Legal Queries - Any ideas?

[Formaleins]

Wonder if anyone has any ideas on these annoying turnabouts over the last few years. Where would we stand legally?

 

First one is EGAT, they decided to put in new electric poles through our village and just decided, (without asking) to come and dig a 3 metre hole about 10 metres on our land to set an anchor cable to support the pole - I filled the hole in but they dug it out again then told us to disconnect the cable that supports the pole if we weren't happy! - Surely they need permission to plant this sort of crap on your land.

 

Second one is when we bought a second plot of land we were shown the chanote posts by the land office ( "a real" inspection) so we built an access road to our property, Later the land office changed their minds and said we only shared half the width of the road with the neighbour - Not a problem, but now he has sold his land to some idiots that are churning up the road and when it rains they can get out in their 4 x 4's but a normal saloon car gets stuck in the mud! If it is a shared road, or if I built it on government land - Can I get a bulldozer to remove all of the stone that I paid for and move it 4 metres across and rebuild my road 100% on my property?

 

Lastly, if this is now classed as free access, or shared public access, can we get the local government to treat it as such and get them to maintain the shared part of the road?

 

As usual, the law here seems to blow in the direction of the wind on the day you ask - extremely annoying.

[chalawaan]

I hope others will join me in suggesting you let this slide. 

It's not "the west" you literally have no rights, you're a long term visitor, a NON Immigrant. 

And even in "the west" I've mediated out of court for the win.

Start legal wars here, they will take away your passport, and then you face a fresh hell of monthly visits to immigration, until this is resolved, which could take years.  You could even die waiting for your day in court. And then, there the lawyers fees...

All for a dirt road and a cable in the garden? 

No, just no. 

Spend the money on 4x4 instead. 

Edited April 10, 2023 by chalawaan

[CharlieKo]

As far as the Electricity company is concerned. I suggest, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Had a similar situation where there was an anchor wire about a meter into a piece of land we were going to build on. We just dug it up. 14 years later and Electricity company  has said nothing and the Electric pillar is still standing.

 

Before you get involved with the land office  about the now shared access road. Get that bulldozer to remove the stones and get your new road build. Then put a boundary wall where your land meets their land.

 

Just make sure you can identify the boundary markers the Land office use to mark out your land and build your boundary wall from marker to marker along the line of the boundary. Take photos of the markers and maybe even GPS locations. The wall can be as simple small pillar and wire construction or a 1.80m cement wall, up to you!

 

If the new land owner has a problem with that. Let them start the legal stuff. But my guess is most Thai's just want an easy life. They will probably accept the situation.  Besides it's perfectly legal to build boundary walls around your land.   

 

Maybe build your boundary walls first?

 

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by CharlieKo

[Formaleins]

33 minutes ago, chalawaan said:

I hope others will join me in suggesting you let this slide. 

It's not "the west" you literally have no rights, you're a long term visitor, a NON Immigrant. 

And even in "the west" I've mediated out of court for the win.

Start legal wars here, they will take away your passport, and then you face a fresh hell of monthly visits to immigration, until this is resolved, which could take years.  You could even die waiting for your day in court. And then, there the lawyers fees...

All for a dirt road and a cable in the garden? 

No, just no. 

Spend the money on 4x4 instead. 

I totally understand what you are saying, but all of the land and the house is in my Thai / English son's name - I know I have absolutely no rights to the land etc. but it is not in my name, it is is in the names of two Thai nationals, my son and my wife. They are getting crapped on, I gave it up as a bad job in 1997, and made sure it was all legal for them, I never expected to ever be anything other than some farang scum as long as I lived here,

 

Problem I have, is that this is Thai trying to take from Thai! and a lot of it seems to be jealously . Why would I want to let it slide? and let people just <deleted> on my family?

Edited April 10, 2023 by Formaleins

[kingstonkid]

Instead of wasting time here why are you not talking to a. Lawyer 

[SunnyinBangrak]

9 hours ago, Formaleins said:

First one is EGAT, they decided to put in new electric poles through our village and just decided, (without asking) to come and dig a 3 metre hole about 10 metres on our land to set an anchor cable to support the pole - I filled the hole in but they dug it out again then told us to disconnect the cable that supports the pole if we weren't happy! - Surely they need permission to plant this sort of crap on your land.

PEA did the same with us. Sank 2 giant electric poles on our land and then over the next year there became many many wires, looks a proper mess and due to some wires being low it is restricting access to our land on the road frontage. I was advised they will never be moved so don't waste the effort and emotion to try!

[Freddy42OZ]

14 hours ago, CharlieKo said:

As far as the Electricity company is concerned. I suggest, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Had a similar situation where there was an anchor wire about a meter into a piece of land we were going to build on. We just dug it up. 14 years later and Electricity company  has said nothing and the Electric pillar is still standing.

 

Before you get involved with the land office  about the now shared access road. Get that bulldozer to remove the stones and get your new road build. Then put a boundary wall where your land meets their land.

 

Just make sure you can identify the boundary markers the Land office use to mark out your land and build your boundary wall from marker to marker along the line of the boundary. Take photos of the markers and maybe even GPS locations. The wall can be as simple small pillar and wire construction or a 1.80m cement wall, up to you!

 

If the new land owner has a problem with that. Let them start the legal stuff. But my guess is most Thai's just want an easy life. They will probably accept the situation.  Besides it's perfectly legal to build boundary walls around your land.   

 

Maybe build your boundary walls first?

 

 

 

Is there a limit to the height of a boundary wall? 

If not I've seen some very nice steel curtain walls up around construction sites in Bangkok that are 6m or more. 
They look really good.  I'd put those up around my property.

Here is an example - the US-Mexico Border wall 
 

 

Edited April 11, 2023 by Freddy42OZ

[Kwasaki]

I've been here a while and whats happen to you, me and others is what goes on here, " mai pen rai " as they say.

 

Personally as for electric pole if it's not used I'd put a clinging climber plants at the pole base.

 

As for the single track road which is claim as access now I'd forget the half I own and erect a fence with concrete poles and barbed wire and get a tarmac roadway laid inside the fence.

[brianthainess]

Have you or your wife even tried to talk calmly to your naighbors to come to an amical solution? are they even aware of your problem? Power poles/ cables should be 4mt high. 

5 hours ago, SunnyinBangrak said:

PEA did the same with us. Sank 2 giant electric poles on our land and then over the next year there became many many wires, looks a proper mess and due to some wires being low it is restricting access to our land on the road frontage. I was advised they will never be moved so don't waste the effort and emotion to try!

 

[khunPer]

TiT...

 

In most countries infrastructure supply can override private ownership; i.e. you might need to accept power cables running over your property. However, it's different if you can be compensated and how much. Disturbing public infrastructure might be a criminal act.

Road rights. Yes if you can prove that you had 10 years of unhindered access of way to your property, you can claim your right of way, and sometimes even have the access-way declared public instead of private. If two or more landowners shares an access way, they normally also share the maintenance costs, but that is down to negotiation. (My info is from my next door neighbor, who is a lawyer and had road right problems.)

If you have land facing public road, there is nothing to hinder you from making a new access-road, but I would not move pebbles from the existing access, as you might be damaging other land owners access of way. However, you might get away with moving the pebbles that sit on your land, as the new neighbor don't have 10-years access way there.

[Formaleins]

On 4/10/2023 at 8:23 PM, CharlieKo said:

As far as the Electricity company is concerned. I suggest, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Had a similar situation where there was an anchor wire about a meter into a piece of land we were going to build on. We just dug it up. 14 years later and Electricity company  has said nothing and the Electric pillar is still standing.

 

Before you get involved with the land office  about the now shared access road. Get that bulldozer to remove the stones and get your new road build. Then put a boundary wall where your land meets their land.

 

Just make sure you can identify the boundary markers the Land office use to mark out your land and build your boundary wall from marker to marker along the line of the boundary. Take photos of the markers and maybe even GPS locations. The wall can be as simple small pillar and wire construction or a 1.80m cement wall, up to you!

 

If the new land owner has a problem with that. Let them start the legal stuff. But my guess is most Thai's just want an easy life. They will probably accept the situation.  Besides it's perfectly legal to build boundary walls around your land.   

 

Maybe build your boundary walls first?

 

 

Cheers, appreciated. I was worried that once the gravel had been laid down it was no longer "mine" to touch and could be deemed part of the shared road. - it isn't a wheelbarrow full you see, it is about 100 truckloads! Not a small outlay.

[Formaleins]

15 hours ago, SunnyinBangrak said:

PEA did the same with us. Sank 2 giant electric poles on our land and then over the next year there became many many wires, looks a proper mess and due to some wires being low it is restricting access to our land on the road frontage. I was advised they will never be moved so don't waste the effort and emotion to try!

You are in the same boat, I wrecked a grasscutter trying to chop down the grass but obscured the damn cables, this placing of anchors or poles on peoples land without permission cannot be legal. I was planting trees years ago at the time that they first dug a hole, they left no markers or warnings, you could have broken your legs or even lost a small child down the damn hole they dug without permission, just sunk a 5 foot hole, a foot wide on our land and not a word!

[Formaleins]

9 hours ago, Kwasaki said:

I've been here a while and whats happen to you, me and others is what goes on here, " mai pen rai " as they say.

 

Personally as for electric pole if it's not used I'd put a clinging climber plants at the pole base.

 

As for the single track road which is claim as access now I'd forget the half I own and erect a fence with concrete poles and barbed wire and get a tarmac roadway laid inside the fence.

Sadly, it does not seem that the road is divisible like that, it looks like once it has been built then it cannot be divided as it is not part of the chanotes of either plots of land.

The only way I see to go forward is to get the local govt. to recognize the road and pave it as shared , or free access, or I bulldoze everything that I spent on it another 4 metres to the right as an earlier poster suggested, or maybe the third option would be to try to make a purchase to buy the road out fully - then again, they might be finding broken glass and some carelessly dropped nails and screws where they intersect my road.

[Formaleins]

7 hours ago, khunPer said:

TiT...

 

In most countries infrastructure supply can override private ownership; i.e. you might need to accept power cables running over your property. However, it's different if you can be compensated and how much. Disturbing public infrastructure might be a criminal act.

Road rights. Yes if you can prove that you had 10 years of unhindered access of way to your property, you can claim your right of way, and sometimes even have the access-way declared public instead of private. If two or more landowners shares an access way, they normally also share the maintenance costs, but that is down to negotiation. (My info is from my next door neighbor, who is a lawyer and had road right problems.)

If you have land facing public road, there is nothing to hinder you from making a new access-road, but I would not move pebbles from the existing access, as you might be damaging other land owners access of way. However, you might get away with moving the pebbles that sit on your land, as the new neighbor don't have 10-years access way there.

Thank you for your sensible and well considered response, it is good to hear from people with a cool logical look at things, often here it is the Jai Ren approach, which I am the first to hold my hand up to. I was trying to just get some sort of a feel as to the possible legal situation before we went down the lawyer route and had every last drop of blood sucked out of us by the Thai "Legal" system - I thought sounding out first might give me an idea as to which way to go. Thanks for your reply, appreciated!

[Formaleins]

9 hours ago, brianthainess said:

Have you or your wife even tried to talk calmly to your naighbors to come to an amical solution? are they even aware of your problem? Power poles/ cables should be 4mt high. 

 

Agree...... but..... they are now not our neighbours, the guy that owned the land was a really OK guy, never had a problem, we actually looked out for each other as he did not live on his land , he lived a kiometre or so away

 

Sadly, life turned bad for him, his young daughter has been left almost brain dead following a road accident a few years ago, both he and his wife had to spend a lot of time and money looking after her. As I say, they were nice people.

 

Then things took a turn even worse - His wife made an income cooking and selling local food, but she got sick developed a problem with her leg and within 2 months she was dead!

 

It appears that the people now using on the land are paying him a monthly rental fee, they cut down all his trees, ploughed up the land about 4 times, and now seem to be planting on a semi industrial scale. The old guy that owns / owned the land has never been an issue, the problem is with this new group of people that are not even from our locale, and it has gone from one old family farming 10 Rai of Lam Yai as an orchard to about 20 people ripping the place apart and doing some sort of mass production farming where they do not give a flying FX#$ for anyone around.

 

[Formaleins]

End of the day, I am no spring chicken and cannot do half of what I could even five years ago. No longer can I climb trees, take care of my lam yai, run my chainsaw all day walk and work our 20 Rai, climb on roofs, fix the truck, I am buggered with arterial disease and probably won't be around for ever, despite what I believed when I was 21 - I just want to get everything cleared, all sweet and dandy for the family I will leave behind before I go popping up the daisies!

 

It really is good to hear all of the differing opinions and differing experiences posted here from all of the people that joined over the years - and to be honest, how much more transparent Thailand has become over the years, so there is hope! When we first married, if my wife (Thai) owned any land here and she married a foreigner, that land had to be signed over to a "TRUE THAI" she was forbidden to hold a land title in her name if she married a foreigner (1997) - Then they changed the law, a foreigner could live here originally with 250K in the bank, had to be in joint names, but both parties could contribute as far as immigration were concerned. - i.e. If I had 50 baht a year and she could show 249,99.5 - we got the visa.

That was quickly stopped, they put it to 400k but had to be in a joint account, that wan't good enough, another year later, it had to be 400k solely in the name if the foreigner...... twists and turns, they blow in the wind like the sway of the bamboo! 

 

The only certainty you will ever have here is that as long as you stay here, life will be uncertain.

Edited April 11, 2023 by Formaleins

[Kwasaki]

6 minutes ago, Formaleins said:

Sadly, it does not seem that the road is divisible like that, it looks like once it has been built then it cannot be divided as it is not part of the chanotes of either plots of land.

The only way I see to go forward is to get the local govt. to recognize the road and pave it as shared , or free access, or I bulldoze everything that I spent on it another 4 metres to the right as an earlier poster suggested, or maybe the third option would be to try to make a purchase to buy the road out fully - then again, they might be finding broken glass and some carelessly dropped nails and screws where they intersect my road.

I don't see how anyone can help without seeing boundary line plans in relation to exit from your land and neighbours land, doesn't make any sense you cannot have your own road on your land that is not inside the neighbours land so to have an exit from your land to main road.

[CharlieKo]

36 minutes ago, Formaleins said:

Cheers, appreciated. I was worried that once the gravel had been laid down it was no longer "mine" to touch and could be deemed part of the shared road. - it isn't a wheelbarrow full you see, it is about 100 truckloads! Not a small outlay.

You only have a problem if this situation has been ongoing for the past 10 years. something to do with public right of way being established. But I assume this is a recent problem.