Estate Gate Security

[d2g]

My village has an issue with ever increasing cost of guard service and deterioration in quality/effectiveness of the guard service.

I'm looking for information on an alternative  Electronic Gate/Perimeter system to replace the guards.

If anyone has information on this subject I would be grateful to receive it.

I suspect that this is a widespread problem that many residents here would welcome solutions for.

[steven100]

you can find lots of info with Google  ...

just type  www.google.co.th    ....   then put Electronic gates suppliers in Thailand.

[KittenKong]

The problem with electronic gates is that whilst they will prevent unauthorised vehicles from entering or leaving, they dont do much to stop people on foot. Of course a sleeping guard doesnt do much either. One other thing you need to consider is how delivery vehicles etc. will get in and out if there is no human guard around.

 

When I checked this subject out for my condo building I found that equipment prices were quite reasonable. You need a gate, an RFID sensor on a post, a controller box and RFID keytags.

 

This little shop doesnt look much from outside but the owner is quite helpful and they do a surprising number of installations here. https://goo.gl/maps/w4VC3b45T322

Other shops are available and you would be well advised to get several quotes.
 

[digbeth]

technically you can't stop people on foot anyway

[topt]

3 hours ago, digbeth said:

technically you can't stop people on foot anyway

If a gated moobaan or similar why not?

[Guderian]

3 hours ago, digbeth said:

technically you can't stop people on foot anyway

 

34 minutes ago, topt said:

If a gated moobaan or similar why not?

 

digbeth is right as far as I'm aware. I was told by an up-market Swiss developer that for villages with more than eight dwellings there has to be public access. He develops small 'villages' in the area south of town, Na Jomtien or Huay Yai I guess, that have just seven houses and they can then be completely private.

 

That's what I was told by the guy anyway, maybe someone can give us more details of the relevalt laws? BTW, his houses are pricy but not unaffordable, the killer is the maintenance fee which is set at $800/month/house. He only sells to Swiss people and has a waiting list.

[topt]

7 minutes ago, Guderian said:

the killer is the maintenance fee which is set at $800/month/house

Ouch - what extra do you get for this other than waste collection and security? Presumably no pool and not much in the way of common areas as only 7 dwellings?

[digbeth]

1 hour ago, topt said:

If a gated moobaan or similar why not?

 

say, if I walk up to a moo baan's gate and the security guard tried to stop me, I could claim I'm a genuine guest of one of the house or even a owner of one of the house and the security guard would have no legal right to make me produce ID proving the fact.

 

Many juristic person have tried to enact such measure against non- common fee paying house like barring the non paying house's occupant/guest from entering, this could be construed as impeding lawful access to one's own property and most lawyers would warn against such measure.

 

Other practice that is done to inconvenience non-paying household when there is security guard is that instead of having security guard open the gate for them, the non-paying house would have to get out of the car and open the gate themselves, or exchange ID to enter like other visitor. Having an automatic gate and only issuing pass to household that is up to date in common fee payments is  a good way to enforce that too.

 

It all come down to the bylaws voted in at the incorporation of the juristic person, some estate have rules like no business like noodle carts or 2nd hand good dealer/recycler which is fair, but I have seen many case where the juristic person enact rule that is way out of line and has no legal basis like making contractors wear certain colour t-shirt only 

[anto]

>>the killer is the maintenance fee which is set at $800/month/house<<.....US$  ?   LOL .    ,but you probably mean Baht .

[Guderian]

1 hour ago, anto said:

>>the killer is the maintenance fee which is set at $800/month/house<<.....US$  ?   LOL .    ,but you probably mean Baht .

Nope, that's 800 US $ per month.

[Guderian]

5 hours ago, topt said:

Ouch - what extra do you get for this other than waste collection and security? Presumably no pool and not much in the way of common areas as only 7 dwellings?

 

The guy showed me some photos on his iPad. I was also a bit shocked at the maintenance cost, but apparently absolutely everything is done for you. Every house has its own swimming pool plus a big garden, though the way it was laid out it looked like it was really one huge communal garden or park with the houses scattered about in it, no obvious fences or boundaries that I could see. It's all taken care of for you anyway, so just sit back and enjoy the sun. As I said, there's a queue of Swiss people waiting to buy these places so they evidently think it's worth it. The benefits of a mega-strong currency I suppose, I doubt you'd find many Brits happy to pay that much.

[topt]

2 minutes ago, Guderian said:

 

The guy showed me some photos on his iPad. I was also a bit shocked at the maintenance cost, but apparently absolutely everything is done for you. Every house has its own swimming pool plus a big garden, though the way it was laid out it looked like it was really one huge communal garden or park with the houses scattered about in it, no obvious fences or boundaries that I could see. It's all taken care of for you anyway, so just sit back and enjoy the sun. As I said, there's a queue of Swiss people waiting to buy these places so they evidently think it's worth it. The benefits of a mega-strong currency I suppose, I doubt you'd find many Brits happy to pay that much.

Thanks Guderian for these insights. Based on $800 per month per house that's 2.35 million baht a year for the overall "community charges".............

Rhetorically I would love to see the contract for that and what it stipulates on both sides

[KittenKong]

6 hours ago, topt said:

Ouch - what extra do you get for this other than waste collection and security?

 

High charges should keep the rabble out of the development. Some people would consider that worth paying a lot for.

[d2g]

Could we get back on topic discussing alternates to security with guard services?

Does anyone have personal experience of alternative security provision? 

If so, what has the experience been?

 

[digbeth]

At my estate we hire the security guards directly once, not a contract from a company, you get more control and could cost less but when it comes down to holidays, leaves and sometime when they just decided to quit, big security company can 'borrow' a replacement guards from other place or pay the overtime to make them do double shifts at no cost to you if they can't get anyone to turn up, and for directly hiring guards as employee of the juristic person, you have to provide uniforms and social security, and in the end it was found out when the next administration was voted in that the wording of the bylaw at the corporation of the juristic person that the estate could only 'contract' companies for security guards, and getting enough votes to change that is too much hassle

[bra]

I replaced a useless guard with a savage looking dog which was loyal and protective of the house, family and maid. But you need a secure compound to stop the dog from getting out! 2 dogs are probably better as they have company when you are not there and will protect each other too.

[DGS1244]

If you have remote controlled gates it is great when you have electricity and everything works fine. A problem can come during a electrical power failure that if they are not set to open and/or unlock  automatically then there is a problem of how do you get out and more importantly how do you let emergency services in if there is an incident. 

 

I know of one Moobaan where the gates cannot be opened manually during a power failure unless the motor unit is detached from the gate. That takes time and then it has to be replaced and realigned. Choose carefully.

[SOUTHERNSTAR]

1 hour ago, DGS1244 said:

If you have remote controlled gates it is great when you have electricity and everything works fine. A problem can come during a electrical power failure that if they are not set to open and/or unlock  automatically then there is a problem of how do you get out and more importantly how do you let emergency services in if there is an incident. 

 

I know of one Moobaan where the gates cannot be opened manually during a power failure unless the motor unit is detached from the gate. That takes time and then it has to be replaced and realigned. Choose carefully.

You get units with a battery that enables operation during power failures or you can do like I did and reroute the electricity supply through an UPS.

[sanukjim]

You can now expect your ex security guard to be robbing you or passing on the info he has gathered on you to his friends so that they can rob you.Maybe with a parting pay envelop he might not rob you.

[mike324]

45 minutes ago, SOUTHERNSTAR said:

You get units with a battery that enables operation during power failures or you can do like I did and reroute the electricity supply through an UPS.

most gate systems have a key where you can insert in the motor box and screw to loosen the gear connected to the motor, so its in "neutral" and you can easily lift the gate or push the gates open. Some moobans do adopt a backup battery system so the key card still works as well.

 

If the OP has problem, then try looking for a different guard company, the most important thing is the management (mooban management) overseeing the guards. You need to give them strict requirements and have to always be on their backs about it. I know many moobans just hire the guards and guards get lazy with exchanging visitor pass, checking taxi trunks when leaving the mooban and what not. Home owners need to report it to the management and get the management to push the guards to follow the set rules. Its really that simple, if you don't have a good mooban management, then you will never have a good guard.

[MyFriend You]

On 6/3/2017 at 4:59 PM, digbeth said:

 

say, if I walk up to a moo baan's gate and the security guard tried to stop me, I could claim I'm a genuine guest of one of the house or even a owner of one of the house and the security guard would have no legal right to make me produce ID proving the fact.

 

Many juristic person have tried to enact such measure against non- common fee paying house like barring the non paying house's occupant/guest from entering, this could be construed as impeding lawful access to one's own property and most lawyers would warn against such measure.

 

Other practice that is done to inconvenience non-paying household when there is security guard is that instead of having security guard open the gate for them, the non-paying house would have to get out of the car and open the gate themselves, or exchange ID to enter like other visitor. Having an automatic gate and only issuing pass to household that is up to date in common fee payments is  a good way to enforce that too.

 

It all come down to the bylaws voted in at the incorporation of the juristic person, some estate have rules like no business like noodle carts or 2nd hand good dealer/recycler which is fair, but I have seen many case where the juristic person enact rule that is way out of line and has no legal basis like making contractors wear certain colour t-shirt only 

He doesn't need a legal right, its private property besides, he has a billy club.  

A genuine guest, The Security Guard would call the house and the occupant would have to come & get you.

Registering guests with the Security is a good protective measure

Nothing is guaranteed in this country, but a liberal (and somtimes incorrect)interpretation of the rules can cause  a house invasion.

 

 

[natway09]

We have a card system at our large condo which did not work without guards still being present as people

with no authority to enter just waited until someone with a card came along & just piggy backed on them.

I agree with you on this one very difficult to find a workable solution

[Argus Tuft]

4 hours ago, sanukjim said:

You can now expect your ex security guard to be robbing you or passing on the info he has gathered on you to his friends so that they can rob you.Maybe with a parting pay envelop he might not rob you.

Guessing you're a glass half full type of chap. Have a cheerful day.

[Naam]

On 6/3/2017 at 4:59 PM, digbeth said:

say, if I walk up to a moo baan's gate and the security guard tried to stop me, I could claim I'm a genuine guest of one of the house or even a owner of one of the house and the security guard would have no legal right to make me produce ID proving the fact.

you can claim you are the emperor of China and still you don't walk or drive into our moo baan without depositing your ID except driving a vehicle with a "resident" sticker or accompanied by a resident who is known to security.

[digbeth]

45 minutes ago, Naam said:

you can claim you are the emperor of China and still you don't walk or drive into our moo baan without depositing your ID except driving a vehicle with a "resident" sticker or accompanied by a resident who is known to security.

I'm not suggesting it's not possible or not done, but that there might not be a clear cut law supporting the practice

 

A lot off Moo baan sucessfully bars business like food trucks and such as well as outsiders from entering, good for them. I live in one too and prefer it that way; but my reading of some case in moo baan in Bangkok where a non-paying resident were barred from driving their car through the gate seem to suggest that there's a lot of things being done by juristic person that's not technically legal or has law supporting it.  Is having all members of the moo baan vote for such rules enough? We had times where the security won't let scurffy looking person enter but turns out they're resident, if they did that to me or my kids there'll be hell to pay, but our Moo Baan's pretty old now and I don't think we have rules about walking in and depositing ID and such, only cars sticker. 

 

Unlike a condo where every owners are co-owners in the whole building, ownership of moo baan's road is assigned to the juristic person, can they bar resident from not accessing common facilities? there must be bounds to this otherwise they could charge people for walking on their roads. 

 

For case where there's a non-paying household, barring them from accessing their own property is overstepping the law definitely, the consensus in Thai forums i've read up on seem to be that the most the juristic person can do is not having the security guys open the gate for members of that non-paying household but make them get out of the car to open the gate themselves. 

 

Sorry for derailing this  a bit off-topic 

[Naam]

2 hours ago, digbeth said:

For case where there's a non-paying household, barring them from accessing their own property is overstepping the law definitely

that is correct.

[janclaes47]

3 hours ago, Naam said:

you can claim you are the emperor of China and still you don't walk or drive into our moo baan without depositing your ID except driving a vehicle with a "resident" sticker or accompanied by a resident who is known to security.

 

Since I know your moo baan i take that was a post loaded with sarcasm.

[Naam]

33 minutes ago, janclaes47 said:

Since I know your moo baan i take that was a post loaded with sarcasm.

more irony than sarcasm. did i mention that good looking young ladies will be strip searched?

[janclaes47]

2 minutes ago, Naam said:

more irony than sarcasm. did i mention that good looking young ladies will be strip searched?

Do they still need some security people there?

Edited June 6, 2017 by janclaes47

[Naam]

6 minutes ago, janclaes47 said:

Do they still need some security people there?

no, night shift was replaced. day shift is employed longer than we live here (12 years) and seems to know every resident and frequent guests.