High community/maintenance fees vs mediocre services

[scotbeve]

Hello TV folks,

There was a thread sometime in the past concerning high maintenance fees and services not worth those fees.... Apologies in advance if I have overlooked it in my searches for that particular thread.

Lived in TH for a long time and have been in CM for over 27 years. Bought many houses and condos for investment - in my missus' name of course. We live in our newest house in CM called Sivali Mee Chok (Land & House). In general, it's a well built house in a secure housing estate. But after one year it's already starting to see some ineffectual maintenance. Examples of this are: the (cheap) gym equipment is only 50% operating, community buildings (as well as the houses) are starting to show mold, night time lighting has been cut back (reduced), rubbish is seen here and there, and other small things that, on the surface, shouldn't be too annoying.... Hmmmmmm ... well the maintenance / community fees are 36,000/year. A bit expensive to be letting these "small" grievances slide IMHO..... The responsible party is the developer, Land & House...... There are over 80 houses occupied at present and once 2 more phases are completed, there will be over 180 homes here. Do the math! Seems that at least the developer can do is get better gym equipment as the stuff they have looks like it was bought at Tesco-Lotus.... Plenty of residents have complained to the office but little or nothing gets done. When something does in fact get done, it's extremely slow. We were hoping that we could get ALL the home owners to stop paying this year....

Any other folks here get any positive reaction from feet-dragging developers before using this method? Oh...... And yes, there are enough lawyers living here to have a quorum/meeting face to face....

[isawasnake]

I think a lot of these Thai developers watched "Field of Dreams" and really took note.

[FiftyTwo]

I just moved into a KKN in CM, 450bht/month paid 3 years in advance.

All we get is security a small park and street cleaners.

200 out of 400 finished, pavements and park not done yet.

I think the developers just see moobaan fees as a little bonus for them.

Rubbish collection by local council at 30bht/month.

PS

A Thai pal warned me L&H take the P*&% with moobaan fees, when I was looking.

Edited November 16, 2013 by FiftyTwo

[johnnyk]

Developers like to keep control, it's a cash cow.

[scotbeve]

Developers like to keep control, it's a cash cow.

Yes Johnny, a very lucrative cash cow!

[Delight]

I find it difficult to contribute to this post since I do not know the contractual arrangement between the house owners and the developer.

For certain Thai law has no separate provision for private 'Walled Estates' -unlike condo -owners who have plenty of protection via the Condo Act.

I can only suggest the obvious i.e. that you ask your 'enough lawyers' to investigate a legal solution.

A starting point for this is to attempt to develop a balance sheet detailing known and estimated values - income and expenditure.

This should give you a basis for pursuing any change or not.

Good luck