Current and Former Co-Owner Committee members...

[bobbin]

Our committee is new. Less than 2 months into our 2 year term. We are only 3 members, 1 Thai with a good command of English, and 2 farangs. For many years our former committee members were all non-resident in Pattaya, basically appearing only for the AGM. That changed this year when applications for people who actually lived in the building to apply to join the committee were encouraged. Not well enough to get a great deal of interest though.. It was a complete change-over. All the previous members were well into the status of continuing to serve as there were no applicants for the positions in the past.

 

 It's not a horror story. The financials look fine. AGM's were well managed. But it's a different culture in the building now. We committee members are in the building every day now, not once or twice a year, when the previous members got a great show of deference and respect.

 

We have many things on our to-do list, prioritized as best we can, in terms of importance and costs. Many are low cost but labor intensive. Shock! We are actually going to ask the staff to work productively instead of going through the motions. To say there has been a lot of foot-dragging would be fair... Time frames seem quite elastic.

 

Some things are surprising. We don't (at this point) employ a management company. But office staff profess inexperience and lack of contacts when asked to find outside contractors for work or estimates, considerably slowing the process. The Juristic Manager is cooperative but..

 

I know several posters are serving or have served on Co-owners committees, so I wanted to ask.. If you were to write a short explanation of what it's like to serve in this capacity, what would you say? The general experience of it. For example, how aggressive, short of a re-paint, should we be about the external and internal  "beautification" of the condo... what percentage, taking into consideration cash-flow, of the general account( not the sinking fund) should we be thinking of spending.. Tips on finding good contractors...Things like that.

 

The good thing is with only 3 of us, there is not much disagreement.

[KittenKong]

My experience of being on our committee was that virtually everywhere I looked I found someone stealing something or in some way trying to improve their personal situation at the expense of the building. Not just staff but co-owners and other committee members. Quite disheartening really.

 

I wonder how your building can have been functioning up to now if your staff dont know who to call for quotes for work or supplies? Seems very odd. I'm not surprised that they are dragging their feet now after having had a very easy time previously. I expect that if you check the daily expenses and income carefully from now on you will find that suddenly your cash-flow will look a lot better than it did before. Ours certainly did when I started checking things.

You dont say how many staff you have or how big your yearly budget is. Is your building big enough to warrant having a full management company, or would a decent new manager be enough? A new manager might be able to inject some life into your staff, or help in replacing them if necessary.

 

I would suggest that when you do get quotes you should always get at least three, and preferably get a committee member to get a fourth quote independently of your staff. It's surprising (or maybe it isn't) how much cheaper such an extra quote can be.

 

I would be inclined to concentrate on jobs that are necessary (repainting, repairing, replacing). Security/safety may be very lax in your building so that may require attention too. If there are any suggestions for major beautification or expensive extra facilities then a proper project with quotes can be put together by the committee and presented to co-owners at an AGM where they can vote on whether to do it or not.

 

[trogers]

First thrust into beautification is cleanliness. Some areas that lack floor tiles should have them placed, eg. garbage bin areas. Review the method and equipment to improve cleaning work.

 

The 2nd item would be pest control, both in the common areas and in the condo units. Our condo engage a company on yearly contract and they come in once a month to handle this work.

 

 

[craigt3365]

Stories abound regarding these committees.  Some pretty bad.  Not sure how big your building is, but you might want to consider insurance for the members to cover yourselves in case of lawsuits.  It happens.  All too frequently.

 

We've got a guy who runs things for us.  Does a pretty good job, and we keep him on a very tight leash.  Near impossible to get owners to become committee members, so a few of us take care of the work.  It can be really tough at times.  And not so bad at others.  Depends on your committee and the other owners!

 

Good luck!

[KittenKong]

1 hour ago, trogers said:

The 2nd item would be pest control, both in the common areas and in the condo units. Our condo engage a company on yearly contract and they come in once a month to handle this work.

 

I believe this is common in most buildings. It certainly happens in mine.

[hdkane]

For me, the experience was a drain on my time and emotions...but well worth it...the committee members were thieves...stole more than 1 million baht in a year...my presence, as well as another farang, stopped the theft and corruption...unfortunately, no one went to jail...the Thai residents simply accepted an apology from the committee members...cowards, thieves, and scum...showed me clearly how the typical thai thinks and acts...

[KittenKong]

30 minutes ago, hdkane said:

unfortunately, no one went to jail

 

A constant disappointment here. In my building many people of all skin colours belong in jail.

[bobbin]

Thanks for the comments so far..

 

I'm also wondering about the nuts and bolts of the position. I keep wanting to write "job" and "work". 555.

 

As I said, we have a reasonably extensive to-do list after looking around. We have had one formal meeting after the election. The agenda was compiled by the Juristic Manager and basically consisted of approving the minutes of the last committee's last meeting. Of course it was not supplied but we approved it anyway. None of the items we had already identified was discussed in more than a passing manner. But we realized that we must control the agenda from now on.

 

Surely though, we don't have to wait until the next scheduled meeting to instruct the JM to get started on on the identified projects, do we? Verbal instructions to the JM are seen as "suggestions", so we intend to instruct in written form, signed by the 3 of us from now on..

 

Again, some lapses are surprising. We had an extensive cctv system installed a few years ago. After an incident in the parking area I asked to review the footage. Oh! The recording function does not work. Unless something is witnessed in real time, there is no record. I asked at a shop what was the cost of a new cctv dvr. Approximately 4000 baht for a 4 channel unit. For want of a nail, the shoe was lost... But I have to say, after reading numerous news items where the cctv cameras were "out of order", I wasn't that surprised.

 

What have been some of your experiences in getting your instructions transformed into action. Do we give a timetable for feedback and progress reports?

[bobbin]

3 hours ago, craigt3365 said:

Stories abound regarding these committees.  Some pretty bad.  Not sure how big your building is, but you might want to consider insurance for the members to cover yourselves in case of lawsuits.  It happens.  All too frequently.

 

Good luck!

Seriously?

[KittenKong]

16 minutes ago, bobbin said:

The agenda was compiled by the Juristic Manager and basically consisted of approving the minutes of the last committee's last meeting. Of course it was not supplied but we approved it anyway. None of the items we had already identified was discussed in more than a passing manner.

 

Hmm. Been there, done that.

 

You need to start checking everything in very fine detail. My bet is that your JPM has been creaming off (or otherwise losing) a lot of money over the past few years, just like ours.

 

 

18 minutes ago, bobbin said:

Verbal instructions to the JM are seen as "suggestions", so we intend to instruct in written form, signed by the 3 of us from now on..

 

Yes, put everything in writing, with a timetable, and insist on a dated signature as receipt. If it isnt written down it simply doesnt exist here. Your JPM may not like this. He may even leave. I say good riddance.

 

 

19 minutes ago, bobbin said:

Again, some lapses are surprising. We had an extensive cctv system installed a few years ago. After an incident in the parking area I asked to review the footage. Oh! The recording function does not work. Unless something is witnessed in real time, there is no record. I asked at a shop what was the cost of a new cctv dvr. Approximately 4000 baht for a 4 channel unit. For want of a nail, the shoe was lost...

There is nothing at all surprising about this. You need to check everything constantly if you expect it to be done properly. Instigate proper weekly/monthly checklists for your management to follow for all staff tasks, and check that they are checking them correctly. Errors, omissions and outright incompetence and laziness abound, and not just in respect to staff. Committee members of all skin colours need just as much supervision.

 

This is the main drawback to being on a committee here, and indeed to many other aspects of living here. You often need to spend as much time checking what people are doing as it would take you to do the thing yourself.

 

 

[mwbrown]

I'm a committee member in a 162 unit condo, have been for 3 years and am one of the only people who lives in the building full-time. 

 

We have a company in place to manage the building and we have a very good working relationship with them.  We have a manager, assistant manager, 3 technicians, a gardener and 4 maids.  We contract out to a company to run 24x7 security at the gate.  By far the farangs are the most active members on the committee.  We've had Thais join the board never to be heard from again.

 

We keep pressure on the management to fix things that need fixing and I'm trying to train them to be proactive on things that might need upcoming maintenance.  Once, pointing to a water leak in the cover over our front walkway, the manager said "My technician fix this many times."  I said, "No, he didn't fix it, he only tried to fix it.  Take the time to fix it properly and you don't have to fix it again."

 

One of our members is a banker back home and he's like a hawk on the financials.  I do a periodic walk of the whole building taking note of maintenance issues and I give them a to-do list spreadsheet and pictures.  I'm also seen constantly by the team and I think that keeps them on their toes.

 

I think the trick is to 1) find responsible management 2) stay on top of things and 3) find a middle ground between full-on Western and laid-back Thai ways of getting things done.

 

As to your points, obvious visual issues will make the place look run down and cause difficulties when someday trying to sell a unit, the staff should be working on these all the time.  Big issues like painting have to be budgeted several years in advance.  We try to keep our spending to last year's common fees income but we have a decent surplus so we can absorb the occasional expensive item as needed.

 

Feel free to ping me if you want to discuss further.

[craigt3365]

3 hours ago, bobbin said:

Seriously?

Yes. Head of the committee sued for not doing something an owner demanded. True story.

 

Also, posted here a year or so ago,  a story about a committee member being sued for trying to collect past due fees from a hiso thai.

[Jeffkp]

I'm chair of our owners committee. We have four members. As chair I must co-sign all checks. Once a month I meet with the JR person and she presents a spreadsheet with all requested payments. We discuss all unusual requests (elevator repair, etc) before I sign. Is that how other condos are done?

We also subcontract cleaning and security.

Our building is quiet, clean and safe. Our team takes pride in what they do.

I guess after reading many of the comments here, we are very lucky.

[KittenKong]

2 hours ago, Jeffkp said:

I'm chair of our owners committee. We have four members. As chair I must co-sign all checks. Once a month I meet with the JR person and she presents a spreadsheet with all requested payments. We discuss all unusual requests (elevator repair, etc) before I sign. Is that how other condos are done?

 

I think that more than one committee member should sign cheques, just in case the only one who signs (you in this instance) is a crook.

As a committee member I would expect to be told about unusual repairs before they are started, and I would not expect to pay for them until they are finished.

 

 

2 hours ago, Jeffkp said:

We also subcontract cleaning and security.

 

I think that security is more commonly contracted out than cleaning is but I see significant advantages in contracting out as much as possible. We have several staff whom it would be expensive to sack due to the number of years they have been with us. And we have staff who seem to be permanently pregnant and who cost us a lot also. We have also had several directly employed staff who have stolen large sums from us but whom our management were reluctant to deal with properly.

Contracting out would avoid much of that though of course it does cost a bit more.

 

 

2 hours ago, Jeffkp said:

Our team takes pride in what they do.

I guess after reading many of the comments here, we are very lucky.

 

Sounds like it. Perhaps your location has something to do with it.

[funandsuninbangkok]

Geez, sounds fun owning a condo here!

[Jeffkp]

1 minute ago, funandsuninbangkok said:

Geez, sounds fun owning a condo here!

No more than anywhere else.

 

[inThailand]

As an owner of two condos and serving twice on the condo board over the last ten+ years, I concur with many of the above comments and general sentiment, that more oversight, checks and balances, prioritised tasks with due dates, completion verification, etc is needed even more here than in your home country. And what should be a fairly easy and straightforward task to maintain and make improvements to the condo's common property is compounded by board members who do not understand they have a fudicary responsibility to the condo owners and to adhere to the condo's bylaws. Common and business sense used by the condo property mgr, JP mgr and board seem like foreign concepts here and complacent and mostly non-local condo owners which allow such, results in a management fiasco. You as a board member will be shocked at the amount of time and effort that is needed to get even the simplist task completed, which usually is of low quality.

 

In my experience, the easiest way to see the condo owner's money quickly disappear with little to show for it is to allow your condo mgmt to contract most services out. Hiring more maintenance men so you can control labor costs and get complete and valid material receipts will go a long way to minimize money monkey business.

[KittenKong]

1 hour ago, inThailand said:

In my experience, the easiest way to see the condo owner's money quickly disappear with little to show for it is to allow your condo mgmt to contract most services out. Hiring more maintenance men so you can control labor costs and get complete and valid material receipts will go a long way to minimize money monkey business.

 

I agree that general maintenance is one item that should not be contracted out as the tasks needed to be done are simply too variable. I was thinking more of gardening, pool maintenance, cleaning, security .... where the tasks vary little from one week to another.

 

Obviously there are also downsides to contracting out also, especially here. Perhaps a building with a good manager would be better off keeping all work in-house. Trouble is, I dont personally know of any buildings with a good manager.

[KittenKong]

8 hours ago, funandsuninbangkok said:

Geez, sounds fun owning a condo here!

 

Most co-owners dont have the faintest idea what is going on behind the scenes, so there is no reason why they should not be happy (at least until the doodah hits the fan, which it always will in the end).

 

Thais (and many non-Thai committee members for that matter) are very good at smiling a lot and making things look as though they are running efficiently and well, yet keeping all information hidden and generally sweeping bad things under the carpet or even simply ignoring them. The truth here is often very different to appearances.

 

Edited June 18, 2017 by KittenKong

[inThailand]

Agreed!  Most condo co-owners have a false impression fed to them by the condo mgmt that all is "good". When in fact, the management of the co-owner's money and common property is usually childish at best. Putting forth a good face seems to have infected the falangs on the board. Why falang board members cannot be open and honest about the condo management problems has always been disconcerting. 

Edited June 18, 2017 by inThailand
mispelling

[bobbin]

Come on guys.. please don't destroy my idealism! 

 

Seriously though..  I did ask for your opinions and I'm reading your responses avidly.

 

There have been mutterings of resignation from my fellow farang board member already, due to the lethargic response to our input so far. Personally, I'm willing to allow for a period of transition. As I said, we are learning the ropes about the process of getting the input from us translated into results.

 

We co-owners have been saying for years now that if only we had a resident owners board we would see the results. So it's kind of a "put up or shut up" situation now.

 

We have copies of the 2008 Condominium law and also copies of our buildings bylaws. After 15 years in the building, this was the first time I had ever seen the bylaws. Oh, the violations! Too many to mention.. There will be some unhappy co-owners when we move to rectify some of the most outrageous. Many we will probably ignore due to "grandfathering" but going forward those same violation will not be allowed. I know, double standards, but most co-owners won't know that.

 

Unless I'm mistaken, moving to a management model from an in-house model will result in all staff, including the JM being let go. It would cost a lot of money due to compensation, not to mention ill-will and hardship for the current staff.  There is one employee in particular though that I would not mind seeing dismissed. One of those "phantom employees". A vague job description and very little visible productivity.  Always hiding. But expensive to terminate...

[inThailand]

I would add that it's quite normal here but not advised for condo mgmt to "borrow" money from the capital expenditure fund (sinking fund) to fund operations (common area fund) and to mix and reports these two distinct expenses together. Separate CA and SF budgets, accounting, reporting and even bank accounts can help assess management performance. Accountability is viewed by mgmt as a four letter word.

[bobbin]

10 minutes ago, inThailand said:

I would add that it's quite normal here but not advised for condo mgmt to "borrow" money from the capital expenditure fund (sinking fund) to fund operations (common area fund) and to mix and reports these two distinct expenses together. Separate CA and SF budgets, accounting, reporting and even bank accounts can help assess management performance. Accountability is viewed by mgmt as a four letter word.

As i said in my first post, the financials look okay. The Sinking Fund has a reasonable balance and has been the same for several years. Strange in itself though. Rather than let the interest on the SF compound, they have been drawing it off into general revenue. Why? The General Account has a nice balance and we could easily spend 20% of it and fund many projects.

[inThailand]

at our condo development we had 7 mgmt entities in 10+ years. One international pm company, one national one, one local one, a local hotel, and 3 self managed ones. The end result, the 3rd party companies were the most expensive, accomplished the least, and because they normally provided the pmgr, jp mgr, accounting, reporting and usually recommended the auditor, checks and balances were severely compromised. I think others would tend to agree, that a local and deeply involved board is essential here to get close to meeting minimum international standards and in this case it can best be self managed and will be more cost effective. But it will require an enormous amount of time from board members and is a hugely frustrating endeavour for sustained change is usually short lived and the old ways of running the complex return. Condo staff use to not working is a lost cause, house cleaning is needed.

[inThailand]

Your right, sinking fund earned interest should stay in the sinking fund. If the SF balance is basically unchanged, does his mean no large projects were accomplished? were paid from the CA fund?, or is this offset by collecting sinking fund fees during the year?

 

approximately 80% of our condo fees go towards the CA fund and 20% to the SF. So in theory, as the development ages the SF balance increases to meet the increasing expenses. The CA fees are just enough to cover operating expenses. Experience has taught us, mgmt will spend all the money they can, so limiting funds to the owner approved budget helps control unnecessary expenditures.

 

I have looked in detail, at the general ledger, receipts and bids, reporting, fee collection, fee payment receipts, etc of several condo developments. I have not seen one where monkey business is not present. 

 

 

[KittenKong]

2 hours ago, bobbin said:

We have copies of the 2008 Condominium law and also copies of our buildings bylaws. After 15 years in the building, this was the first time I had ever seen the bylaws. Oh, the violations! Too many to mention.. There will be some unhappy co-owners when we move to rectify some of the most outrageous. Many we will probably ignore due to "grandfathering" but going forward those same violation will not be allowed. I know, double standards, but most co-owners won't know that.

 

That one is tricky. I have a problem with the notion of "grandfathering" but I admit that there is also a problem in trying to apply rules retrospectively, even old rules that were previously ignored. I suppose a co-owner vote is the only fair way of deciding where to draw the line and how the line should be applied to existing problems.

 

 

2 hours ago, bobbin said:

Unless I'm mistaken, moving to a management model from an in-house model will result in all staff, including the JM being let go. It would cost a lot of money due to compensation, not to mention ill-will and hardship for the current staff. 

 

Maybe, maybe not. I have spoken to management companies who were prepared to retain some existing staff if they took over management of a building. Obviously management staff would be the least likely to remain.

One advantage of outsourcing is that compensation should never be an issue for the building in the future.

 

You refer to the JM but I'm not sure whether you mean a building manager (who is just a staff member) or a Juristic Person Manager who is appointed by co-owner vote at a GM. I dont think that compensation would apply to the latter if he was replaced at the end of his term.

[KittenKong]

2 hours ago, bobbin said:

The Sinking Fund has a reasonable balance and has been the same for several years. Strange in itself though. Rather than let the interest on the SF compound, they have been drawing it off into general revenue. Why?

 

Because the interest from the sinking fund is income and not part of the sinking fund. The sinking fund has a fixed value that was decided when the building was declared a condominium. Assuming that the amount of the sinking fund has never been increased by co-owner vote then once it is at 100% of the original value that is as far as it should go. If the sinking fund is used to pay for some sort of expense then the shortfall should be made up again either out of current account revenue (which would include the interest from the sinking fund) or some sort of levy on co-owners, all depending on the amounts involved.

[KittenKong]

1 hour ago, inThailand said:

I have looked in detail, at the general ledger, receipts and bids, reporting, fee collection, fee payment receipts, etc of several condo developments. I have not seen one where monkey business is not present. 

 

Yes. Thai accounting that I have seen is simply appalling. There is no other word for it. And yearly condo building audits are a complete joke.

[bobbin]

14 minutes ago, KittenKong said:

 

Because the interest from the sinking fund is income and not part of the sinking fund. The sinking fund has a fixed value that was decided when the building was declared a condominium. Assuming that the amount of the sinking fund has never been increased by co-owner vote then once it is at 100% of the original value that is as far as it should go. If the sinking fund is used to pay for some sort of expense then the shortfall should be made up again either out of current account revenue (which would include the interest from the sinking fund) or some sort of levy on co-owners, all depending on the amounts involved.

This is interesting. So it was decided at the beginning. You have to wonder though, why do it like that? It seems obvious, when planning a contingency fund for a building that will stand for many decades, that the very least you should do is allow the fund to grow from compound interest.

 

Leaving aside the issue of either raising common fees or requesting a special levy for a particular project i.e. repainting the building or replacing lifts. The 2 biggies.

[inThailand]

Yup, the audit is just that the condo accounting meets minimum accounting standards and the audited reports are just the year-end report produced by the condo mgmt. Its all for show but really just meaningless. 

 

Over the years, co-owners approved by resolutions and passed votes two special assessments. A new office and swimming pool renovation. Our sinking fund was depleted through misuse so they were necessary to fund the projects.

 

question for you guys?

 

Have you had special assessment(s)? We're they assessed to co-owners using ownership ratios?