Buying Land - Sri Saket

[Old Hippie]

A common scam is "buying" land the family already owns...insome cases, it is elaborate, in other cases just an excuse to get money...

 

Cent,

 

What is the average cost of a fish/prawn pond, average monthly fees, stocking fees etc...? Thanks.

[khwaimaisabai]

Hi cent,

Thanks to you and everyone else, especially sri saket girl, for your comments.

First, I am conscious of the scope for a scam but at some point we have to trust. I am at a slight disadvantage these days because I am no longer on the spot in Thailand. What I will do is get copies of all(?) the documentation and let a Thai lawyer friend have a look at it - but that will be after the event.

The story is that the land used to belong to the father of brother in law. Father is pu yai baan - village chief. He sold it (why?) to someone else for 400,000 a few years ago. That person now has gambling debts and is willing to sell it back to the family for 350,000. I wanted it to be in the name of our daughter, but GF says this cannot be done because she is not an adult and it must be (at best) jointly in the name of daughter and GF.

Regarding location, the land is close to a village, some of it in effect "within" the village, between houses. I was there in January and the land was pointed out to me as somehwere I might like to build a house (! - too far from The Londoner). It is used for growing rice. The village is about 1 hour drive west of sri saket city, about 10 minutes drive off the main east west highway running into surin, buri ram or ubon the other way. This does not look too remote, but it is not on the outskirts of the city.

Interesting comments about water/fish farming. When I was there an area was pointed out to me that is owned by the GF of a farang who has invested in just that for the family as well on part of the land.

As for price, it seems reasonable, if not cheap. Maybe one day we will build a house there, but I'm not sure I could take living permanently in a place like that.

Thanks again.

Khwai

[Central Scrutinizer]

OH,

 

I'll ask to get some estimates that will be close enough for our purposes. But, to buy the baby fish to grow is relatively cheap. You can buy the minnows on the roadsides and certain shops, a bag of a hundred or whatever the count I think was 1 or 2 baht a minnow, something like that. A large bag of fish feed, like 40 kilos or there-abouts was inexpensive as well. 100 baht? 200? I'll get the exact amounts later. Also getting a fish pond dug was pretty cheap as well, depending on the size and shape (yeah, shape for some reason), depth, etc. Most expensive part is buying the land.

 

Also the main pain in the ass in doing this I hear is keeping the theiving bastards from stealing your fish after dark while everyone is sleeping. But, it is easy to do and the work isn't much. I don't know how it stands up to using the land for growing rice or other crops in how much you can make per kilo of fish compared to vegetables, but most veggies are dirt cheap, and the price of a kilo of rice fluctuates according to supply and demand. Fish seems fairly constant in price locally. And all you need to do is feed them and wait as they grow to harvest the buggers once they are big enough to eat. Not much work to it once set up.

 

I'll see what I can find out for actual numbers OH.

 

Cent

[jai-dee]

Kwai,

 

my wife is from that exact area and she thinks the price is quite reasonable, if not outright cheap. She says that in her village asking price for rice land is higher than that. Ultimately it all depends on the water. 2 years ago her parents bought some land (with my money), I was hoping they would become more self-sufficient and wouldn't need my subsidies any more. But last year was so dry they only managed to harvest about 10 bags of rice.

[khwaimaisabai]

Hi jai dee,

Interesting that your wife is from the same area. I liked it when I went up in January, but maybe not to live there permanently.

Anyhow, the outcome of this deal is that it is now off. Some of the land was close to the main road, apparently, and the amphur land office valued it at a higher amount and wanted to charge a fee/tax based on that higher value. GF and/or family (or vendor) changed their minds about the sale and it was all called off.

I will get a more complete story when I see her again end of September - explanations in Thai on the phone sometimes get a bit difficult.

And to answer the obvious question - NO, I did not part with any money before the deal was cancelled, so looks like not a scam at all. I may never know the whole truth of it, of course, but.....

Khwai

[whosyourdaddy]

"GF says this cannot be done because she is not an adult and it must be (at best) jointly in the name of daughter and GF"

 

This is BS. The child can own the land but can not sell it without 1) parents written permission 2) being of the age of 20 or 3) being married. Owning it is not a problem. I have been to a few (2) lawyers about this since the person who legally owned my place was a minor.

 

BTW the tax, stamp duty, etc would be about 30,000B if the land office assessed it at 350-400K. The tax is based on the selling price or the assessed land value, which ever is higher.

For my place the selling price was 2x the price of the land office's value. But I got the place for about 25% lower than market value on the street. It is interesting how nobody has a clue what the fair market price is and prices are all over the board depending on who you talk to ( bank, land office, seller etc).

[sidsanuk]

I have a cousin up country who was visting the family in Bangkok last year. Out came the hard luck story :-)

 

Needed Baht 300k to get his fish farm up and running again, all the fish had died or something. When I asked how many times has the fish farm had problems like this, he said this is the 3rd time! He must have thought I came down in the last rain shower!

 

My response. Try something other than fish farming mate!

 

Moral of the tale (not sure if he was just BS ing me) maybe fish farming is not all that easy. Any business venture needs thorough research and people who know what they are doing running it.

 

Sid