Cathouse. New 'owner' screwed?

[..]

Thanks for that Showtime!

 

Cheers,

SD

[Guest]

Very interesting. I was wondering what TC told the new owners. His own post here on this site was confusing and contradictory about his rights under the lease. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and just figured he was just confused. But if there is "an e-mail response from TC that states that TC was now the Landlord", it sounds like fraud to me.

 

Where is TC? Suadum said something about pursuing a business opportunity in another country. Having read your detailed post, it sounds like he fled the country. Is that what happened?

 

I think the moral here is that if you need someone competent and professional representing your interests if you are buying a business. As you say, the broker here clearly was wrong. But I would never rely on one single person in the middle to protect the interests of both parties, particularly in Thailand. I would want someone I was paying directly and worked for me to provide me with independant advice and independantly check what the seller and his representatives were saying.

 

Of course, with buyers like this - who apparantly tried to short circuit the whole process to save costs - that is certainly not going to happen. And we can see what happened to them.

[Big Kev]

I believe I am right about this. Locals or those with better memory can provide corrections.

 

Remember when right here on our very own nep site someone announced that they were going to open a bar in nana plaza and they would sponsor a contest to name that bar? Prize was to be free bar tab for a month or something like that.

 

Turns out the winning entry was "Cat House" and I believe there was even an exchange between TC and the appreciative winner about what a good time he had with his free bar tab prize.

 

What was this, four or five years ago?

 

I also remember early Cat House advertisements on this site. Couple of them featured fine looking girls and a couple had real "dogs". I even started a thread about how ugly one of the girls was, which TC took in good humor and posted a couple of clever answers to me.

 

Never did meet the guy, as he always seemed to be away or out of town on my visits. But his bar was one of my favorites and I'm sorry to learn of this trouble. Cat House really did seem sort of "home" bar for this site and I don't know of any other bar owner who participated in our discussions as much as TC.

 

Hope things work out for him and others involved.

[chuckwoww]

Very interesting. Especially since the buyers had already approached Sunbelt. So they knew "that Sunbelt had some concerns with this business". Anyway it's good to hear that BH isn't coming down too hard on the new buyers. It occurred to me that they just need to pay him for furniture etc. and that's the end of it. Until TC shows up.

[Guest]

Where is TC? Suadum said something about pursuing a business opportunity in another country. Having read your detailed post, it sounds like he fled the country. Is that what happened?

 

Some say he is in Cambodia and expected to visit Thailand soon. Word is he?ll have a welcoming party at the airport by the boys in brown, if he returns.

 

I think the moral here is that if you need someone competent and professional representing your interests if you are buying a business.

 

Amen. You are correct.

 

 

I would want someone I was paying directly and worked for me to provide me with independant advice and independantly check what the seller and his representatives were saying.

 

In 30-40% of all cases, the buyers do this, hire a separate legal team. A good business advisor/broker will encourage this and they will have the buyer sign 12 different times they do NOT do due diligence on the financials. It?s a conflict of interest. They need to hire an independent team.

 

However regardless if the client did no due diligence, the broker has a responsibility to check out the lease. If the buyer has no lease, their is no business and then what is the buyer investing in? A broker has a fiduciary responsibility to disclose potential problems to the buyer even if they are hired by the seller.

[shygye]

suadum said:

I will submit that "one owner" did NOT "pull a runner", but is persuing a business venture in a neighbouring country which is *exactly* the reason he sold the place: no time to do all he wants to do. Not at all hard to contact should one require it.

 

...

Regards,

SD

 

Well, before TC said he was selling the bar to spend more time on his other MORE profitable biz IN THAILAND.

[sickbuffalo]

People are often amazed at the trust punters put in BGs. Even more amazing, IMO, is the trust they put in bar owners: "he's a great guy, totally honest etc". There is something about LOS that seems to create blind trust.

 

The question to ask oneself is this: in your own country would you trust a brothel owner/pimp? If not why do so in Thailand?

 

I read somewhere that around 60% of them have criminal convictions in their own countries and from the one's I've met I don't find it hard to believe. They might be entertaining guys to chat to over a beer but that's about it.

[shygye]

3) Fall in "love".

2) Buy gems.

1) Buy a bar.

[Guest]

Thanks.

In 30-40% of all cases, the buyers do this, hire a separate legal team. A good business advisor/broker will encourage this and they will have the buyer sign 12 different times they do NOT do due diligence on the financials. It?s a conflict of interest. They need to hire an independent team.

How many good brokers are there? I have never considered buying bar, a restaurant or any other business, but I have looked at property. So have friends who decided they wanted to retire/live here.

 

The real estate companies - not quite clear if they were agents or brokers or what - offered to do everything from "A to Z". "Don't worry about it; we do it all" said one farang rep. But you never who they really worked for, and they pushed hard just to get the deal done because that is how they got their comission.

 

In every case they claimed there was "another buyer" who was ready to buy right now if you didn't at least put in a healthy deposit. I cannot recall a single one of these operators - I cannot think of any other word to describe them - even hinting about independant advice.

 

I did get independant advice in one that looked tempting, and when my lawyer asked for title information, the agent/broker (whatever he was), called back angrily about how I didn't trust him and now the owner was going to sell to someone else. I lost out on the deal of the century, according to him. Hard sales tactics, which made me more suspicious, but I suspect might have worked on someone else.

 

It turned out that the "property" was actually three parcels: the owner did own one, a neighbor owned the other and the third was in national park land and couldn't be sold. The agent/broker still pushed for a sale, and was still insisting that I pay a 20% deposit because "honest, my name is my word, and I can work it all out" and because someone was about to "snatch" this property from right underneath me that very day.

 

These guys must get away with this nonsense sometimes; it's amazing.

[StaggerLee]

5) Nigerian government cash surplus available. just sign here and tell us your bank account number...

4) Nigerian lottery

 

 

 

 

3) Fall in "love".

2) Buy gems.

1) Buy a bar.