FOREIGN COUNTRY ISSUES

When visiting, living, working, or investing in a foreign country there are a number of obstacles to deal with, language, weather, foreign exchange, culture and customs. When it comes to investing your money in a foreign country, you need to be aware of the problems you may encounter. Local offices you need to deal with may not speak your language. Thais are very different from westerners and need to be treated differently. They may appear to be slow or uncommunicative. They don’t like confrontation. Banging your fist on the counter and raising your voice are sure ways to get ‘no’ co-operation here.

Because of our experience in dealing with Thais and the Thai authorities we can deal with this effectively on your behalf and prior to you investing your hard earned savings we will explain these processes to you.

When it comes to having a house built, you also need consider the weather. Some European countries have severe winter weather and consequently a house needs to keep out the cold.

Here it is the opposite way around so you need to consider how to keep out the heat and keep the house as cool as possible using appropriate construction techniques, ventilation, fans and the use of air-conditioning.

LEGAL ISSUES

When having a house built, you will need to already own, or plan to purchase the building plot. While you can own the building on a plot of land, as a foreigner Thai law states that foreigners cannot own land in Thailand, so the usual way around this is for you to set up a Thai limted company with you as the Managing director holding 39% of the shares, the remaining 61% of shares to be Thai owned but they would assign shares transfer certificates to you thereby effectively handing you complete control of the company. This is common practice here in Pattaya Thailand and most Expat and foreign owned homes are set up like this.

The second way to own a piece of land is to put it in a Thai’s name and take out a thirty year lease, which in turn would be lodged with the land deeds at the local land office, so neither party could sell without the other partners permission, these leases can be renewed every 30 years up to 90 years.

The third and most risky way of buying land is to put it solely in your Thai partner’s name but if you split up with your Thai partner at a later date you wouldn’t have any claim over any land or any buildings which may be on it

Rosegate Consultants, can recommend a number of reputable lawyers in Pattaya on request.

BUILDING REGULATIONS

When it comes to having that house built in Pattaya, you also need to obtain planning permission prior to starting construction; these are obtained by submitting your architectural drawings at the local city hall. The head of the planning dept will examine them and issue the required permission, if all is in order.

Rosegate will submit these plans on your behalf. This process usually takes about 3 months. However as we do have a number of contacts in that dept, your plans will receive prompt attention and your house building can usually then commence quite quickly.  

THAI BUILDERS

Thai builders whether they are foreign operated or Thai operated will all use Thai labour.

We have a number of Thai based builders who specialize in quality construction, Thailand is basically like anywhere else you get what you pay for, Rosegate ensures that only quality builders and craftsman are used and you will most defiantly get what you pay for

MONEY and PAYMENTS

You may need a Thai bank account to transfer money around within Thailand if you want to make payments to builders from Thailand rather than transferring money from abroad each time stage payments are due. Also if in the future you decide to sell your property and you intend to take your money out of Thailand you will need special paper work from the bank of Thailand.

We can assist you with all these matters.

In the case of payments to the builders, we  will always notify you when these payments are due. We will confirm that the builder has reached the required stage for the payment in question.

When we feel the the builder has not reached the required stage at which the payment he is asking is due, we would seek an explanation on your behalf why this is so, If there were, in Rosegates judgement a satisfactory explanation for this from the builder, we would notify you of this and in turn expect you to pay the builder.

QUALITY of WORK

I determine the quality of work from the previous jobs our builders have done. It doesn’t necessary follow in Thailand that if you pay high prices you get high quality work. The builders I recommend are not always the cheapest, but I can confirm to you that you will get a top quality construction free of any future headaches.

TIME SCHEDULES

When you have agreed the price with the builder, a contract including a scheduled date for completion and penalty clause for non-completion will be signed by all parties.

I f your new dwelling is expected to take 6 months, and it turns out that it is delayed by Thai public holidays or inclement weather, or other unforseen cicurmstances we will inform you of this. If, in our opinion, the builder has simply been going slow we will inform him that you have been advised by us not to pay the next stage payment until that stage has been met and will also advise the builder that the penalty clause may be applied.

OUR FEES Remember, our service is designed to save you money and our fees would be a small percentage of the cost savings I will earn for you. Our fees are per house subject to negotiation, based on workload and your indivdual requirements, payable monthly in advance. For further details and terms of our contract. see example here.