Foreigners can no longer buy houses in Thailand via company.

[JW]

I have been told that official clarification will come this week.
Karenjuice - your developer will know when it happens so keep in contact.

[Wanderlust]

Whats to stop them just cutting and running?

Whats the guarentee that current develoments will be completed, especially, as on another thread on this forum, they have already bought other plots of land to develop - therefore need turnaround to keep the money rolling in to presumably meet their outgoings?

Or have I got this wrong?

caller,
The way I see it is that current developments will not be affected - only new land registrations will be looked at, so the current developments can be finished and sold off as before; in fact this has become more likely with the reported clarification allowing 1 rai for personal use. The benefit of the enforcement of existing law in Hua Hin is that it may well slow down or end the construction boom, which would have two effects - existing properties will have less risk of a price collapse as they become instantly more valuable (less supply), and the changes in Hua Hin will become less rapid. The downside from a farang point of view is that new land purchases and projects will be by Thai property developers who you have to assume are naturally going to build for the Thai market, which may not be to the taste of many farangs as regards design, style and facilities, and may be more difficult to deal with in terms of communication.

[Burger]

Jaime wrote:

Funny how it goes. Over the last couple of years I've had plenty of people saying to me "Jaime, you're an architect, why don't you get involved in the property and construction business in Hua Hin - they really need decent architects and you'd be coining it in!?"
Now, instead of loftily explaining that I could not work in an environment infected with amoral, unprofessional chancers, plagiarists and charlatans with no interest in anything other than making a quickfire profit I need only point them in the direction of this thread and its most recent development as posted by JW

You do not need to leave the UK to enjoy the above working environment Jaime, I found the following wonderful examples of professionalism in my time working in the UK construction industry:

Small builders/tradesmen conning old ladies out of their life savings because their tap washer had eroded
Major contractors working on major projects (airports, hospitals etc) who:
Put profits before safety by knowingly employing cheaper unskilled Eastern European labour
Allow labour to work on site illegally as they do not speak English and did not understand the safety induction.
Work on site without CIS cards
Install fire alarm systems without appropriate qualifications.
Weld sprinkler pipework without relevant welding tickets then falsify weld tests.
Allowing labour to sign a risk assessment for a dangerous area they are about to work in, knowing that they could not even read it.
Project Management teams who:
Conduct corrupt bidding processes in order to obtain back handers for awarding large contracts
Rip the client off by making fraudulent claims for variation works
Encourage apprentices to falsify labour returns to make it look like there was more labour on site and therefore claim more monies
Structural engineers who refuse to carry out calculations after they have spent all their allotted fees, so pass the responsibility onto the small steelwork fabricators who they know will make a hash of it.

There's good and bad in every industry.

Oh, I forgot the UK estate agents ............................................

Burger

[JW]

Jamie,
Bemused by your last post. I think you are one who often complains about sweeping comments. Do you live in the real world, or some imaginative utopia where everything is perfect?
As burger said there are good and bad everywhere in all walks of life, dont tarnish all with the same brush.

[silverbird]

Whats to stop them just cutting and running?

Whats the guarentee that current develoments will be completed, especially, as on another thread on this forum, they have already bought other plots of land to develop - therefore need turnaround to keep the money rolling in to presumably meet their outgoings?

Or have I got this wrong?

caller,
The way I see it is that current developments will not be affected - only new land registrations will be looked at, so the current developments can be finished and sold off as before; in fact this has become more likely with the reported clarification allowing 1 rai for personal use. The benefit of the enforcement of existing law in Hua Hin is that it may well slow down or end the construction boom, which would have two effects - existing properties will have less risk of a price collapse as they become instantly more valuable (less supply), and the changes in Hua Hin will become less rapid. The downside from a farang point of view is that new land purchases and projects will be by Thai property developers who you have to assume are naturally going to build for the Thai market, which may not be to the taste of many farangs as regards design, style and facilities, and may be more difficult to deal with in terms of communication.

Sorry to say I think "caller" is not unlikely to be wrong about some developers just cutting and running due to cashflow not coming in to cover expenses that has to be paid. The loosers - those who bougth the land with houses without yet having got the title of deed. Longsighted I think Wanderlusts opinion reflects what will happen even if I consider good Thai developers to be better than bad farang developers!

In todays edition of the Post newspaper (Thai) the front page is about farangs taking over Hua Hin. It is fairly balanced and includes an interview with one "big developer". To many wealthy and educated Thai people in Bangkok Hua Hin is "their" favorite holiday destination since a long time back. I hope the article will not lead to more Thai people demanding action to be taken to protect Hua Hin from the farangs.

[Jaime]

Burger, JW,

I did not direct my comments at either of you and nor did I tarnish everyone with the same brush.

I too am bemused - by your defensiveness.

My post relates more to the practice of architecture and its relationship to the development process in Hua Hin and also, finally, to the instability of the industry as JW's post illustrates and to which I referred. Apologies if I misled you both.

[JW]

Jamie,

No worries just got the wrong end of the stick.

Cheers

[Burger]

I too am bemused - by your defensiveness.
My post relates more to the practice of architecture and its relationship to the development process in Hua Hin and also, finally, to the instability of the industry as JW's post illustrates and to which I referred. Apologies if I misled you both.

No problem Jaime, but I never saw any mention to Architecture in JW's post.
I think our defensiveness was directed at your perceived attack on us all.

Burger

[Jaime]

No problem Jaime, but I never saw any mention to Architecture in JW's post.

But it was mentioned in mine Burger - that is the perspective from which I wrote. But it is not 'architecture' per se that I see as the problem but its practice in relationship to the local house building industry. I can make direct comparisons because that is the industry in which I work/specialise here in the UK.

Let's elaborate over a beer some time.

[Burger]

Now, instead of loftily explaining that I could not work in an environment infected with amoral, unprofessional chancers, plagiarists and charlatans with no interest in anything other than making a quickfire profit I need only point them in the direction of this thread and its most recent development as posted by JW

I think it was your reference to JW's post, which implied us lot, that did it for us.
Think we all over-reacted Jaime, as this is an emotive subject.
No problem though, it's all good discussion mate.

Burger

[Jaime]

No problem - and just to clarify further; JW's post prompted me to post because as I read it, it simply highlighted yet another obstacle put in the way of farang involvement in property.

[timego]

WHat's his face that square face guy. I don't know if the articles about him and the family buying into the real estate business big time in phuket and other places so it makes sense to do something like this to lower the property values as low as possible and in typical self serving fashion sit on them for many years and maybe change a law sometime in the future that opens the market again to foreigners and screw over a new batch. TIT. There is so many of them now in the Uk making so much unnessesary work for helth inspectors with the dirty food preparation conditions. Vey hard to make them spend a bit of money to keep things healthy. Like others say, their meanness is a sickness, a disease.

Most of us are in the same boat and have bought a property here and are looking at the value of it shot and really cannot sell it if we wanted and move on. We got screwed plain and simple. I'm not going to listen anymore to property guys saying everything is ok because it's greed for money talking or protecting interests. Better to be honest and not to be encouraging more foreigners to get screwed over supposedly buying here.
Better to rent or lease now as 'legal' (for now anyway untils the square faces change the laws to rip off the foreigners again) and forget about it. Could get screwed that way too with improvements and rent rising but likely not for as much money. renting is dead money but most of us will be dead in a few years and at least renting we'd have more to leave our heirs. (we wouldn't have lost it in thai property).
Slightly jaded post but that's what happens in time dealing with them.

[Burger]

timego,

Do you have your house and land transferred into your company already ?

I think we all need to be a bit more patient (I know it ain't easy) as it may be revealed soon that the government statement re: enforcing land registry laws, was directed at the foreign developers more than your average person buying a holiday/retirement home.

Burger

[karenjuice]

I received this from the developer I was purchasing from today. Has anybody else heard anything?
I had a meeting with the permanent secretary of the Interior Ministry to explain to him to him of the consequence of their last announcement. This is the reason, they issued internal letter to relax the regulation on foreign ownership for residence. So now for foreigner who buy property for residencial purpose will be able to execute their transaction as usual, but for others' purpose besides that will come under heavy scrutiny from land department to prevent unlawful real estate developer in Thailand.

[Rider]

Its all well and saying this, that and the other but until you see in Black and White, in bona fide independantly translated english what the deal is on foreigners owning property without having it in a thai name then hang fire.

Wait until something somes out written in stone to clarify everything so nobody has to rely on heresay as a prompt to buy property out here.

It really is that simple, somewhere out there is the paper that says this is this and that is that.

Read the black and white dudes!