Pitfalls, tips and tricks of owning a condo

[robaus]

After 8 wonderful trouble free and extremely low fee years of owning a condo in a Pattaya beach front condotel, I am faced with my first ever ownersâ?? AGM this weekend. It appears the hotel owners never had a licence to operate as a condotel and are now switching over to full condo status.

 

What are some of the problem areas to look out for? Here are a few I have gathered from conversation. Can anyone advise on other issues.

 

- Corrupt management. How easily can they be replaced at an AGM? Restrict contract length? Must give them how long notice?

- Need open access to accounts. Heard of one manager who refuses to show any accounts to owners, but hands out extortionate bills, while buying herself 2 new Mercedes.

- Need at least 3 quotes for any major works. How to guarantee genuine quotes?

- Need honest and reliable owners on committee.

- Donâ??t allow time share operators into ownership (how can one stop them?). Or restrict their ownership to whole floors, and not mixed in with private owners. A mate in another complex has a miserable time with a constant stream of new time-sharers next door to him, having loud conversations with doors open when they crawl home at 3-4 am.

 

Thatâ??s all I can think of so far. Thereâ??s also a useful article in the current Pattaya Today paper (Vol 8 # 11), mainly about the legal side of management.

 

Let me have your horror and success stories. It might never happen, but forewarned is forearmed. Could be a useful thread to other board members.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

[ThaiHome]

In our case, a condo in Bangkok, with less then 10% farang ownership, we have had AGMâ??s every year since we moved in 2006. The main event at the AGM is electing the ownerâ??s committee that overseas the management company (a branch of a well know western property management company) that actually runs the place. The committee approves all expenditures and policies. Even with just 7 or 8 Farangs owners, so far one gets elected each year. It probably also helps that the builder is one of the major companies and is mainly focused at the higher end of the Thai budget market, a notch or two above LPN.

 

Just reinforces that who the developer is just slightly below location in importance, and can make the difference in how happy you end up with your purchase. We actually went and visited two of the builderâ??s developments that had been occupied for several years to see what they were like. Also had a Dunn & Bradstreet done (through my company connections) on the company to get a rating on financial strength.

 

Probably doesnâ??t help you much with the issues on a condo in Pattaya aimed a the farang marketâ?¦

TH