Leaving a Condo Behind - Bills etc...

[isawasnake]

Thanks for the replies.

I have heard on numerous occasions that Thais/chinese buy condos and just let them sit there without paying fees. This may be exaggerated I have no idea. But if it is as serious as selling your condo off, even without the chanote i take it, I will get more serious about it, maybe. ha. I was just planning on paying the 10% and 20% when back. The way I see it, and I could be wrong about this, but they want the money, but they dont have a lot of ways of paying the money from overseas.

I will figure it all out and report back.

[paul955]

This is a joke post for sure.....................

Did you gain the experience to determine this within your previous 7 posts?

Sorry didnt realise the number of posts you make on this forum determines whether you have basic common sense or not. I bow down to your superior knowledge as you have many many more posts than me. But really if you are so concerned about 200 baht bills for this or for that, why the heck did you ever buy a condo in Thailand?

[grabitanrun]

What am I missing here?

I have property in Thailand, all my bills are paid on direct debit from my bank (BKK), I have access to the account over the internet and transfer money into this account when needed - in fact I do this for all my overseas properties.

Can you not do this, presuming you have a bank account here?

[Fab5BKK]

Quite easy to solve, in 3 points:

1. Pay all the existing bills

2. Set up direct debit / bank transfer for every supplier (utilities, management, etc.)

3. Manage local bank account from abroad with internet banking

Doesn't require PhD in Finance to achieve

[ldnguy]

If the condo is empty you should have no new electricity or water bills, unless your building has some special arrangement for a standing charge.

Your common fees will accumulate, of course, and in my building (where fees are low) most people in your circumstances just deposit enough to cover these for a few years. Of course this does rather depend on how much your fees are. Personally, even though I live in my condo permanently, I have enough on deposit with the building to cover a year's worth of fees and water/cable bills, and my electricity is paid by direct debit to the PEA. That way I know that if I had to leave for whatever reason (travel, illness) I would not have to worry about anything.

It should not be hard to use internet banking to pay your common fees if you prefer not to deposit cash in advance.

As for your current bills of a few hundred Baht, why not just pay them?

Thanks.

Yeah I want to pay my current bills, but will end up using a little after I leave. I would have to walk in and cancel at all these offices on the way to the airport for it to be left at 0, see what I mean? And even then. I don't have experience with paying this stuff online. If I knew it was an option I would have done it long ago. The electric and water are paid here at the condo, not sure how to get around that. Anyway I will look into it, I am certainly not going to leave any extra money with them, but I do see how that could work for some. Thanks.

If you don't have experience, then get some. It's just pure laziness to not make the effort to learn how to do something simple. It might sound harsh, but if you're able to buy a condo surely you can learn to pay your bills. Even most stupid people can do it, so I'm sure you can.

[laobali]

This is a joke post for sure.....................

Did you gain the experience to determine this within your previous 7 posts?

Sorry didnt realise the number of posts you make on this forum determines whether you have basic common sense or not. I bow down to your superior knowledge as you have many many more posts than me. But really if you are so concerned about 200 baht bills for this or for that, why the heck did you ever buy a condo in Thailand?

We all make (have made) mistakes or errors of judgement in Thailand. Some are more difficult to rectify than others.

[ldnguy]

Thanks for the replies.

I have heard on numerous occasions that Thais/chinese buy condos and just let them sit there without paying fees. This may be exaggerated I have no idea. But if it is as serious as selling your condo off, even without the chanote i take it, I will get more serious about it, maybe. ha. I was just planning on paying the 10% and 20% when back. The way I see it, and I could be wrong about this, but they want the money, but they dont have a lot of ways of paying the money from overseas.

I will figure it all out and report back.

Why do they need a lot of ways to pay from overseas. You just go to your bank in USA (or wherever) and ask them to transfer the money. This is as simple as it gets. Not sure what other methods you want. Sending cash by pigeon maybe?

[mikiea]

This is a joke post for sure.....................

Did you gain the experience to determine this within your previous 7 posts?

[mikiea]

wow, touchy & uppity at the same time, multi tasker for sure :-)

[mikiea]

This is a joke post for sure.....................

Some people are obviously not as clever as others with less than 10 post counts....

[mikiea]

the quanity of posts makes a person less than a jipp? you are into yourself to much, this is gossip, nothing more nothing less, jipp you are a gossip monger same as paul & myself. you are not cool enough to be looking down on anyone :-)

[pitchag]

Thanks for the replies.

I have heard on numerous occasions that Thais/chinese buy condos and just let them sit there without paying fees. This may be exaggerated I have no idea. But if it is as serious as selling your condo off, even without the chanote i take it, I will get more serious about it, maybe. ha. I was just planning on paying the 10% and 20% when back. The way I see it, and I could be wrong about this, but they want the money, but they dont have a lot of ways of paying the money from overseas.

I will figure it all out and report back.

If the court orders the condo to be sold to recover money owed they do not need permission from the owner or the chanotes to do it, but the balance if any after expenses is kept in trust for the owner to claim

[OnMyWay2]

Have someone flush the toilet once in a while. I looked at a condo today that looked like it had been sitting empty for years. The toilet had dried out and smelled like sewer gas was leaking into the whole apt.

[williet98248]

you could set up automatic billing with water and electric. we did it. you need to get the special forms from the respectiv companies. we did it in korat.

Thanks for the replies.

One last time, sorry to repeat, anybody know what happens if you just don't pay your water/electric? Anybody had experience with this. I guess the outcome may differ in each case, so hard to get a specific answer. If they turn it off that would not be the end of the world, I could just get a hotel.

If you don't pay your bill they will eventually shut you off and you will have to pay to be reconnected. Same every where in the world. Is that specific enough for you.?

[balo]

Most serious condos have a management office that will take care of the fees for you if you give them a deposit while you're away .

You can also ask PEA to shut off the power for 1 or 2 years so all you pay is the common fees.

[isawasnake]

I took care of this, there were some ups and downs.

I called the electric company and was told unequivocally that the bill can't be paid online in any way. She also told me I will get charged 40 baht a month even if I did not use the power, a sort of fee that is associated with being able to have power at any time. I think 40 baht for nothing is fair enough, but it is paying this 40 baht that becomes the big problem.

I dug through this thread some more. Somebody mentioned you can have your bank pay the bill for you automatically. Thanks for that. I signed up for this service, so hopefully that takes care of the electric bill.

Talking to the juristic person was sublime because the first thing I found out is that the evil witch that was running the building before is now gone, and it is a new lady. This was the most wonderful news. The other lady was the most useless lump I have ever come across in my entire life. The new one is going to email me when i have a bill for cam or water, and it will be paid via bank transfer.

[KittenKong]

Have someone flush the toilet once in a while.

Never leave the water turned on in an empty condo. A small leak could result in a large water bill and a large leak could result in a huge bill for repairing the condo downstairs.

To avoid bad smells just stick plastic film over the bowl of the toilet and over the shower/bath outlets.

[utalkin2me]

If the maintenance fees are not paid you could be charged 10% interest the first year and 20% for the years after and the management could apply to the court to sell your condo to recoup the the fees owing, and be aware there is always a relative or friend of the manager that would like to buy a condo at a fire sale price.

We are looking at doing the same in our block of condos with absent owners not seen for years.

It is not fair on the ones that pay their dues to subsidise the defaulters

There is a thread about this in the lawyer section. I am curious as to what the response is there. From my reading of the condo act I would not think a condo can be sold for unpaid bills. If it were, there would be recourse to be taken I would think. Only speaking from what I have read, not experience of course. Is there a section of the condo act you are referring to when you say a condo can be sold off?

The thing is, people leave and just accept that they will pay 20% or whatever it is upon return. I think doing anything more than that would be illegal on the condo's part.... again, could be wrong

[KittenKong]

There is a thread about this in the lawyer section. I am curious as to what the response is there. From my reading of the condo act I would not think a condo can be sold for unpaid bills. If it were, there would be recourse to be taken I would think. Only speaking from what I have read, not experience of course. Is there a section of the condo act you are referring to when you say a condo can be sold off?

The thing is, people leave and just accept that they will pay 20% or whatever it is upon return. I think doing anything more than that would be illegal on the condo's part.... again, could be wrong

Obviously a building cant just decide to sell a unit to recoup unpaid bills (not least because they don't own it). A court would have to order the unit to be sold to pay the bills. And that's unlikely to happen before the bills amount to a large percentage of the value of the unit, and until other attempts to get the money have failed.

[utalkin2me]

There is a thread about this in the lawyer section. I am curious as to what the response is there. From my reading of the condo act I would not think a condo can be sold for unpaid bills. If it were, there would be recourse to be taken I would think. Only speaking from what I have read, not experience of course. Is there a section of the condo act you are referring to when you say a condo can be sold off?

The thing is, people leave and just accept that they will pay 20% or whatever it is upon return. I think doing anything more than that would be illegal on the condo's part.... again, could be wrong

Obviously a building cant just decide to sell a unit to recoup unpaid bills (not least because they don't own it). A court would have to order the unit to be sold to pay the bills. And that's unlikely to happen before the bills amount to a large percentage of the value of the unit, and until other attempts to get the money have failed.

Yeah, I see that now.... so they would have to go to the court first, as stated by kittenkong. This all however does not sound like it would be easy or cheap to do in itself.

The thread in the lawyer section is asking if they can even cut the electric after unpaid bills. Curious to see the response, not that it matters it seems people just do whatever they please.

[KittenKong]

In my building it is legal to cut off the water (which is provided and billed for by the building) but not the electricity (which is billed individually to each unit by the PEA).

I think it does all depend on who bills for the service.