What would you do- your suggestions ?

[margaretcarnes]

Oh dear - that bad?

[Wanderlust]

sam,
As someone else has said, what about the other neighbours? How many are party to this unofficial residents association?
The principle of paying for your water before you use it is ridiculous so how is the 'treasurer' justifying this? As far as electricity usage goes that can surely be dealt with by calculating how much it costs to pump each unit of water out of the well (based on past bills) and then set a unit charge for water that reflects this - that covers what appears to be their main gripe with you, and it is only fair that everyone pays for what they use. I'm sure if you spoke to your other neighbours they would agree with this and then you just present it to the 'treasurer' and committee as an agreed deal.
As others have said though your own well would be the simplest solution and the others would have no legal right to prevent that as long as you followed correct procedures - I believe you are meant to get some sort of permission/licence to dig a well, although I believe there are many who don't (including some developers/builders). This would certainly work out cheaper and less hassle than a court case, but as has also been mentioned may meet resistance from the other house owners,

One final question - from your posts you sound like a very reasonable person but is there anything that you may have done or said, wittingly or not, that has caused this other owner to have such a problem with you? If there is some other issue behind this dispute then that may need to be resolved before you can have the peaceful life here you wish for. We have seen the results of this type of dispute before and we do not want a repeat of it - it may be worth extending a huge olive branch to this guy, or organising a party for all your neighbours at your place to try and cool the situation down. While it sounds like he is the one with the problem, you may well need to concede ground to him to keep the peace, even though it goes completely against the grain.

As Big Boy already said, make sure you don't give any details or even a hint of where you are or who is involved on here because it will only make the situation worse.

[sam]

Wanderlust,

part of the problem is that of the 19 houses only 7or 8 are occupied full time, the rest of us live elsewhere and come and go. This means that almost all contact is by email ( we are no longer included) and people rely on the association to care for the estate, which is perfectly understandable.

We have no gripe in principal but there is no board, no way of appeal on any decisions ( if you are allowed a say) we were told we had no say as we do not live there. There is the self appointed treasurer, one other resident whose name is also on the bank account and the neighbour of the treasurer who assists in some of the work. As the treasurer uses the "divide and conquer" approach he sends out individual emails to people who may disagree to say "everyone else has agreed" therefore making people feel they are being obstructive. Therefore it does not seem to be possible to take this sensible approach.

In answer to your question as to whether we have done something to upset him, we opened the pumps to get water which had been set on timers and padlocked so that only 2 people had access, we also said no we did not want them to do our garden and pool (for a fee). We also asked them not to turn off our water or shout at our gardeners, so maybe we did upset them. However this person is a very unreasonable individual as other people who have had dealings with him will confirm.

I have tried to calm this issue and have offered various backdoors? solutions but they have either been ignored or outright refused.

I am not saying that everything they have done is bad, but I will not live my live dictated to by a neighbor just because he feels like it.

If it were a legitimate association run properly or course we would abide by any democratically made decisions.

The last thing we want to do is fallout with our neighbors and anyone who is there on our next visit is more than welcome for beer etc.

[Wanderlust]

sam,
It is a difficult situation for you. A couple of suggestions for you; do you have the email addresses of all the other non resident owners, or can you get hold of them? If you can it might be worth emailing them to see how they feel about the situation, as they may not be happy either. On a similar theme, you could set up an internet forum for the owners of your group of houses to discuss issues, particularly useful for owners who are not full time residents. This could be done without any mention of your problem with the committee but might result in more accountability from the self appointed group. I have done this for the estate I live on, so if you want to try this feel free to PM me for any hints or tips. Ours was done in an attempt to make sure we all knew if there were any common problems arising from the construction, or other common issues, and the non resident owners have been very pleased to have the chance to keep in touch about this.
While you are obviously exasperated by this man, I don't think you should be looking at either legal action or threatening to inform immigration as that will cast you as the bad guy in your neighbours eyes, however right you are. If you find it hard to deal directly with him is there a neighbour or someone else who could mediate? You may well have tried all of this already but I really feel you want to avoid confrontation, be it legal or anything else.

[STEVE G]

These sort of situations are certainly very difficult to resolve if things become personal and perhaps mediation from a respected outsider, if one could be found, might be a way ahead.
One thing that stands out from the information given so far that seems unreasonable to me is to bill you in advance for well water and I can't imagine anyone readily agreeing to that.
Seeing as the only real cost is the electricity to pump it which is billed monthly, there doesn't seem to be any justification for paying in advance. Also if this association is not a legal juristic entity you would have no way of getting any redress if you paid in advance and then failed to get the water you had paid for.
As WL pointed out, a fair system would seem to be to fit water meters and just divide the total cost proportionally by the usage.

[PeteC]

For sure it becomes personal. The man has broken the law and endangered Sam and his family.

If I am reading correctly, he/they trespassed onto his property and modified his water system to move the tap outside the premises. He now threatens to turn off their water denying them of proper sanitation.

All the while having no authority whatsoever to do any of this.

In my opinion the man should be arrested for theft, trespass and threatening harm in regards to denial of water.

It's all well and good to take a moderate and conciliatory approach but from what Sam says, he has already done that. Both sides of the coin now out here for consideration. Pete

[T.I.G.R.]

I have to agree with Pete, Sam. If only seven of twenty two owners have agreed to join this illegal association and have trespassed on your property who is next?

Personally, I would canvass all the permanent residents and see if there is anyone to stand up to this "undue process", lodge a complaint with the police and do everything you can to contact the other owners.....all of them....with the intent of establishing a legitimate organization.

As much as it irks me to say this your best bet seems to be to make your enemy your friend and then displace him on the board of a legitimate association.

There is also the possibility of paying the Police to monitor your property. I don't know if you've heard of this but they'll come by on a regular basis and check for breakins-etc. Once you've established a contract with them you can alert them to the trespass issues etc. and possibly turn them into your own part-time security service.

I would also do something about filing an official police report describing the trespass on your land, the moving of your water controls outside your property without your permission, the threats to your contractors and/or employees, and the personal threats to your property, which by any name should be considered extortion.

If you feel you can't do that in person and don't have a friend to do it for you in the neighborhood maybe some of us on the forum can assist in the filing of a report if you write it up and have it delivered here. I have a very good translation service than can provide certified documents with a very short turnaround, probably necessary for the Police to actually intervene......anyone have an idea of how we might help Sam accomplish this?

[STEVE G]

Yes, after reading through these posts again it does become clear that to modify someone's water supply without their consent is very wrong indeed.
I know we've had many tales on here of developers behaving like this, but for some self-appointed estate manager to start interfering with your water is a ridiculous state of affairs.

[malcolminthemiddle]

Could a government water supply be available? You mention the road has been taken over by the local authority.

[thaiorchid]

In this forum you offen see Amazing Thailand used ironically about Thai behavior or Thai customs.
If HHAD have any Thai readers, they must wonder, what the hell farangs are doing, travelling half way around the world, to fight over waterbills. Maybe i am naive, but what happened to the adventurers, who travelled to the East, for whatever reason, to start a new life i a different part of the world ? Have you all ended up in small ghettos on the other side of the railroad, continuing your small fights from back home ?
Sam, if you are right or wrong I dont know. And in a way it does not matter. it is your problem, I presume you are an adult. Solve it in your own way, without taking to much notice of the barstool-lawyers in this forum. Some of who, I have to admit, know quite a bit about how this country is working. So much more disappointing to see a normally reasonable poster like SJ suggest using immigration and the workpermit approach. If we expats start going down that road, it is going to be X-mas for the Thai authorities.
Within the last week, there has been a few inquries about buying real estate in HH (properly friends of developers, to make them happy).
The above should make potential buyers consider to buy in a Thai neighbourhood. No they are not all karaokee-singing motosais. Lived
at Naebkehard for 7 years, never any problems. Thai neighbours all around.
Sam, best of luck.

[Super Joe]

Hi thaiorchid,
Agree with your sentiments and know from my encounters with sam and partner they seek nothing more than to be left in peace to enjoy life here.

disappointing to see a normally reasonable poster like SJ suggest using immigration and the work permit approach.

Just to be clear I didn't suggest using Immigration. I have only ever, and not on here, suggested using it as leverage, have never grassed anyone up ever as far back as I can remember. I can see how it reads though, point taken.
But if someone entered your land while you were away and re-arranged your water supply you'd probably be a bit hacked off too. I would have thought if this happened back home people would call the old bill, or pop round to discuss it with a bat. And most people would be pretty pee'd off if they had to fork out 150k on a well when they have already paid for a share in two already.


Malcolm, in the area concerned, and I think it applies in other parts of town too, the Water Company refuse to serve developments saying it will be too much of a draw on their mains. Even if they agreed to serve one house now, it would be impracticle to install, a mile' of concrete road would need to be cut.

Cheers,
SJ

[margaretcarnes]

So if this one development can't be supplied with Municipal water - how many more are in the same situation? And how many new developments are underway which will have the same problem?
We know from previous topics that HH is growing faster than it's available water can cope with. Many of us would accept supply from a well as perfectly OK, and not expect this type of problem. Hopefully this situation is a one off.
But why don't developers themselves make some kind of provision for a legal management company, as they do in places like Condo Chain?
I do agree with Thaiorchid to an extent, and also lived on Naebkerhardt, where my Thai neighbours were great. But now that developments are further out, and specifically targeted at farang buyers (who are spending a lot of money on property) surely there needs to be more after sales support?

[Super Joe]

But why don't developers themselves make some kind of provision for a legal management company, as they do in places like Condo Chain?

Hi Mags, Malcolm posted about the 'Homeowners Association'. The situation is that a law was introduced way back when allowing the residents to form their own association after more than 50% of the properties are sold, or after 3 years, whichever is earlier. The developer can not prevent this and is even bound by the association's rules and pay fees for his unsold plots.
It was introduced to actually protect the consumers and give them the right to manage the estate, prior to this Thai developers (maybe farang one's too!?) were setting up the management company, over-charging and under-servicing. In this case it has not been set-up correctly.

SJ

[sam]

Thanks to everyone for your ideas.

Wanderlust , we suggested a proper association and also a forum but no-one answered so I can only assume they are not interested.

When people live a long way from their house they feel insecure and do not want to rock the boat. This is understandable, in general people do not want to get involved with other peoples problems anymore, however I do feel in this case what is our problem today maybe someone else's on the estate tomorrow, this is not the first time this person has caused problems.

Had this happened in the UK we would have known how to deal with it, I am glad I asked for advice as it has saved a costly court case which even if we had won would have gained us nothing.

The man did not go on our land to fit the stopcock he fitted another one outside our gate. Steve , there are now meters and the water bills are supposed to be an estimate based on previous readings but ours has been over estimated by approx 40%, there is also a standing charge of 2000 per house for maintenance, although there should already be a kitty in excess of 50,000 from last year. When we asked for an explanation of the overcharge we were ignored, when we asked to see the books we were told "we are too busy to send them, they can be seen by appointment at ****" we are in the UK so they know that is impossible.

Thaiorchid,

We deliberately chose a small street with a few houses , no gates or associations in a predominantly Thai area to live (3+years ago). We were the first to buy so we did not know who our neighbours would be. We are happy with the house, street and the developer, who signed over the wells to the owners because he thought it was for the best. As I said had this happened here we would have been able to solve it easily but when it is a 7000 miles away and someone will not listen to reason what do you do? How would you deal with this ( genuine question).

Thanks again for all the interest shown in our little problem.

[ozuncle]

Sam,

I do no not know whether you have a legitimate complaint (and I expect the other posters don't either) but there does seem to be a lot of complaints re water referred to on this forum.

One major one which ended in a tragic event.

The answer to me is simple.

You must either get a bore or connect to town water.

That way you can ignore requests to pay for water or the electricity to run the pump.
You will of course still be liable to pay your share of costs to maintain roads and other common property items such as lighting gardens etc.

You have not said whether you have paid your share of costs so far.

You also stated that you unlocked the pump (padlocked) to obtain water as it had been set on timer. Possibly this locking and timing was necessary. This action would have caused ill feeling against you.

I imagine you would also be required to pay for any maintenance items on the pump and bore as well as your water and pump electricity usage from the start of this arrangement until the moment you turn of the community water and use your own source.

We don't know ALL the facts and it could be that your idea of fair is not what others might be.
As someone suggested earlier it may be advisable to enlist the services of someone independant who you trust (maybe a neighbour) and trust their decision as to how much you owe.

Anyway, you must protect yourself for your future sanity and get your own water source ASAP. Then pay what you owe up to that date and enjoy your life.