First time building advice pls

[kannot]

Heres some of my block laying all nicely pointed up as Thais dont bother with that and often not much cement between perps either,

All depends on the builder.

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True but not many will,, Ill have his phone number if u got it.....no REALLY!! pm me

[MaiChai]

I got bitten by bad Thai wife syndrome first time round so i decided next time not to invest until the relationship had lasted 6 years. I got lucky and wife is brilliant so we decided we only wanted a simple thai house, thai style. Lots of good reasons for this; one would be a fantastic looking house can be a magnet for the worse people to come and fleece you, rip you off, etc. The other reasons would be cost and that thailand is a tough climate and things break and deteriorate really quickly, so you are going to replace things quite often. The simpler you live the easier life is too. All that finishing things off and beautifying is where alot of your money will go, so why not do things thai style and just build the basics you need? Lots of good advice here. You need to watch the builders like a hawk. Pay them as you go along. Go and buy and pay for the materials otherwise someone will be adding their margin. Dont make final payments until all issues resolved. Stick to your guns and dont let them take short cuts otherwise you will be stuck with the consequences. Then there is Thai family... That you will need to work out, but i work for a living and i expect others to as well. Exceptions might be wifes grandparents.

[rsokolowski]

Make sure, then double sure, then triple sure, the quadruple sure.........that the wall you build around your house is entirely on your land and not even close to be scrutinized as perhaps, maybe, somewhat, possibly,a tad, a little bit, might be....encroaching on a Thai's land or you will get screwed at some point.

It happened to a friend of mine who had bought a house on Phuket. The title and deed were all in proper government stamped order. When he went to sell it, his neighbour and friend of many years checked the deed and found that my friend's wall was entirely on his (the Thai guy/friend) side of the property line. He demanded my friend tear down his wall. My friend said the entire wall is on your land, keep it, congrats you have a free wall.

The Thai guy just wanted to be a <deleted> and refused and demanded my friend tear the wall down. The stupidity of some of those people knows no bounds.

My friend managed to sell to a Thai couple and left back to Canada. He packed up, took his wife and kids and after 12 years of being a good neighbour - he had lots of cash and lived in a rural area surrounded by normal Thai folks: ie not a lot of money - they all turned on him. He treated them all to BBQ's and Christmas/weekend Parties etc etc for 12 freaking years and when he wanted to sell they all came out of the woodwork to show their true Thai colors.

So, my advice, make sure you get many documents of proof that your house and wall and property line are 100% legal and no problem. If you're wall is 1 millimeter on the neighbour's property they will dick you around. Count on it.

The same would happen in any country in the west, probably to the extend that you will be sued and pay damages, if you build on someone else land.

Happened to a good friend of mine in Hawaii. When he went to sell his house it was determined that the original builder built a wall that encroached on his neighbors property by about three inches at one end. The guy was a tool and insisted on being compensated or fixing the wall. My friend ended up having to pay $10,000 USD (350,000 Baht) to get the neighbor to agree to the encroachment so that he was able to sell his property. He was not happy about having to pay, but tearing down and rebuilding the wall would have cost more.

It is not a Thai thing, it is a property rights thing.