for water, should be official looking with name of condo etc payment details. The juristic person gets voted in at the AGM so minutes show that, if no AGM there must be some document they can send you. When you pay the Thai bank app will show the payee name which should be the condo not some scam artist

Edited October 29, 2020 by scubascuba3

[Cake Monster]

10 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

They should issue an invoice like you get for water, should be official looking with name of condo etc payment details. The juristic person gets voted in at the AGM so minutes show that, if no AGM there must be some document they can send you. When you pay the Thai bank app will show the payee name which should be the condo not some scam artist

Also try viewing the Accounts for the Condo or Moo Baan, which, Legally, have to be presented and displayed for Inspection by the Residents on a Monthly basis by the Juristic Management or Person.

These Accounts should show in full the incoming revenue and an Itemised outgoing Revenue