Housing Estate Committee Budget

[dsfbrit]

I live in a gated housing estate 5 miles outside Pattaya.

I say its 'gated', but in fact there is no gate, just an old hut with a security guard in it and a high wall around the outside. The estate is not built to European standards, its nothing special. Hey, but its home.

There are about 50 houses here about 10 of them owned by Farang. It was decided last week to no longer use the builders to take care of the facilities and a committee has been formed comprising 9 people.

This was because the builders wanted no more to do with the maintenance. Fair enough.

The committee have come up with an annual budget of around 750,000 Baht. This is for security, cutting the grass, cleaning a small pool that has been built etc..

A referendum has just been drawn up asking how people want to pay for the services, per household or per meter squared.

If per household I would be asked to pay around 15,000 Baht per year along with everyone else.

If per meter squared, I would be asked to pay 36,000 Baht per year and many smaller households (the majority) would pay just 8000 Baht per year.

As this vote will be decided by the majority, I suspect that it will be passed such that they will want me to pay 36000 Baht.

There are 2 thngs that concern me.

- the cost of the services to clean a road, cut some bushes and provide security guards seems quite high. The 'security' guards are poorly trained and we cut our own bushes etc. In fact at the meeting to elect the committee, one guy who had gone to visit a nearby village said they paid about 8000 Baht per household per year. In our case that would be 50 households times 8000 Baht or around 400,000 Baht. I was expecting these sorts of figures and this would be similar to the amount I would be asked to pay - so I am quite shocked I could be asked to pay nearly 5 times this amount.

- this cost could escalate next year and each year after that. Lets face it, if the committee gets 'stuffed' with people only having to pay 8000 Baht per year now, then increasing the annual budget is no big deal to them - is it? In fact one very loud forceful Thai, who is now on the committee, has lots of grand ideas how to 'improve' the place - thats fine as long as he does not mind paying a reasonable amount towards it! He will only be paying 8000 Baht per year if the referendum goes the 'per meter' route.

So my questions are these:

- Do you live in a gated community?

- If so how much do you pay and what do you get for it?

- How were the distribution of charges amongst the residents decided?

- Is there a forum somewhere or information or a book on the roles of such a committee and my legal rights etc...

- Do you think I need to get a lawyer involved now.

At the end of the day I will pay what legally I have to. However, I dont want to just roll over on this without understanding just how I got into a situation where I need to pay 36000 Baht per year when the original contract with the builder for these services was only 16000 Baht per year.

Thanks for any feedback and advice.

Edited November 6, 2008 by dsfbrit

[SteinKR]

Hi there Dsfbrit;

I believe it is right that people with big houses and landspace should pay more than people with smaller. This is quite normal, and it can be made comparisons with how things are arranged in condominiums where owners pay a rate per SqM for security and maintainance.

It is not much different in a "gated community" as there is always expenses related to keep the place safe and in a decent condition. The fee is not only to cover the exact salary of the security guards, gardners etc., but to build up a fund to cover bigger expenses like fixing the pool, re-painting the fence etc. etc.

If all owners only pay on a minimum level each month in order to cover the running expenses, what would happen if the pump in the swimmingpool broke down?? Who should pay for that in this case?? This is why the

It is the committes job to approve the spendings and investments as well as taking good care of the funds as they are elected by the owners. They should however not get any "commission/salary" for this job. One of the jobs for the commitee should be to set up a budget in order to calculate how much each owner should pay every month. It is not just to look at other communities to see what they pay. The most important thing is to all financial statments open for all owners to see what the funds have been used for. For bigger investments, it should be a vote among all owners and not just decision by the committee.

Personally I live in a condominium and pay 1250/month for a 45 Sqm unit. To pay 3000/month if you have a big house should not much to complain about. Just make sure the committee works out an expense budget before they finalize the monthly fee.

I believe if you were living in the only small house and all others lived in big houses, I trust you would not be happy having to pay the same as the others either, or??

Stein

[dsfbrit]

SteainKR, Thanks for the reply.

Interesing points and in principle I don't mind paying a bit more if I think its fair and I can afford it.

However, before this committee took over, the annual cost of providing these services was 550,000 Baht per year. As I only received this referendum notice today I am not sure just why the budget has increased by 200,000 Baht to provide the same service. I need to investigate this further.

My concern is that several of the committee members, a loud Thai guy in particular, wanted to build a new road to avoid driving in through some other villages. It was agreed that a small unmade up road overrun with weeds running by our village could be 'tarred' over by the local council, probably for free. He was not happy with that and stood at the fornt of the meeting for about 10 minutes explaining how we could buy the land at the back of the village and build a road ourselves. This does nothing for the community and would cost a lot of money to buy the additional land.

Its this sort of thing I would not wish to fund, but at the moment feel powerless to have my say.

So I figured if I asked Thai Visa forum I could start to understand how to deal with the committee and understand my rights etc...

So tell me SteinKR, how do you have your say on the committee you deal with. You seem quite happy with the way it functions, so maybe if I can understand how the 'thing' works and make it more 'transparent' I will feel more comfortable I am not being 'abused'!

As for you comment ' I believe if you were living in the only small house and all others lived in big houses, I trust you would not be happy having to pay the same as the others either, or??

The point is that last year I had to pay around 18,000 Baht a year. This was in the contract with the builder. It could now double to 36000 Baht for essentially the same service.

The people in the smaller houses also had contracts with the builder that they happily signed up to. They must have been paying a higher percentage then than they possibly will in the future.

How would you feel if your committe suddenly doubled your cost to 2500 Baht per month and reduced by 50 percent the monthly fee for someone with a smaller condo. Would you think that fair?

Isn't that what's happening to me?

Edited November 6, 2008 by dsfbrit

[donx]

In the townhouse community I live in here in the US the community assessment fees are the same for every house no matter how big or small it is. I would assume the assessments in Thailand would be on a per lot or per house basis and not on a house size basis. Even if the assessment was done by size, I would assume the size would be lot size not house size.

I have no personal experience with this in Thailand, but it appears the original fees charged by the developer were the same for every lot/house.

[dsfbrit]

donx, thats a good point. I am just reading the original contract I signed with the builder and it is per meter squared. It was signed in 2004 and was for 18000 Baht per year. We have 1200 Square Meters so this is 15 Baht per Square Meter. (60 Baht per Talang Wah).

The fee was not collected last year as there was too much money in the 'pot'. In fact last year only 300,000 Baht was spent on maintenance etc..

The builder added a swimming pool this year as agreed in the original bulding specification for the village. It was at this point he said he had completed his work here and wanted a committee to take over.

The builder set a budget this year to include maintenance for the pool and all work he did before this.

The budget the builder set was 563,000 Baht. This has climbed to 750,000 Baht in the week that the new committee has been formed. There is no reason for this increase shown on the referendum documents.

The 563,000 includes:

- fee for 3 security guards 7500 per month * 3 * 12 = 270,000 Baht

- electric road and swimming pool = 3000 * 12 = 36,000 Baht

- Manpower to clean road and fuel for equipment = 77,000 Baht

- maintain swimming pool = 180,000 Baht

Total = 563,000 Baht

So I also need to find out why there is this increase to 750,000 Baht.

Tell me donx, how do you 'communicate' with your committee. My major concern here is I feel totally out of control and out of the loop. I contacted the guy who was elected Juristic Person. He had just got back from his day job, so I will probably leave it until Saturday before I go and 'rattle his cage'. Let him at least get some rest before the moaning starts.

Edited November 7, 2008 by dsfbrit

[Gary A]

Are you saying that your house is 4.5 times larger than your neighbors? The residents in our condo complex pay by the square meter and no one complains. I think that is the fair way to do it. I too pay more than most of my neighbors but my unit is larger.

[dsfbrit]

No GaryA my house is in fact smaller than many of my neighbours. The measurement is based on the size of the land. In fact my house and land cost about 5 million Baht, which is about the average cost of the neighbours residences, both Thai and farang.

My wife and I walked around the estate last night looking at the neighbours propertys.

One owner, that may have to pay just 8000 Baht per year actually has a property worth about 7 million Baht (worth more than mine), he has a very large house, but a very small plot of land.

I think condo maintenance law, unlike my situation with house and land, is very well defined in this area. You know you have to pay on your living space area - the living space includes the land directly under your dwelling.

I don't believe you could ever be presented with a referendum that asks if you want to pay by land size or per dwelling.

Out of interest, how would you react if you were suddenly asked to pay double your current contribution ? Surely, like me you would want to know why and like me find out what the legalities of all this are and just what are my rights.

So do you know of any publications on this or a forum I could go to that would help me get a grip on this topic?

At the end of the day if its reasonable I will go along with it. At the moment I really don't feel comfortable at all. Would you??

Edited November 7, 2008 by dsfbrit

[Pdaz]

Welcome to Thailand....

Well your situation seems pretty normal.. All is well in most estates until the developer hands it over to the residents..

In my estate ( around 8 years old now, handed over 5 years back) there are many different house styles and sizes.. Townhouses, big detached houses and small detached villas.. All have various plots sizes. There are 3 different Monthly charges. Townhouse - 1000baht, Villa - 1500, Detached - 2000.

We are pretty lucky as there is around an 80% payment rate.. But many of the houses are farang owned.. Funny though the people who dont pay are either the 'rich' ones with the biggest houses or Thai girls who had a house bought for them by some dumbo farang who has since fled the scene.

So here it seems it's house size rather then plot size that denotes the payment required. To my mind it shoud be based on plot size as obviously a bigger plot has more boundary area hedge/plants/trees t be taken care off and usually generates more garden debris to be carted away.. also more external street lighting.. Sure there are other opinions..

For me I'd like to see people with dogs charged more as the cleaners have to scoop up their poop everyday and their barking is a nusiance to everybody.

But in reality I'd just like to see everybody contributing rather than living off the back of more honest people.. The attitude of 'I only come for 6 Months a year, why should I pay ?' or 'I'm Thai, why should I pay ?' is really blo*dy selfish and only causes the whole village to gradually decline...

That is the real key to buying property here.. finding a place that will be well maintained after the developer has left... Not an easy task in a country where homeowners are too lazy or too cheap to even paint their houses regularly...

So if you were able to afford a big plot you should be able to afford to pay your way... Yes it needs to worked out fairly so you aren't paying more than your share but don't complain cos you have more land than others.. You could have bought a smaller plot if you didn't fancy paying for it.. and remember if your commitee fails to come to an agreement everybody in your village wil suffer because nobody will contribute.. that's when real problems start..

[quiksilva]

First off despite being in property, I don't have much expertise in housing estate management (I specialise in commercial) but I will gladly share what little I know.

My estate is still being run by the developers, Sansiri, who charge a rate that is also based on the plot size (measured per square wah).

Juristic housing estates are run very similarly to a Juristic Condominium and any major changes to the budget are possible (rates to be collected, how contributions are apportioned between owners, etc ) BUT they must be agreed by the majority of owners at a valid AGM/EGM where a quorum has been reached.

Further if the committee has decided that they want to embark on a major works these would have to be agreed to too, and approval should be sought in advance if they have not been budgeted for.

If the estate is worn down and needs plenty of TLC it could explain the increase in expenses. When the builder decided to hand over to the residents there should have been a residents meeting, right?

At this meeting (or perhaps at a subsequent one?) the committee should have explained why they wanted to increase the contributions and shown what works were being planned and then put it to a vote.

I don't know if this happened because the problem is not all juristic committees are born equal.

[donx]

Tell me donx, how do you 'communicate' with your committee. My major concern here is I feel totally out of control and out of the loop. I contacted the guy who was elected Juristic Person. He had just got back from his day job, so I will probably leave it until Saturday before I go and 'rattle his cage'. Let him at least get some rest before the moaning starts.

Our home owners committee meets every month. Anyone is welcome to attend the meetings. They also have a yearly meeting for voting on new board members. Our community also has a website where I could contact any of the board members. This is a well established community where all the houses have the same appearance. No one can make an external modification without approval of the architectural control committee and the guidelines for what is allowed and not allowed are fairly well defined.

I'm not sure this information will help in your situation, but I would assume that your committee must allow residence to attend their meetings. Find out when they occur and bring your Thai wife or a trusted Thai friend to translate what is happening in the meeting.

As far as what is fair to pay, I can see it two ways:

1. Based upon the price per m2 (or wah) of the lot. This sounds like how it was originally determined in your situation.

2. Based upon a standard price per plot. This is how my assessment fee is based. I have a 5 bedroom end unit townhouse and I pay the same price as the 3 bedroom internal units. I see this as fair since the common areas are owned equally by all home owners. This includes the upkeep of the common green areas as well as paving and painting of the parking areas. We don't have an associated pool. There is a privately run pool in the area, but residence are not required to become members.

[dsfbrit]

Welcome to Thailand....

Well your situation seems pretty normal.. All is well in most estates until the developer hands it over to the residents..

In my estate ( around 8 years old now, handed over 5 years back) there are many different house styles and sizes.. Townhouses, big detached houses and small detached villas.. All have various plots sizes. There are 3 different Monthly charges. Townhouse - 1000baht, Villa - 1500, Detached - 2000.

We are pretty lucky as there is around an 80% payment rate.. But many of the houses are farang owned.. Funny though the people who dont pay are either the 'rich' ones with the biggest houses or Thai girls who had a house bought for them by some dumbo farang who has since fled the scene.

So here it seems it's house size rather then plot size that denotes the payment required. To my mind it shoud be based on plot size as obviously a bigger plot has more boundary area hedge/plants/trees t be taken care off and usually generates more garden debris to be carted away.. also more external street lighting.. Sure there are other opinions..

For me I'd like to see people with dogs charged more as the cleaners have to scoop up their poop everyday and their barking is a nusiance to everybody.

But in reality I'd just like to see everybody contributing rather than living off the back of more honest people.. The attitude of 'I only come for 6 Months a year, why should I pay ?' or 'I'm Thai, why should I pay ?' is really blo*dy selfish and only causes the whole village to gradually decline...

That is the real key to buying property here.. finding a place that will be well maintained after the developer has left... Not an easy task in a country where homeowners are too lazy or too cheap to even paint their houses regularly...

So if you were able to afford a big plot you should be able to afford to pay your way... Yes it needs to worked out fairly so you aren't paying more than your share but don't complain cos you have more land than others.. You could have bought a smaller plot if you didn't fancy paying for it.. and remember if your commitee fails to come to an agreement everybody in your village wil suffer because nobody will contribute.. that's when real problems start..

Pdaz, It sounds like you have got a pretty good setup there. My wife and I are only too happy to pay our way, believe me that is not an issue. We will also continue to paint our outside walls each year, cut our grass outside our house, dispose of our own tree cuttings and even clean up our dogs poo when we take him walkies with a lead. I cannot stop him barking though

However, your estate currently charges what sounds like a reasonable rate based on house size. If the rate were to suddenly double or you received a document for a referendum to change this to paying per M2 you would no doubt want your 'say'.

If I were being asked to pay any of the amounts you listed above, the most I would be paying would be 24,000 Baht per year.

I am currently paying 18,000 Baht per year, so I cannot understand why it has doubled. Yes DOUBLED to 36000 Baht per year. I want to understand the method I must use to ask these sorts of questions of the committee and I dont understand how to do this.

So if you have a problem in your village, how do you address issues with the committee? What are your rights? Can YOU call a committee meeting? etc...

I do not understand the legalities and I have been unable to find any books or forums that explains my rights in detail. So you see, its not so much I think what is happening is right or wrong, its that I dont understand the issues!

Its very frustrating.

Edited November 7, 2008 by dsfbrit

[dsfbrit]

First off despite being in property, I don't have much expertise in housing estate management (I specialise in commercial) but I will gladly share what little I know.

My estate is still being run by the developers, Sansiri, who charge a rate that is also based on the plot size (measured per square wah).

Juristic housing estates are run very similarly to a Juristic Condominium and any major changes to the budget are possible (rates to be collected, how contributions are apportioned between owners, etc ) BUT they must be agreed by the majority of owners at a valid AGM/EGM where a quorum has been reached.

Further if the committee has decided that they want to embark on a major works these would have to be agreed to too, and approval should be sought in advance if they have not been budgeted for.

If the estate is worn down and needs plenty of TLC it could explain the increase in expenses. When the builder decided to hand over to the residents there should have been a residents meeting, right?

At this meeting (or perhaps at a subsequent one?) the committee should have explained why they wanted to increase the contributions and shown what works were being planned and then put it to a vote.

I don't know if this happened because the problem is not all juristic committees are born equal.

Quiksilva, thats interesting, so if I were to get hold of a document relating to condo management from somewhere, its a similar process then. At the moment the document I have had sent to me is just a referendum letter with the options, so to agree to this change a meeting would need to be called.

So for any decision to be made there would still need to be an EGM called and a vote taken.

Do you know anywhere I can get hold of book or info on Management Of Condos'. I will do a search on Amazon and have a look around the bookstores here in Pattaya as well.

[dsfbrit]

Tell me donx, how do you 'communicate' with your committee. My major concern here is I feel totally out of control and out of the loop. I contacted the guy who was elected Juristic Person. He had just got back from his day job, so I will probably leave it until Saturday before I go and 'rattle his cage'. Let him at least get some rest before the moaning starts.

Our home owners committee meets every month. Anyone is welcome to attend the meetings. They also have a yearly meeting for voting on new board members. Our community also has a website where I could contact any of the board members. This is a well established community where all the houses have the same appearance. No one can make an external modification without approval of the architectural control committee and the guidelines for what is allowed and not allowed are fairly well defined.

I'm not sure this information will help in your situation, but I would assume that your committee must allow residence to attend their meetings. Find out when they occur and bring your Thai wife or a trusted Thai friend to translate what is happening in the meeting.

As far as what is fair to pay, I can see it two ways:

1. Based upon the price per m2 (or wah) of the lot. This sounds like how it was originally determined in your situation.

2. Based upon a standard price per plot. This is how my assessment fee is based. I have a 5 bedroom end unit townhouse and I pay the same price as the 3 bedroom internal units. I see this as fair since the common areas are owned equally by all home owners. This includes the upkeep of the common green areas as well as paving and painting of the parking areas. We don't have an associated pool. There is a privately run pool in the area, but residence are not required to become members.

Good advice donx, I will do that. I will go to the next meeting and ask to understand the procedures of the committee before I decide on anything. I have documented below why I am very 'wary' of the procedures at the moment.

[dsfbrit]

Thanks to all of you for your feedback. Its helped me to focus my thoughts on what is reasonable and unreasonable.

I would like you to better understand my concern about this committee. It is not that I am not prepared to share the burden, far from it. To best describe my concerns here is an example of what happened when my wife and I attended the meeting to appoint the committee.

We were sent an invite and this clearly stated that voting would be as follows: 'one subdivision plot of land owner one vote'. We have two plots of land so we got 2 votes. We were given our 2 voting slips, but some guy who had just one plot of land said this was unreasonable. The owner of the building company said this was the legal requirement, to vote based on 'one subdivision plot of land owner one vote' and he could not change the rules.

There was some more complaints from one loud Thai guy and without further comment, my voting slip was taken away.

I asked if they could just change their mind like that and the person next to me shrugged his shoulders. I said this seems a bit odd. If this voting method is a legal requirement to form the first committee, is the committee valid?

I felt absolutely stupid, that I was attending an important meeting and I was like a lost kid. I now did not have a vote and had no idea whether this was allowed or not.

Now if they can change the rules like that to suit the loudest guy in the meeting, what else will happen that is apparently 'illegal'.

I need to understand all this thats for sure.

If anyone can recommend a book or document then I would very much appreciate it.

I will meet with the Juristic Person tomorrow and see if I can help him with some of the effort as well.

Thanks again for all your feedack, its been very helpful.

Edited November 7, 2008 by dsfbrit

[glyph]

You do not address the main point: did the developer set up a homeowner's association that has the legal authority to demand payment of dues? A friend of mine bought a home in Udon Thani, and a few homeowners decided to start an association to hire guards, do landscaping, and that sort of thing. Unfortunately, the association has no legal authority and, accordingly, out of 200 homes, only 30-40 contribute money. The voting is simple: every homeowner has one vote, regardless of the size of either the home or the property. Next door to my friend's development is another one, but with a legally sanctioned homeowners' association. According to my friend, the difference between the developments is day and night. His development looks like a slum, and next door looks like an oasis. He chose the "wrong" development and saved 100,000THB in building his home. Bad decision.

[JAS21]

I live in a gated housing estate 5 miles outside Pattaya.

I say its 'gated', but in fact there is no gate, just an old hut with a security guard in it and a high wall around the outside. The estate is not built to European standards, its nothing special. Hey, but its home.

There are about 50 houses here about 10 of them owned by Farang. It was decided last week to no longer use the builders to take care of the facilities and a committee has been formed comprising 9 people.

This was because the builders wanted no more to do with the maintenance. Fair enough.

The committee have come up with an annual budget of around 750,000 Baht. This is for security, cutting the grass, cleaning a small pool that has been built etc..

A referendum has just been drawn up asking how people want to pay for the services, per household or per meter squared.

If per household I would be asked to pay around 15,000 Baht per year along with everyone else.

If per meter squared, I would be asked to pay 36,000 Baht per year and many smaller households (the majority) would pay just 8000 Baht per year.

As this vote will be decided by the majority, I suspect that it will be passed such that they will want me to pay 36000 Baht.

There are 2 thngs that concern me.

- the cost of the services to clean a road, cut some bushes and provide security guards seems quite high. The 'security' guards are poorly trained and we cut our own bushes etc. In fact at the meeting to elect the committee, one guy who had gone to visit a nearby village said they paid about 8000 Baht per household per year. In our case that would be 50 households times 8000 Baht or around 400,000 Baht. I was expecting these sorts of figures and this would be similar to the amount I would be asked to pay - so I am quite shocked I could be asked to pay nearly 5 times this amount.

- this cost could escalate next year and each year after that. Lets face it, if the committee gets 'stuffed' with people only having to pay 8000 Baht per year now, then increasing the annual budget is no big deal to them - is it? In fact one very loud forceful Thai, who is now on the committee, has lots of grand ideas how to 'improve' the place - thats fine as long as he does not mind paying a reasonable amount towards it! He will only be paying 8000 Baht per year if the referendum goes the 'per meter' route.

So my questions are these:

- Do you live in a gated community?

- If so how much do you pay and what do you get for it?

- How were the distribution of charges amongst the residents decided?

- Is there a forum somewhere or information or a book on the roles of such a committee and my legal rights etc...

- Do you think I need to get a lawyer involved now.

At the end of the day I will pay what legally I have to. However, I dont want to just roll over on this without understanding just how I got into a situation where I need to pay 36000 Baht per year when the original contract with the builder for these services was only 16000 Baht per year.

Thanks for any feedback and advice.

We live in a well..difficult to describe..village except to say most houses were in the 7-12 million baht range. The residents, many are well educated, hold good jobs etc. A couple of retirees like myself.

After company handover, for the first year it was ok, then the committee president changed and unfortunately some of, well the majority of the committee, were like sheep, not wanting to make a fuss I guess. He just did what he wanted. Caused a lot of problems.

At the AGM he went, the new committee, who were mainly the same voted a new president, he said I’m the oldest so it should be me. He turned out to be just as bad.

Now the ‘ok people’ on the committee have resigned and the constitution says if less than x-number of people then have to have a big meeting to re-elect. So election soon and the plan is that they will go back on with others who are not ‘yes people’.

It’s been suggested that I go on as an advisor, wife will have to translate. I wrote to the committee a while ago complaining about several things..the president and his manager came to see me..I haven’t see a bigger pair of wanke_rs for some while. Anyway things have improved.

We pay 10Baht/sqwa.

The security costs 100,000baht/month quite a few people.

We pay for dustbin collection, keep the place tidy etc etc.

Electric lighting, water pumps, fish pond fountain

Village manager, helper, accountant ( a joke!) she can only do P&L!!

Rent a house for the village office etc.

If the treasurer is ok and strong then you have few problems. There is little room for back handers..maybe a bit on security contract.

Building another road..who owns the land? Why do you think transport ministers etc are very rich!

You could have some problems. You need to be prepared, along with many others to shout down this guy. But be careful, you could be sued. Some of our committee were..but of course they won..just a pain and expense. You need to find out who are the good guys and get them on the committee..try and avoid the young as they will just say yes to the older people..this is thailand. Good Luck..and read and understand the constitution. Suggest little change now and see what the future holds..maybe many will not be able to pay..nothing you can do about it except shame them..and put a charge on their house...you cannot force them to pay!!!!

[dsfbrit]

You do not address the main point: did the developer set up a homeowner's association that has the legal authority to demand payment of dues? A friend of mine bought a home in Udon Thani, and a few homeowners decided to start an association to hire guards, do landscaping, and that sort of thing. Unfortunately, the association has no legal authority and, accordingly, out of 200 homes, only 30-40 contribute money. The voting is simple: every homeowner has one vote, regardless of the size of either the home or the property. Next door to my friend's development is another one, but with a legally sanctioned homeowners' association. According to my friend, the difference between the developments is day and night. His development looks like a slum, and next door looks like an oasis. He chose the "wrong" development and saved 100,000THB in building his home. Bad decision.

Glyph, I don't know. Thats the trouble. I am not usually this 'dumb'. My mum was ill in England whilst these meetings were being held, then sadly she died. So as you can imagine, I had a lot on my mind, trips back to the UK etc...

My wife went along to the initial meetings and she did not really understand what was going on. She is very quiet and would not speak up.

So when I went along to the latest meeting, it seemed a lot had already taken place. It was immediately apparent to me that the builder wanted 'out' and the families that had turned up to vote were mostly Thais and just seemed to agree with whatever was said by the loudest person. There were not that many families there, just enough to make a vote legal.

To be fair though, the vote itself on the committee members was conducted openly. My only complaint about the actaul vote was that we had one of our voting papers removed just because some loud guy at the front didn't like us and some other families having 2 votes. Hey if I am entitled to 2 votes - then I should have them! If just 1 vote then that OK as well. Having a vote removed just because someone shouts a lot 'wound me up' I am afraid.

So I am now playing 'catch-up'. I figured the first thing to do was to try to understand just what this committee we now have is 'all about'. That is proving harder than I thought. I cannot find any decent documentaion anywhere on the roles and responsibilities of this sort of committee. Its very frustrating.

I will attach an email from the 'Juristic Person' about all this below. It seems a mess at the moment.

Edited November 8, 2008 by dsfbrit

[dsfbrit]

Here is an email from the Juristic Person(President) of the committee, to the 1 loud Thai guy and his friend(s) who I mentioned was at the meeting to choose the committee. Both of them are now committe members. The JP told me he thinks they are trying to take over the committee! You can see there is a power struggle going on here. Oh dear!!!

This is relating to the referendum document I received mentioned in the first post, I must say he echoes my thoughts:-

'

What was the idea of asking Kooon ****** to distribute the questionnaire already without first agreeing to it in a committee meeting? I met her outside my house this evening 9 pm distributing everything under instruction from you and 3 other committee members she said.

This way we are achieving nothing at all.

Am I correct that you are trying to push the issue to have a vote in favor of a payment divided per m2 as that would be in your advantage for paying less?

We should all understand that it is not good to be trying to push anybodies advantage in this as surely that will lead to the whole village divided in two camps. What we have to find is a solution that everyone is willing to accept otherwise those people that feel they are being disadvantaged will refuse to pay.

Do you really think that just because there is a majority vote for paying per m2 that everyone will pay? Of course not. Can you see the guy on the corner plot paying 46,000 while somebody else is paying less than 9,000? Of course that will not happen. People who feel they are paying too much will simply not pay and then you will never have a working village committee.

To have a working village committee you need to make 90% of the people happy and ready to pay their share, not just over 50%.

So lets first discuss this amongst the committee members and then start sending something that everyone can live with.'

Edited November 8, 2008 by dsfbrit

[Gary A]

No GaryA my house is in fact smaller than many of my neighbours. The measurement is based on the size of the land. In fact my house and land cost about 5 million Baht, which is about the average cost of the neighbours residences, both Thai and farang.

My wife and I walked around the estate last night looking at the neighbours propertys.

One owner, that may have to pay just 8000 Baht per year actually has a property worth about 7 million Baht (worth more than mine), he has a very large house, but a very small plot of land.

I think condo maintenance law, unlike my situation with house and land, is very well defined in this area. You know you have to pay on your living space area - the living space includes the land directly under your dwelling.

I don't believe you could ever be presented with a referendum that asks if you want to pay by land size or per dwelling.

Out of interest, how would you react if you were suddenly asked to pay double your current contribution ? Surely, like me you would want to know why and like me find out what the legalities of all this are and just what are my rights.

So do you know of any publications on this or a forum I could go to that would help me get a grip on this topic?

At the end of the day if its reasonable I will go along with it. At the moment I really don't feel comfortable at all. Would you??

In my opinion, the cost should be based on the size of the house and NOT the size of the land. I think you definitely have a legitimate complaint. Unfortunately I have no idea how you should contest it other than to try to reason with the other owners.

[dsfbrit]

We live in a well..difficult to describe..village except to say most houses were in the 7-12 million baht range. The residents, many are well educated, hold good jobs etc. A couple of retirees like myself.

After company handover, for the first year it was ok, then the committee president changed and unfortunately some of, well the majority of the committee, were like sheep, not wanting to make a fuss I guess. He just did what he wanted. Caused a lot of problems.

At the AGM he went, the new committee, who were mainly the same voted a new president, he said I’m the oldest so it should be me. He turned out to be just as bad.

Now the ‘ok people’ on the committee have resigned and the constitution says if less than x-number of people then have to have a big meeting to re-elect. So election soon and the plan is that they will go back on with others who are not ‘yes people’.

It’s been suggested that I go on as an advisor, wife will have to translate. I wrote to the committee a while ago complaining about several things..the president and his manager came to see me..I haven’t see a bigger pair of wanke_rs for some while. Anyway things have improved.

We pay 10Baht/sqwa.

The security costs 100,000baht/month quite a few people.

We pay for dustbin collection, keep the place tidy etc etc.

Electric lighting, water pumps, fish pond fountain

Village manager, helper, accountant ( a joke!) she can only do P&L!!

Rent a house for the village office etc.

If the treasurer is ok and strong then you have few problems. There is little room for back handers..maybe a bit on security contract.

Building another road..who owns the land? Why do you think transport ministers etc are very rich!

You could have some problems. You need to be prepared, along with many others to shout down this guy. But be careful, you could be sued. Some of our committee were..but of course they won..just a pain and expense. You need to find out who are the good guys and get them on the committee..try and avoid the young as they will just say yes to the older people..this is thailand. Good Luck..and read and understand the constitution. Suggest little change now and see what the future holds..maybe many will not be able to pay..nothing you can do about it except shame them..and put a charge on their house...you cannot force them to pay!!!!

John45, thanks for this detailed reply. It sounds like you have had quite a lot of aggravation. I have a feeling this is what I will have to do over the next couple of years if I want to get this sorted out.

I have found out that the builder hander over the land and maintenance to the Juristic Person under the 'Land Allocation Act AC 2543 B.C.' I have Googled this and have found some information I need to read.

I would like to ask you some more quesions later if I may, when I understand this more - please.

One thing that stands out ii the 'constitution' you mentioned - who wrote this???

thanks again for you help

Edited November 9, 2008 by dsfbrit

[dsfbrit]

No GaryA my house is in fact smaller than many of my neighbours. The measurement is based on the size of the land. In fact my house and land cost about 5 million Baht, which is about the average cost of the neighbours residences, both Thai and farang.

My wife and I walked around the estate last night looking at the neighbours propertys.

One owner, that may have to pay just 8000 Baht per year actually has a property worth about 7 million Baht (worth more than mine), he has a very large house, but a very small plot of land.

I think condo maintenance law, unlike my situation with house and land, is very well defined in this area. You know you have to pay on your living space area - the living space includes the land directly under your dwelling.

I don't believe you could ever be presented with a referendum that asks if you want to pay by land size or per dwelling.

Out of interest, how would you react if you were suddenly asked to pay double your current contribution ? Surely, like me you would want to know why and like me find out what the legalities of all this are and just what are my rights.

So do you know of any publications on this or a forum I could go to that would help me get a grip on this topic?

At the end of the day if its reasonable I will go along with it. At the moment I really don't feel comfortable at all. Would you??

In my opinion, the cost should be based on the size of the house and NOT the size of the land. I think you definitely have a legitimate complaint. Unfortunately I have no idea how you should contest it other than to try to reason with the other owners.

GaryA, I think you have a good idea here that could maybe be modified to include the land aspect as well. So to keep those happy that want it based on land size only, perhaps I could suggest a third option to the referendum that includes a formula based on house size and land size. For example (off the top of my head on a Sunday morning!), size of house and half size of land. It would need to be a simple formula or it could get messy. Perhaps based on 100 percent house size and 50 per cent land size (as an example)?

Worth a thought.

I am off now to read the 'Land Allocation Act 2543 B.C.' - I cannot think of anything I would rather be doing on a Sunday - can you

Edited November 9, 2008 by dsfbrit

[Naam]

So my questions are these:

- Do you live in a gated community?

- If so how much do you pay and what do you get for it?

- How were the distribution of charges amongst the residents decided?

- Is there a forum somewhere or information or a book on the roles of such a committee and my legal rights etc...

- Do you think I need to get a lawyer involved now.

Thanks for any feedback and advice.

i live in an upscale gated community and pay presently 36,500 p.a. (used to be ~30k before)

services:

-24 hours (strict) gate services, visitors and contractors have to submit I.D. or Driver's Lincense at the gate, vehicle registration as well as time in/out is recorded, parties visited have to sign them out.

-street lighting, street cleaning

-garbage collection

-gardening services of communal areas

-fees are according to the size of land (not house), in my case one Rai

-fees are presently levied by developer but a homeowners committee is under formation

[Naam]

In my opinion, the cost should be based on the size of the house and NOT the size of the land. I think you definitely have a legitimate complaint. Unfortunately I have no idea how you should contest it other than to try to reason with the other owners.

i lived in two gated communities in Florida where the fees were levied based on the land. the same was reported by friends/acquaintancies who lived in different communities.

[bangkapiboy]

I pay about 12,000B/yr for 55sqw land plot in greater Bangkok. This covers trash, cleaners, security, 3 small parks, lights, etc. We have a clubhouse/pool and that is a separate fee.

Edited November 9, 2008 by bangkapiboy

[dsfbrit]

I have been reading the 'Land Allocation Act 2543 B.C'. This deals with many aspects of Land Allocation, but in my case it deals with just one aspect. This aspect were the rules the builder had to conform to, to legally hand over the responsiblity of the village to the Juristic Person. The builder has performed this action and is no longer involved with the village.

So I am back to tracking down the legal aspects of the committee.

[dsfbrit]

i live in an upscale gated community and pay presently 36,500 p.a. (used to be ~30k before)

services:

-24 hours (strict) gate services, visitors and contractors have to submit I.D. or Driver's Lincense at the gate, vehicle registration as well as time in/out is recorded, parties visited have to sign them out.

-street lighting, street cleaning

-garbage collection

-gardening services of communal areas

-fees are according to the size of land (not house), in my case one Rai

-fees are presently levied by developer but a homeowners committee is under formation

Naam, Thanks for the feedback, I think you have a reasonable deal there. It sounds like you live in a nice village and its well run. You are paying the same amount as I would be paying, with 25 percent more land. I live in a village that is not up-market, has security guards that tend to be petting the stray dogs when I drive in and I pay for the garbage separately. Sure the level of service could be improved, but the cost I would be asked to pay is just to replace the current services and cleaning the new small swimming pool.

In fact for your level of service I would be happy to pay 36000 Baht per year. Tell me, are there any people there paying 8000 Baht per year or is your fee pretty 'average'?

Please understand, I am not mean at all and at the end of the day I will pay what is agreed, for the first year at least to see how it goes, if the service improves, who pays etc...

I just think my contribution seems too high and I cannot see how I can get involved in the 'loop' to find out why its so high and how I can feel more 'comfortable' with it.

Also could I ask just how:

- the homeowners committee is being formed - is there a rule book?

- Will the builder hand over to a Juristic Person first?

- Do you expect your fees to increase ?

- can I have your committee come and run this place, they sound really good

[dsfbrit]

I pay about 12,000B/yr for 55sqw land plot in greater Bangkok. This covers trash, cleaners, security, 3 small parks, lights, etc. We have a clubhouse/pool and that is a separate fee.

Good heavens bangkapiboy, assuming the fee is based on sqw, that means for my 300 sqw the cost would be around 70000 baht. You give the plot size, but don't say if the charge is based per sqw.

Are there other residents that have to pay a lot more than you???

I think that is one of the issues that concerns me about all this. No offence to you, but if you vote for additional services and your annual fee doubles to 24,000 baht, you may feel that is no 'big deal'.

However, someone with a larger plot of land, say 300 sqw, could have their fees doubled to 140,000 baht

I know this is an extreme example and would not happen in real life (?), but you can see why I want to understand the implications of all this if the majority who have smaller land areas, make outrageous decisions.

Hey I am not rich at all and Good heavens when I bought this extra bit of land for about 500k baht it seemed pretty cheap at the time!

I must say I like the idea of paying separately for the clubhouse and swimming pool. Sadly that will not be the case here!

[bangkapiboy]

I pay about 12,000B/yr for 55sqw land plot in greater Bangkok. This covers trash, cleaners, security, 3 small parks, lights, etc. We have a clubhouse/pool and that is a separate fee.

Good heavens bangkapiboy, assuming the fee is based on sqw, that means for my 300 sqw the cost would be around 70000 baht. You give the plot size, but don't say if the charge is based per sqw.

Are there other residents that have to pay a lot more than you???

I think that is one of the issues that concerns me about all this. No offence to you, but if you vote for additional services and your annual fee doubles to 24,000 baht, you may feel that is no 'big deal'.

However, someone with a larger plot of land, say 300 sqw, could have their fees doubled to 140,000 baht

I know this is an extreme example and would not happen in real life (?), but you can see why I want to understand the implications of all this if the majority who have smaller land areas, make outrageous decisions.

Hey I am not rich at all and Good heavens when I bought this extra bit of land for about 500k baht it seemed pretty cheap at the time!

I must say I like the idea of paying separately for the clubhouse and swimming pool. Sadly that will not be the case here!

The payment is based on the sqw of my land plot. We have 300+ houses in this moo ban. 300sqw is huge! I would love to have that, since I feel my lot is so small. Anyway, larger plots pay more money, but certainly nobody has plots much bigger than 100sqw here I think. This estate is very professionally run so far. How many houses in your estate?

[dsfbrit]

I pay about 12,000B/yr for 55sqw land plot in greater Bangkok. This covers trash, cleaners, security, 3 small parks, lights, etc. We have a clubhouse/pool and that is a separate fee.

Good heavens bangkapiboy, assuming the fee is based on sqw, that means for my 300 sqw the cost would be around 70000 baht. You give the plot size, but don't say if the charge is based per sqw.

Are there other residents that have to pay a lot more than you???

I think that is one of the issues that concerns me about all this. No offence to you, but if you vote for additional services and your annual fee doubles to 24,000 baht, you may feel that is no 'big deal'.

However, someone with a larger plot of land, say 300 sqw, could have their fees doubled to 140,000 baht

I know this is an extreme example and would not happen in real life (?), but you can see why I want to understand the implications of all this if the majority who have smaller land areas, make outrageous decisions.

Hey I am not rich at all and Good heavens when I bought this extra bit of land for about 500k baht it seemed pretty cheap at the time!

I must say I like the idea of paying separately for the clubhouse and swimming pool. Sadly that will not be the case here!

The payment is based on the sqw of my land plot. We have 300+ houses in this moo ban. 300sqw is huge! I would love to have that, since I feel my lot is so small. Anyway, larger plots pay more money, but certainly nobody has plots much bigger than 100sqw here I think. This estate is very professionally run so far. How many houses in your estate?

We have just 51 houses here. I think the fact that plots of land in your village are of a similar size makes a big difference as well. Your neighbour's payments range from 12000 to around 22000 Baht. Not a massive difference. Here because there are quite a few relatively small plots of land, the fee ranges from 8000 Baht to 46000 Baht per year.

It just seems so unfair that that one guy (not me) with the biggest plot of land here, should be expected to pay nearly 6 times the amount more than the guy with the smaller house. He also has a swimming pool which he had installed 4 years ago, so wont even use the new communal pool, but is expected to pay his full share (included in the 46000 Baht) for that as well.

The email from the President of the committee (posted above) thinks that the people with the smaller plots of land are trying to hijack the committee and try to get a great lifestyle without paying too much. I think he is correct.

A few of them got together and sent out the referendum without the President even knowing. I believe thats not allowed, but I am not sure because I cannot find the rules and regulations relating to this type of committee. You dont know where I could get this information do you? Does you village have a 'rule book' ???

My feeling is that if someone wants to live in an estate with a swimming pool, clubhouse, nicely tended gardens, and good security, then they should be prepared to pay their share towards it, or reduce their expectations.

Hey I am all for a bit of re-distribution of wealth, but this just seems too much.

It seems that the latest 'good idea' is to have a sound system for the pool area and charge people to have parties there etc... guess who would pay for the sound system! Now the village is turning into a business!

I must say that at first I was slightly bemused by all this. But now I am getting annoyed that people get themselves on a committee and 'abuse' the system in this way.

I know people will say paying per metre is fair, but if this committee has another 'good idea' and votes to install a solid gold Buddha statue in the entrance, I need to know the procedure to prevent it.

HELP

(mind you - if they wanted to erect a gold statue of Brian Clough - now that would be money well spent!)

Edited November 10, 2008 by dsfbrit

[bangkapiboy]

I pay about 12,000B/yr for 55sqw land plot in greater Bangkok. This covers trash, cleaners, security, 3 small parks, lights, etc. We have a clubhouse/pool and that is a separate fee.

Good heavens bangkapiboy, assuming the fee is based on sqw, that means for my 300 sqw the cost would be around 70000 baht. You give the plot size, but don't say if the charge is based per sqw.

Are there other residents that have to pay a lot more than you???

I think that is one of the issues that concerns me about all this. No offence to you, but if you vote for additional services and your annual fee doubles to 24,000 baht, you may feel that is no 'big deal'.

However, someone with a larger plot of land, say 300 sqw, could have their fees doubled to 140,000 baht

I know this is an extreme example and would not happen in real life (?), but you can see why I want to understand the implications of all this if the majority who have smaller land areas, make outrageous decisions.

Hey I am not rich at all and Good heavens when I bought this extra bit of land for about 500k baht it seemed pretty cheap at the time!

I must say I like the idea of paying separately for the clubhouse and swimming pool. Sadly that will not be the case here!

The payment is based on the sqw of my land plot. We have 300+ houses in this moo ban. 300sqw is huge! I would love to have that, since I feel my lot is so small. Anyway, larger plots pay more money, but certainly nobody has plots much bigger than 100sqw here I think. This estate is very professionally run so far. How many houses in your estate?

We have just 51 houses here. I think the fact that plots of land in your village are of a similar size makes a big difference as well. Your neighbour's payments range from 12000 to around 22000 Baht. Not a massive difference. Here because there are quite a few relatively small plots of land, the fee ranges from 8000 Baht to 46000 Baht per year.

It just seems so unfair that that one guy (not me) with the biggest plot of land here, should be expected to pay nearly 6 times the amount more than the guy with the smaller house. He also has a swimming pool which he had installed 4 years ago, so wont even use the new communal pool, but is expected to pay his full share (included in the 46000 Baht) for that as well.

The email from the President of the committee (posted above) thinks that the people with the smaller plots of land are trying to hijack the committee and try to get a great lifestyle without paying too much. I think he is correct.

A few of them got together and sent out the referendum without the President even knowing. I believe thats not allowed, but I am not sure because I cannot find the rules and regulations relating to this type of committee. You dont know where I could get this information do you? Does you village have a 'rule book' ???

My feeling is that if someone wants to live in an estate with a swimming pool, clubhouse, nicely tended gardens, and good security, then they should be prepared to pay their share towards it, or reduce their expectations.

Hey I am all for a bit of re-distribution of wealth, but this just seems too much.

It seems that the latest 'good idea' is to have a sound system for the pool area and charge people to have parties there etc... guess who would pay for the sound system! Now the village is turning into a business!

I must say that at first I was slightly bemused by all this. But now I am getting annoyed that people get themselves on a committee and 'abuse' the system in this way.

I know people will say paying per metre is fair, but if this committee has another 'good idea' and votes to install a solid gold Buddha statue in the entrance, I need to know the procedure to prevent it.

HELP

(mind you - if they wanted to erect a gold statue of Brian Clough - now that would be money well spent!)

It would be good to recommend a max payment per house. The comittee can still charge per sqm, but put a cap on the amount. It sounds like the committee is being hijacked and if you and the manager don't act now, it may be too late to salvage it from the corrupt takeover. By the way, I don't know any of the rules and I have never seen a "rule book". My village is new and I just bought this year.