Current and Former Co-Owner Committee members...

[KittenKong]

3 hours ago, bobbin said:

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.

 

Many things that seem obvious to farangs are not obvious to Thais. I dont know why.

 

All I can say is that when any new condo building is constructed a yearly amount is decided on for the common fee and a one-off amount is set for the sinking fund. I've never heard of a building that has taken account of inflation when calculating this.

To permanently change the common fee payment would require a large favourable co-owner vote so it is much more common in older buildings just to impose an extra special assessment every year which requires a much smaller favourable vote. This happens yearly in my building.

I imagine that a similarly large vote would be needed to alter the size of the sinking fund also. And of course in practice there is very little point in increasing the sinking fund as if any special demands needed to be made on it then another special assessment could be used to make up the difference. Co-owners arent going anywhere.

 

 

 

 

[KittenKong]

3 hours ago, inThailand said:

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

 

We have a special assessment every year though the amount varies a little from year to year. It's billed per unit.

It goes to augment the revenue from the common fee charge which is too low.

[inThailand]

That's interesting! Yearly special assessments to meet operating expenses. 

 

Why not just vote to increase common area fees to meet the CA budget?

 

How are your special asssessments calculated for each condo? Same method as your fees?

[KittenKong]

1 hour ago, inThailand said:

That's interesting! Yearly special assessments to meet operating expenses. 

 

Why not just vote to increase common area fees to meet the CA budget?

 

Common practice in older buildings as far as I know.

 

I explained why it is often hard/impossible to revise the fees here: https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/988177-current-and-former-co-owner-committee-members/?do=findComment&comment=11998552

 

[lkn]

As for “beautification”, one approach is to look at this over many years, for example if it’s an 8 storey building, paint one floor every year, so each floor gets painted every 8th year, and painting one floor is in the yearly budget.

 

For staff, it’s a problem managing staff everywhere. I think you (or maybe someone else) already mentioned writing down everything, make spreadsheets with due date, who’s assigned to the task, what the current status is etc. and I highly recommend put these spreadsheets online, e.g. via Office 365 or Google Sheets, then you can always check status on the various tasks lists, and make sure the staff actually updates them!

 

Also try to have a good dialog with the manager, for example I am not in Thailand full time, but I talk with our manager at least once a week via LINE, and he knows that if there is anything, he should not hesitate to contact me, even if he’s just unsure about how to go about an assignment, as I have told him, I would much rather that he tells me that he does not know how to do something, than him doing it wrong.

 

I also recommend reading through the monthly ledger, this is not to detect fraud, but simply to be aware of what money is spent on.

 

[inThailand]

I explained why it is often hard/impossible to revise the fees here: 

 

Your special assessments are not voted in by the co-owners?

[KittenKong]

4 hours ago, inThailand said:

Your special assessments are not voted in by the co-owners?

 

They are, as I explained:

 

" To permanently change the common fee payment would require a large favourable co-owner vote so it is much more common in older buildings just to impose an extra special assessment every year which requires a much smaller favourable vote. This happens yearly in my building."

[KittenKong]

6 hours ago, lkn said:

I also recommend reading through the monthly ledger, this is not to detect fraud, but simply to be aware of what money is spent on.

 

I would be looking for fraud, and I would probably find it. I certainly found monthly claims by our manager for petrol costs, which was odd in as much as he never had to leave the building on official business.

[inThailand]

KittenKong

 

I don't believe the Condo Act makes a distinction of money paid to maintain or improve common area property. Any amendments to common area fees, sinking fund fees or special assessments all require 50% or more co-owners to approve via a vote.  

[KittenKong]

5 minutes ago, inThailand said:

I don't believe the Condo Act makes a distinction of money paid to maintain or improve common area property. Any amendments to common area fees, sinking fund fees or special assessments all require 50% or more co-owners to approve via a vote.  

 

The condo act may not (though see below) but the building rules may. Ours do. Some may say that such building rules are not legal as they fly in the face of the condo act. That may be so too. But they are what they are and they probably wont get changed any time soon as to change them would also require a very large majority vote of all co-owners which never has and probably never will happen in my building.

 

So I'm just saying that many older buildings find it simpler to impose a straightforward variable supplementary fee every year at a second GM (where the only agreement needed is 50% of those present at the second meeting, with no minimum number) than attempt to permanently increase the basic common fee which I think according to the condo act requires a majority approval of all co-owners, present or not :

 

"Section 48 A resolution on the following matters must have the votes of not less than a half of the total votes of the joint owners:

.......

6: An alteration on or a change in the ratio of the common expenses in the Bylaws defined under Section 32 (8),"

 

Our building takes the easier first route and so do several others that I have personal knowledge of. Makes sense to me.

 

Even if a permanent increased basic common fee was introduced it would be difficult to price this at the exact level needed to cover all costs without raising more than is actually needed (if too much is raised it will probably just get spent on pointless nonsense). So even then it would probably be necessary to revise the basic common fee again after a year or two, or impose a supplementary fee anyway. So why bother?

 

Yes, the usual disclaimers of hopelessly vague and badly worded Thai rules do apply. This is Thailand and YMMV.

[inThailand]

Agreed, the condo act is at best vague and most bylaws I have seen literally copy the text into their bylaws. We chose to completely rewrite our bylaws with the major goal to have clarity for the condo mgmt and for the owners. 

 

The condo act is the overriding law, so any change to fees must adhere to them, regardless of what the bylaws say. A change to fees or a special asssessment require the same voting percent to pass whether in the original meeting or a recalled one. 

 

Our common area (operations) budget is mostly monthly recurring and mostly fixed expenses, ie; staff salaries, mgmt fee, signage tax, p&l insurance, cable TV, Internet, phone, electricity, landscaping service, police fee, etc. Basically, all unplanned expenses are paid from the sinking fund. So from year to year the CA budget changes little, so rarely have we had to change CA fees, two times in ten years.

[KittenKong]

3 hours ago, inThailand said:

The condo act is the overriding law, so any change to fees must adhere to them, regardless of what the bylaws say. A change to fees or a special asssessment require the same voting percent to pass whether in the original meeting or a recalled one. 

 

I disagree for the reasons I quoted.

 

Changes to the basic common fee are covered specifically in section 48 of the condo act. Special assessments or supplementary payments are not. So the supplementary payments can be agreed by a minority of those present at a second meeting, regardless of how few they are. There is no quorum at a second meeting for decisions that do not fall under section 48.

 

Many buildings do this every year precisely because it is the only simple and legal way of doing it.

[KittenKong]

3 hours ago, inThailand said:

Our common area (operations) budget is mostly monthly recurring and mostly fixed expenses, ie; staff salaries, mgmt fee, signage tax, p&l insurance, cable TV, Internet, phone, electricity, landscaping service, police fee, etc. Basically, all unplanned expenses are paid from the sinking fund. So from year to year the CA budget changes little, so rarely have we had to change CA fees, two times in ten years.

 

We would never be able to change our basic common fee for the reasons I gave: we simply never get enough co-owners at a meeting.

 

Even so, you are basically doing it the same way that we do except that you are using your sinking fund to borrow from rather than budgeting for likely extra costs in advance. Presumably every year you have to impose a supplementary charge to to-up the sinking fund retrospectively, so the end result is the same as in my building.