Foreign tenants told to go to court for property dispute

[KarenBravo]

Not owners. They have leased their properties (they think).

[LivinginKata]

What did they expect ? As usual the governor just passed the problem to the courts. The tenants will be stuck there for at least 10 years ....

As the Vice Governor would have no authority on this case what would you expect him to do? The court is the only place to sort these issues when they get this serious.

Aren't these 'tenants' actually owners?

Perhaps 'tenants' is not correct. They are at best leaseholders. For sure they don't own any land at all, might be they own the actual apartment building, but I have no idea how that works in a condo type multi structure.

I have lost track of how many times this so called 30+ lease contract has been talked about here on Thaivisa and other forums. When I arrived here in Phuket almost 20 years ago I did buy a townhouse on a 30 year contract. The actual building I owned, the ground I did not own. There was no contractul extension after the 30 years. I acccepted all that, to be honest I expected to be dead after 30 years. I talked to a number of the neighbouring 'leaseholders' and some just said after the 30 years they would take away the doors, windows and fittings, rather than just walk away and leave their property intact.

[luckyman]

There is hope, I took one of the largest developers to court here, I fronted up, gave evidence, won the case, they appealed, I won the appeal. Dont assume you can not win if you have a strong case. But make it a reasonable claim.

Nice one !

And congratulations to you for winning the case, probably thanks to being so resilient, how long did it all take ?

Our Moo-baan is a Juristic Entity. A Thai Naval officer decided he was too important to pay annual maintenance fees. Eventually we took him to court and won back 150K fees/interest/some legal costs. It took us 4 years & cost 50K in legal fees. We won the case and have not had any other offenders in three years. We publish our accounts every month; every item has a bill/receipt. Every year our accounts are audited. We have 1.5 million in the bank. We have 24/7 security and not had a break-in for nearly six years. We have three vacant houses for sale out of 62 in total.

The average house is 100 talang-wah with fees of 17,000 annually. We have a part-time office manager to handle day-to-day matters + a committee of 4 farangs & 2 Thais. This management service must be worth thousands a year to owners but is provided free by the volunteer committee.

Wow, those legal fees of 50k seem very reasonable but 4 years does sound very long, I have seen a similar case here in Hua Hin being ended recently after only 1.5 year, 14 residents against a farang developer that was. Maybe the time span depends also on the location, thanks for your extensive reply, very helpfull and usefull.