Reservation Fee On Condo - Refundable?

[Trollster]

I have put down money on a condo via reservation fee. The developer has stated that the reservation fee I signed is non-refundable and it states that but my lawyer says it is refundable if we cannot agree to the clauses/conditions in the contract. We are at a stalemate with the conditions in the contract and although it states on the reservation fee that the amount is non-refundable I am not sure. Is there anyone who has faced a similar situation. My lawyer has told me that under thai law - the reservation fee can always be refundable if the terms of the contract cannot come to an agreement.

[backflip]

Read the purchase contact. If you gave a reservation fee based on a verbal statement, or signed a purchase contract that does not specifically cover the return of the reservation fee, I believe that you can bid your fee a big adios.

On the other hand...if you don't believe your attorney, but you accept legal advice form a bunch of strangers, it is probably time to find yourself a different attorney.

[Trollster]

No contract was ever signed - I could not as I did not agree to the conditions in the contract. I was not looking for legal advice but wondering if anyone had similar experience to me. As to whether or not I trust my lawyer - an entrely different issue. Never trusted them in Canada not sure why that would change here.

[ThaiPauly]

Why did you hand over money if you were not happy with the contract?

[zorro1]

No contract was ever signed - I could not as I did not agree to the conditions in the contract. I was not looking for legal advice but wondering if anyone had similar experience to me. As to whether or not I trust my lawyer - an entrely different issue. Never trusted them in Canada not sure why that would change here.

Are you a trollster?

[Irene]

I have put down money on a condo via reservation fee. The developer has stated that the reservation fee I signed is non-refundable and it states that but my lawyer says it is refundable if we cannot agree to the clauses/conditions in the contract. We are at a stalemate with the conditions in the contract and although it states on the reservation fee that the amount is non-refundable I am not sure. Is there anyone who has faced a similar situation. My lawyer has told me that under thai law - the reservation fee can always be refundable if the terms of the contract cannot come to an agreement.

I understand your situation. On the day you pay a deposit of Baht50,000 or Baht100,000, you are asked to sign a memo stating that you are to sign a purchase contract within 14 days and failure to do so could cause you to lose that deposit fund. Few people would ask to see the contract on the day of paying a deposit. So, on paper, if you refuse to sign the contract on that 14th day as offered to you, your deposit could be forfeited. However, I sense that your lawyer could be correct that there was no form of contract offered to you to review, so there cannot be a binding intention on the day of paying the deposit. So whether you will get the money back or not, that depends on you clout and the concern of the developer on their goodwill. I met this situation once, when I was given two contracts to sign on the 14th day, one for buying the land and another one for hiring a construction company to build a condo. I knew that this was a tax planning scheme, so all I need to do is to tell them that I am going to report this tax scam to the authority unless the refund is forthcoming. Within 24 hours, I got the refund.

[Geppis72]

I have put down money on a condo via reservation fee. The developer has stated that the reservation fee I signed is non-refundable and it states that but my lawyer says it is refundable if we cannot agree to the clauses/conditions in the contract. We are at a stalemate with the conditions in the contract and although it states on the reservation fee that the amount is non-refundable I am not sure. Is there anyone who has faced a similar situation. My lawyer has told me that under thai law - the reservation fee can always be refundable if the terms of the contract cannot come to an agreement.

Dear Steven (Trollster) when you agreed on a reservation fee the conditions are on the Reservation fee form you should read and sign, this is how the professionals Real Estate/Developers works.

If a form or memo or not even a note is issued, simply do not buy anything. If you give a reservation fee without sign any docs the problem its all yours.

We used to give back all the reservations fee amount (generally 100.000 Thb) by 30 days.

Now thanks to some less serious "clients" who just enjoy loosing our times and money we give back only 50% of it.

I'm quite surprise that a such scrupulous person like you that after many many many researches, questions, on site visits etc etc have now this problem.

Some time is worthy pay a bit more but stay with professional people.

[Trollster]

The problem is with the contract which I did not see when I put down the reservation fee. The reservation form holds the condo for me but is subject to being able to sign the contract. We simply could not agree on payment terms. Yes I did a lot of research and this did happen to me. I am now in the process of getting the money back - and for your info I was seriously interested in the condo.

[PattayaParent]

Generally if anything is 'subject to agreement of contract terms' or 'subject to signing contract' then it's not worth anything, at least in UK. So your lawyer may well be correct in this.