And right after Chuwit lost in court!

[YimSiam]

 

p.s. Multiply 18,000 times the number of renters (30) times 12 and I bet you get a rather respectable return for doing nothing with a vacant piece of land - 6,480,000 baht. Then multiply that times 20 = 129,600,000 baht. I think I could scrape by on that.

 

That'd be like finding 9,230 baht in your pants pocket 14,041 days in a row -- yeah, I could get by, but I'd still resent those guys who were taking advantage of my inability to enforce the contract in a court, overstayed their lease and wouldn't even read the damn sign I put up...

 

What sucks in my view is that another little market area is gone and will doubtless be replaced by some soulless apartment building or, worse, shopping center. Fill in the khlongs, close down the markets, and the heart of Bangkok starts to shrivel.

 

YimSiam

 

 

 

[Flashermac]

You wouldn't even recognise the old Bangkok if I showed you photos. If you want to see it, go around the Grand Palace or over to Chinatown. Not much left besides that.

 

 

[torrenova]

I seem to remember Peter Jones the department store in London taking a very long lease on a plot of land in Sloane Square (post part of London) at some (now) chicken feed rent for like 100 years. Perhaps from the Cadogan estate ?

 

The rule of law dictated that however bad the business decision all those years ago, it was a contract and must be upheld unless the landlord bought out the tenant.

 

Just another anecdote which drives down people's perception of this country.

[elef]

99 years I think, maybe could have been owned by the duke of Westminister who owns 300 acres in central London - american embassy for example.

[YimSiam]

I think the most notable lease agreement of all time is probably Guantanamo Bay, where - as I recall - both sides have to agree to cancel the lease for it to end. Meanwhile, Cuba fumes while the US pays something like $4 a year for the base...

 

Of course, Cuba could send in 100 vandals during the night and try to smash up the place, Thai-style, but I'm thinking it wouldn't work out quite as smoothly...

 

YimSiam

[Flashermac]

Unless things have changed, a lot of Cubans make their living working at Guantanamo.

 

 

[shygye]

Gibraltar! That is always good to tweak the Spaniards.

[Flashermac]

Sort of like Ceuta.

 

 

[elef]

The lease contract of Guantanamo is in fact illegal by 2 reasons

 

- there's a newer convention that says that forced treaties are not valid

 

- Guantanamo is reserved for naval activities, so using it for keeping prisoners taken by land forces violates the treaty

 

But as Mac said above the dollars are more important for Cuba than Guantanmo and in fact the base is also a potential hostage.... :evil:

[Flashermac]

<< there's a newer convention that says that forced treaties are not valid. >>

 

Tell that to the victors of WWII. The UN Charter on Human Rights also says it is illegal to expel the population from conquered territory and replace it with your own. Want to try to put eastern Europe back the way it was in 1945?

 

 

"The current Cuban government considers the U.S. presence in Guantánamo to be an illegal occupation of the area, and argues that the Cuban-American Treaty, which established the lease in 1903, now violates article 52 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, though the issue is still open to argument. However, Article 4 of the same document states that Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties shall not be retroactively applied to any treaties made before itself."

 

Didn't realise this:

 

"Until the 1953-59 revolution, thousands of Cubans commuted daily from outside the base to jobs within. In mid-1958, vehicular traffic was stopped; workers were required to walk through the base's several gates. Public Works Center buses were pressed into service almost overnight to carry the tides of workers to and from the gate. In 2006, only two elderly Cubans still crossed the base's North East Gate daily to work on the base; the Cuban government prohibits new recruitment."

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_Naval_Base