Ownership nightmare: British buyer’s 15 million baht condo purchase in Koh Samui hits legal roadblock

[SAFETY FIRST]

16 minutes ago, jak2002003 said:

31 minutes ago, SAFETY FIRST said:

I bought most of my Thai properties of the plan. 

 

I have not had any issues or regrets. 

 

It's the luck of the draw.

I'd say renting is the luck of the draw. 

 

Heard some horrible stories regarding landlords etc. 

 

[SAFETY FIRST]

40 minutes ago, harry94 said:

Alien stamped in your passport should explain where you stand .

Aaaah, you have an issue with immigration. 

 

I have no issues with how Thailand manage their foreigners/expats that are living here.

 

Only issue I have is there are too many whinging and whining foreigners trying to change Thailand, demanding this and that.

Leave it alone, it works for me. 

 

If you are not happy being an 'alien' you are free to leave, no one is stopping you or forcing you to stay. 

Edited June 2, 2023 by SAFETY FIRST

[Captain Monday]

22 minutes ago, jak2002003 said:

It's the luck of the draw. 

 

We bought 2 condos. One in no problems at all and we are very happy with it.  

 

The other... we have been conned similar to the man in the OP.  We now have a hotel renting out our condo and taking all the money whike we have no access to it and no title deeds. 

 

These con people are very clever...that is how they can do these things.  It's easy to make comments when you have no personal experience.

 

And yes, we even had a lawyer look over everything and all the contracts signed... Makes no difference. 

 

Very stressful and depressing. The lawyers and the con artists have ways to drag it out for ever.. All the time making money out of us. 

 

Now we are going to just walk away. 

I only had problems after my condo was renovated and I fell for the "rent your condo" when you are not home scam. The management gave me one or two days credit per month when it was constantly used. I know what was going on because my Thai freind on the same floor confirmed. 

[renaissanc]

Buying a condominium is like paying a "servi ce fee" to an African official. You put the envelope of money on the table. The official puts the signed and stamped contract with a no-cancellation clause in it on the table. Then each party pushes over their item.

[kingstonkid]

5 hours ago, Banana7 said:

When buying here are some simple instructions that can save you a lot of heart ache. This is not complete list and others will have more recommendations.

 

The purchase and sale agreement must state the purchaser will receive, upon the closing date at the time of payment, the chanote with his name on the chanote and registered so, in the land office and must receive the blue book and perhaps, the yellow book, if there is one and the property is vacant upon possession. Failure by the seller to close on the closing date, seller must return double the amount of the deposit within 3 days.

 

Always ask to see the chanote and copy it before signing the purchase and sale agreement. Get copies of government IDs from everyone involved in the purchase. The current owner is listed as the last owner in the chanote. If the seller can't produce the original chanote, not a photo copy, do not make a deposit. if they can't produce the original, walk away. Go to the land office with your lawyer and ask if there are any issues with the property and transferring it to a foreigner.  The lawyer must conduct all due diligence. There are lots of little details the lawyer needs to check. Check with the condo office if there are any issues and get copies of the latest condo financial statements, before signing the purchase and sale agreement.

 

When making final payment, which should be at least 90% of the sale price, in the land office on the closing date, only give the bank draft to the owner when your lawyer says your name is on the chanote and you physically receive the chanote and blue book. Have the owner sign a photo copy of the bank draft saying they received this payment.

 

Many times foreigners are too trusting when making real estate purchases. Educate yourself before buying!

The challenge here was that I think they did everything but have a Thai lawyer of their choosing look at the papers as they were good forgeries.

[Banana7]

1 hour ago, jak2002003 said:

It's the luck of the draw. 

 

We bought 2 condos. One in no problems at all and we are very happy with it.  

 

The other... we have been conned similar to the man in the OP.  We now have a hotel renting out our condo and taking all the money whike we have no access to it and no title deeds. 

 

These con people are very clever...that is how they can do these things.  It's easy to make comments when you have no personal experience.

 

And yes, we even had a lawyer look over everything and all the contracts signed... Makes no difference. 

 

Very stressful and depressing. The lawyers and the con artists have ways to drag it out for ever.. All the time making money out of us. 

 

Now we are going to just walk away. 

My first post in this thread, had several important points for the buyer to do before handing over the cash. Many lawyers may not be protecting their client's money and interests sufficiently. I highly recommend any buyer not sit back and expect the lawyer to do everything for you. The buyer must be actively engaged, at critical points, in the transaction. Don't trust the lawyer! to protect you and your money.

 

Always, see and copy the original chanote before signing the agreement. Do not accept a copy of the chanote. On the closing day, always examine the chanote has your name in it and the document from the land office also states the transfer has been made, before making final payment. Never give the final payment to the seller until the chanote is in your (buyer) hands along with blue book. Your name will be in Thai language, so have your lawyer, or an official certified translator, translate your name into Thai well before the final payment so you can personally verify your name is in the chanote.

 

Sometimes the land office will refuse to transfer a condo into foreigner name because foreigners already own 49% of the condo building/complex. There are other reasons the land office will refuse to register the transfer.

 

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by Banana7

[BTB1977]

British business man? Not a very good one. 

[SAFETY FIRST]

5 hours ago, SiSePuede419 said:

B15M for a....condo?!?!?

I heard on the local radio station, B15M was for 2 condos. 

Edited June 2, 2023 by SAFETY FIRST

[spidermike007]

11 hours ago, tgw said:

some rules:

- have a reputable real estate lawyer do all the due diligence (construction permit, check property deeds, does the seller actually own what he sells, is it free of mortgages, right of passage, correct land category, certificates of conformity of the construction, etc.)

- don't buy any expensive real estate that doesn't have a Chanote (lower grade titles can be ok for some agricultural land)

- use cashier cheques

- simultaneous transactions and transfer papers signed with witnesses at the land office only

Good advice. In other words, basic precautions often stop thieving scammers in their tracks. They just move onto the next victim. We must exhibit basic survival instincts, in this day and age, in order to thrive. They is such an abundance of lowlifes out there, that utterly refuse to work for a living, and instead prefer to suck the blood of society. A very well known real estate figure in the US comes to mind.

[Chicksaw]

4 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

A very well known real estate figure in the US comes to mind.

Come on, Mike, that's a ways to go from Thailand condo woes. Trump seems to be living rent-free in valuable property inside your head:-)

[spidermike007]

3 minutes ago, Chicksaw said:

Come on, Mike, that's a ways to go from Thailand condo woes. Trump seems to be living rent-free in valuable property inside your head:-)

Nah, just an opportunity to poke a jab at a notorious thief, and have some fun. In reality I think of him very little, since I have stopped watching the news. LOL. Just fun, fun and more fun.

[Banana7]

6 minutes ago, kingstonkid said:

The challenge here was that I think they did everything but have a Thai lawyer of their choosing look at the papers as they were good forgeries.

The final payment should be done in the land office, not in a lawyer's office or elsewhere. The land office will examine and modify the original chanote. They will also issue a document stating the transfer of title between the buyer and seller. The land office also updates their own records, checks for encumbrances on the property and collects the transfer tax. The land office probably won't do all of this if there are issues with chanote or the title according to their records. I highly recommend the buyer watch the process in the land office, look at everything and ask questions if your don't understand what is happening.

 

Thai lawyers may not be protecting their client's property or interests adequately. The buyer must personally participate in the transaction at critical points in the process and verify documents.

[paddypower]

14 hours ago, simon43 said:

Don't hand over any money unless you receive the full ownership documents immediately by return.  (Yes, I made this mistake 20 years ago when I handed over 2.5 million baht for a rai of land (in my Thai wife's name). The cash was handed to the lawyer in Phuket, but the Thai owner actually dropped dead of a heart attack as he was going to the land office to sign the sale papers over to my wife. The (foreign) lawyer based in Phuket handed my cash over to the owner's family and they refused to sign over the land to my wife.....  I wasted THBTHBTHB trying to complete that contract, never got ownership of the land....

moral of the story (I and a group of 12 of us foreigners made this mistake).  do not waste your time hiring a foreign lawyer, expecting better competence than a Thai lawyer.  In your case, you could have sued the lawyer for negligence, but you are never going to win, in any court in Thailand, for 2 reasons: (i) you're a farang and (ii) suing a lawyer is like (deleted) against the wind.  in our case, developer sold the land twice to us and to a loan shark. we went all the way to the Supreme Court and they licked the can down the road with a decision that it was not in the public interest to give a ruling. someone should publish details of some of these situations where foreign investors lose 100%  on You Tube.

[paddypower]

23 minutes ago, BTB1977 said:

British business man? Not a very good one. 

not if you invest in the LOS (Land of Snakes) ????

[Caldera]

Bandit Country, buyer beware!

[spidermike007]

4 minutes ago, paddypower said:

moral of the story (I and a group of 12 of us foreigners made this mistake).  do not waste your time hiring a foreign lawyer, expecting better competence than a Thai lawyer.  In your case, you could have sued the lawyer for negligence, but you are never going to win, in any court in Thailand, for 2 reasons: (i) you're a farang and (ii) suing a lawyer is like (deleted) against the wind.  in our case, developer sold the land twice to us and to a loan shark. we went all the way to the Supreme Court and they licked the can down the road with a decision that it was not in the public interest to give a ruling. someone should publish details of some of these situations where foreign investors lose 100%  on You Tube.

Better to just devote your resources to going after the developer personally. And I do not mean legally. There are far more creative ways to get one's money back. He is hiding behind the law, and is counting on your trying to employ legal means only.

[gerritkaew]

9 hours ago, Captain Monday said:

This Englisher is a fool who should be scorned and ridiculed.

 

Iff he can afford 15 million b to buy a condo he not a fool. Iff fools can make this amount off cash.  Just he step in a good scam.  

 

[gerritkaew]

Yes, not reveal the name off the company so more people can lose there money.....

 

[Chicksaw]

14 hours ago, Chicksaw said:

Moral of the story: Rent, don't buy. At least not anything bigger than a washing machine.

I actually was coming from an investment POV. Here's roughly the math. I did similar calculations about 10 years ago when I was thinking to buy in Bkk but didn't. Conclusion is unchanged.

 

I will start with my current rented apartment as a typical example. 80 sq..m.., high fl., 2 bed/bath, 5 min. from Victory Monument BTS. My rent is 25k with utilities, which is 300k/year.

 

Data point: Bkk condos average selling price in 2021 (latest I could find) is 240k/sq.m. See this. Let's lower this to 200k as my building is older. So, price of my place, if it were on sale, is  circa 16m. Which means I am paying annually 300k/16m = 0.01875, less than 2%, in property value to rent.

 

Data point: Average annual inflation-adjusted return on the US stock market is 7%. See this. (I am American but I suspect numbers in other western countries are similar).

 

Conclusion: if I leave my funds invested in the US instead of buying a condo here, I will make (on average) enough annually to pay the rent for exactly the same property. Plus have more than twice that amount left in cash for leisure activities.

 

Wait a minute you say, what about condo price appreciation? Ok, that brings up:

 

Data point: Appreciation of house price index in Thailand (taking this as a proxy for historical condo prices in Bkk which I couldn't find data for) has been from 110 to 160 in the last 10 years. See this. That's less than 50%. While at 7%/annum, if you don't touch your money, it will double in 10 years.

 

Conclusion: I don't see a valid reason from an investment point of view to buy a condo.

 

Other factors: Renting means, in addition to not locking up funds, one has mobility. One can change if one doesn't like one's neighbors/surroundings. One can upgrade/downgrade easily if one's circumstances change.

 

By the way: The picture is opposite in the US. Rental rates plus tax breaks on mortgage interest payments mean it is best from an investment POV to buy there, once one can afford the down payment.

[paddypower]

30 minutes ago, Banana7 said:

The final payment should be done in the land office, not in a lawyer's office or elsewhere. The land office will examine and modify the original chanote. They will also issue a document stating the transfer of title between the buyer and seller. The land office also updates their own records, checks for encumbrances on the property and collects the transfer tax. The land office probably won't do all of this if there are issues with chanote or the title according to their records. I highly recommend the buyer watch the process in the land office, look at everything and ask questions if your don't understand what is happening.

 

Thai lawyers may not be protecting their client's property or interests adequately. The buyer must personally participate in the transaction at critical points in the process and verify documents.

you cannot stop someone from stealing from you. In most countries, you have recourse to the law - and a decent chance of recovering your investment monies.  In Thailand there is no such thing as ''legal precedent''. as a result, of which, if the Judge and your opponent are golfing buddies, you lose. In my case 5 mill. 

[paddypower]

22 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

Better to just devote your resources to going after the developer personally. And I do not mean legally. There are far more creative ways to get one's money back. He is hiding behind the law, and is counting on your trying to employ legal means only.

there's a quote from County Tipperary, about that: ''bring a shotgun and a shovel''. ????  Unfortunately, the Brit scarpered off back to England, leaving many Phuket investors behind, empty handed. The other problem is that, in Thailand,  it is all about not losing face. There are many reports about property scams/crooks. But, ask yourself - when has the Bangkok Post ever done an expose?

[paddypower]

16 minutes ago, Chicksaw said:

I actually was coming from an investment POV. Here's roughly the math. I did similar calculations about 10 years ago when I was thinking to buy in Bkk but didn't. Conclusion is unchanged.

 

I will start with my current rented apartment as a typical example. 80 sq..m.., high fl., 2 bed/bath, 5 min. from Victory Monument BTS. My rent is 25k with utilities, which is 300k/year.

 

Data point: Bkk condos average selling price in 2021 (latest I could find) is 240k/sq.m. See this. Let's lower this to 200k as my building is older. So, price of my place, if it were on sale, is  circa 16m. Which means I am paying annually 300k/16m = 0.01875, less than 2%, in property value to rent.

 

Data point: Average annual inflation-adjusted return on the US stock market is 7%. See this. (I am American but I suspect numbers in other western countries are similar).

 

Conclusion: if I leave my funds invested in the US instead of buying a condo here, I will make (on average) enough annually to pay the rent for exactly the same property. Plus have more than twice that amount left in cash for leisure activities.

 

Wait a minute you say, what about condo price appreciation? Ok, that brings up:

 

Data point: Appreciation of house price index in Thailand (taking this as a proxy for historical condo prices in Bkk which I couldn't find data for) has been from 110 to 160 in the last 10 years. See this. That's less than 50%. While at 7%/annum, if you don't touch your money, it will double in 10 years.

 

Conclusion: I don't see a valid reason from an investment point of view to buy a condo.

 

Other factors: Renting means, in addition to not locking up funds, one has mobility. One can change if one doesn't like one's neighbors/surroundings. One can upgrade/downgrade easily if one's circumstances change.

 

By the way: The picture is opposite in the US. Rental rates plus tax breaks on mortgage interest payments mean it is best from an investment POV to buy there, once one can afford the down payment.

But.......... you have forgotten about Infernal Revenue tax rates on your US investment income. Not sure where you get a guaranteed 7% return, after US tax ???

[moe666]

9 hours ago, Captain Monday said:

This Englisher is a fool who should be scorned and ridiculed.

 

Do you really believe this

[farang9392]

1 hour ago, jak2002003 said:

It's the luck of the draw. 

 

We bought 2 condos. One in no problems at all and we are very happy with it.  

 

The other... we have been conned similar to the man in the OP.  We now have a hotel renting out our condo and taking all the money whike we have no access to it and no title deeds. 

 

These con people are very clever...that is how they can do these things.  It's easy to make comments when you have no personal experience.

 

And yes, we even had a lawyer look over everything and all the contracts signed... Makes no difference. 

 

Very stressful and depressing. The lawyers and the con artists have ways to drag it out for ever.. All the time making money out of us. 

 

Now we are going to just walk away. 

That's terrible. How did it happen?

 

If I had a lump sum and was going for new property I think I'd be tempted to still use a bank mortgage, let them and their processing agent handle a lot of formalities at the land office, and if it goes belly up - somehow they manage to pull one on the bank then you're potentially out of your downpayment, better than losing it all. Of course there are early repayment fees in the first few years to consider, valuation fee, and sometimes a mortgage fee, and you'd have to consider how you can deploy your capital elsewhere to partially offset the interest rate payments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[metisdead]

A trolling meme post has been removed. 

 

An inflammatory post has been removed.

[arick]

555 yes. All this lies and deceitful and scans and it continues and can you continues on and this is nothing new it's actually the value is about 1 billion USD of fraud for condo

 

[arick]

Where's the DSi when you need them the DSi is still investigating my case a case worth about 5 billion bat with thousands of investors

[arick]

Be careful because the guy that is supposed to sell his house might kill him might kill the Foreigner he might have killed already a few foreigners

[Mickmouse1]

7 hours ago, Banana7 said:

When buying here are some simple instructions that can save you a lot of heart ache. This is not complete list and others will have more recommendations.

 

The purchase and sale agreement must state the purchaser will receive, upon the closing date at the time of payment, the chanote with his name on the chanote and registered so, in the land office and must receive the blue book and perhaps, the yellow book, if there is one and the property is vacant upon possession. Failure by the seller to close on the closing date, seller must return double the amount of the deposit within 3 days.

 

Always ask to see the chanote and copy it before signing the purchase and sale agreement. Get copies of government IDs from everyone involved in the purchase. The current owner is listed as the last owner in the chanote. If the seller can't produce the original chanote, not a photo copy, do not make a deposit. if they can't produce the original, walk away. Go to the land office with your lawyer and ask if there are any issues with the property and transferring it to a foreigner.  The lawyer must conduct all due diligence. There are lots of little details the lawyer needs to check. Check with the condo office if there are any issues and get copies of the latest condo financial statements, before signing the purchase and sale agreement.

 

When making final payment, which should be at least 90% of the sale price, in the land office on the closing date, only give the bank draft to the owner when your lawyer says your name is on the chanote and you physically receive the chanote and blue book. Have the owner sign a photo copy of the bank draft saying they received this payment.

 

Many times foreigners are too trusting when making real estate purchases. Educate yourself before buying!

Good 1 Ba Nana.&. Bonjour

[gerrybpattaya]

12 hours ago, bignok said:

More money than sense. Always get a proper lawyer. Double check details.

Proper lawyer in Thailand, rarer than hens teeth