Code of conduct in the Hua Hin real estate market ?????

[Jockey]

Here is another scenario for consideration which might be an alternative way to go.

Step 1 - A buyer agrees to buy a property from a developer whether he is introduced by an agent or not is an irrelevance.

Step 2 - The buyer asks if he can use the "Hua Hin Property Trades Council" (or whatever it will be called) to buy the property.

Step 3 - The developer has the option to say "yes I am a memer of the "trades council" or no "I dont deal with them"

Step 4 - The buyer can make the decision to buy without the aid of the "trades counci"l or not.

Step 5 - Assuming the developer and buyer are happy to use the "trades council" then contact is made.

Step 6 - The "trades council" would assist with the Sales Agreement Contract, making background checks with the developer that he has the lawfu right to sell the property, and the contract is balanced and not lopsided in favour of the developer. It would also stipulate the quality of build, materials to be used and timescales (milestones)

Step 7 - The "trades council" could act as mediator of the contract and act as an escrow agent. Assuming payments are to be made on each successful milestone of the build, the "trades council' would inspect the latest milestone against the set criteria of the building plans as laid out in the original contract. Note: There are houses built for 2 million and houses built for 20 million. It is important to establish the quality and material expectations at the contract stage, obviously the more you pay the higher expectations of the quality of the build and materials used.

Step 8 - At each milestone after successful inspection the staged payment will be released by the Escrow account. If however, the builder has not fulfilled his promise as per the original contract, the "trades body" would write a report asking the developer to correct the "faults" and only when this is done, the money from the Escrow account is released.

Step 9. - The last payment would include supply of utilities such as agreed on the contract.

Step 10 - The assistance could end when the building is complete and ready for occupation, or the buyer could ask for a "premium package" where the "trades Council" would act as after sales representatives.

I believe the above scenario is much more achievable than setting up an "are you in or are you out" club. The developer would find many benefits in such a scheme, as would the buyer.

Now heres the rub:

Who pays. Actually I believe the buyer should pay for this service - after all, they would be getting better assistance than they would a lawyer and would avoid any awkward or nasty situations having to deal directly with the developer, and the developer wouldn't have crazy half baked Farangs perstering them all the time - they would only need to deal with a professional body.

the developer may be asked to pay a yearly subscription to be a member, and being a member would or should be advantageous to his business. If the Trades Council were continually having to make reports about a developer they could ban him from the membership.

That may be worth considering? The "Trades Council" would be either a profit making company or non profit making - but I cant see professionals working for nothing.

[redzonerocker]

Should they be expected to have some building knowledge,experience and background ?

good point crazy

if they haven't, how can they possibly oversee a construction project?

what seems to be developing here (excuse the pun!) is an association of developers & agents that possibly want to control the market by way of regulating who & what can & should be done?
who will be in charge of the regulating?
who decides who is invited to be a member?
sure it has to be selective, but for the right reasons!!

somewhere along the line there is self interest involved, of that, i have no doubt.
the major players in the grand scheme of things are the potential buyers & customers.
being in this category myself & from following this thread from the outset, i am not at all convinced at all.seems nothing more than a pr exercise.

the reputable developers & agents in hua hin are self regulated by using an honest & ethical business plan.
why do they now need to be regulated by an outside source??

as a neutral observer, its just my personal opinion & open to debate.
just thought i would get my thoughts on the subject posted before lev locks up

just a footnote having previewed pkb's latest post;

the builders involved in all of these projects are employed by the developers.
if the construction fails to meet expected standards, then the blame is solely down to the developer.

[crazy88]

TIGR you make some good points .

I do feel that any commitee should comprise of knowledgable individuals representing each area of the property business .

Many of us do not really know each other so mistrust and scepticism of each others motives will abound at first .ALL will have their own agenda to some degree .I feel that a balanced commitee could preserve the common agenda of raising the reputation and standards of the property market in Hua Hin .I do not think this commitee could realistically be acheived on monday as there will be too many people jockeying for position and recognition rather than focusing on the common good .Commitee members should be nominated and then voted for .Positions within should be decided by the commitee with the exception of chairperson whom should be voted for by the majority of all members .Lets's get everyone to know each other a little better first perhaps ?

I would oppose getting sidetracked on a property grading scheme at this early stage .It will distract from the current main issue of getting organised .If we all listen as much as we talk (hard for us salespeople I know ) then we should move ahead constructively .



Crazy 88

[moja]

What no one is addressing here is the "after sales" service. It seems to me many of the problems come about once the purchaser has moved into their new home, I know ours did.

We were told to write out a list of the problems in the house and they would be sorted soonest. One year later despite many e-mails we have heard nothing further - no we did not wait we have sorted everything out ourselves and for the last 9 months having been enjoying a quiet life in HH.

Call me sceptical but poacher turned gamekeeper really does come to mind - do not get me wrong I would love to be proved wrong. It is too late for many of us but there should be hope for others.

[PKBCXKT]

Crazy, I fully agree, we got to get the baby out of the criddle first. TIGR your comments are great and appreciated. I do believe that Monday is just crucial to see the intent of everyone to get it started. Once that is done, we can sit down and discuss how.

That gets me to the "Administrators" of HHAD. There were some talks 2 days ago that it might be possible to get a thread just on this topic but access is only by real name and phone number. By doing that the real interested parties could exchange views, opinions and advice on a page everybody can see ? or not?, but only identified persons can post. Would something like that be feasible? That would be a great way, I think and constructive as well.

pk

[moja]

surely "real interested" parties are all the people who have bought or are planning to buy a property in HH not just those with a biased interest. Are we not entitled to an opinion as well?

[Jockey]

surely "real interested" parties are all the people who have bought or are planning to buy a property in HH not just those with a biased interest. Are we not entitled to an opinion as well?

I think your opinion is the most important. If you look back at my last post and consider if you had someone or some 'body' inspecting each phase of development for you, including an after-sales service, do you think that would have been worthwhile? If so, would you have paid for such a service?

[moja]

surely "real interested" parties are all the people who have bought or are planning to buy a property in HH not just those with a biased interest. Are we not entitled to an opinion as well?

I think your opinion is the most important. If you look back at my last post and consider if you had someone or some 'body' inspecting each phase of development for you, including an after-sales service, do you think that would have been worthwhile? If so, would you have paid for such a service?

Our case is slightly different because of how we bought the house - not directly from the developer but from the people who had the house built, although before signing anything we met the developer who promised all snagging would be sorted out as the house had never been lived in and I am sure never paid for.

However to answer you question yes we would have paid for such a service - much more cost effective I would hope than constantly flying to HH to check things ourselves.

We chose to buy a house that was already built as we thought that to give some complete stranger money to build a house for us was a HUGE leap of faith and still we came unstuck but of course we did not realise just who we were buying from!

[redzonerocker]

I think your opinion is the most important. If you look back at my last post and consider if you had someone or some 'body' inspecting each phase of development for you, including an after-sales service, do you think that would have been worthwhile? If so, would you have paid for such a service?

surely, if you pay a developer to build you a house, you expect them to inspect each phase of development & provide an after sales service as part of the package!!

[Jockey]

I think your opinion is the most important. If you look back at my last post and consider if you had someone or some 'body' inspecting each phase of development for you, including an after-sales service, do you think that would have been worthwhile? If so, would you have paid for such a service?

surely, if you pay a developer to build you a house, you expect them to inspect each phase of development & provide an after sales service as part of the package!!

I think thats what this thread is all about. What should happen obviously doesn't happen sometimes so we are looking for ways to ensure they do happen, in order to protect the customer and improve the image of the property market. At least thats what I think we are talking about!

[moja]

surely, if you pay a developer to build you a house, you expect them to inspect each phase of development & provide an after sales service as part of the package!![/quote]

In an ideal world yes but this is HH where a lot of the "developers" have never been on a buildng site in their lives until the washed up here.

Remember we are talking developers here not builders and there is a huge difference.

It would be nice to think that legitimate developers would provide such a service but from experience I would say it would be naive to rely on it

[Jockey]

Our case is slightly different because of how we bought the house - not directly from the developer but from the people who had the house built, although before signing anything we met the developer who promised all snagging would be sorted out as the house had never been lived in and I am sure never paid for.

A "Trades Council" as I described above would still have been able to help you - not exactly in the step-by-step scenrio I described, but certainly could have been used to set up a contract and inspection service. I would see this "Trades council" having experts in the field of

Property Law and Contracts
Architecture
Building
Inspection / Quality Control
Marketing

[redzonerocker]

In an ideal world yes but this is HH where a lot of the "developers" have never been on a buildng site in their lives until the washed up here.

Rember we are talking developers here not builders and there is a huge difference.

having 30 years of experience in the construction industry, i totally agree with you.
perhaps that is why i'm very sceptical of the particular venture in process.

[Super Joe]

surely, if you pay a developer to build you a house, you expect them to inspect each phase of development & provide an after sales service as part of the package

Absolutely, a developer is responsible under law for his defects, whether or not he has put it in his contract.
Most developers do fix defects and some don't, which is one factor in this whole regulatory body being formed.

It's an important regulation that has to be enforced, if this all works out a customer who bought using an 'approved' developer will advise the committee if their developer is not fixing items and then the committee should pull the developer about it.
It was mentioned earlier in this thread that a defects period will be addressed but obviously not easy to find now this thread has got so long.

It's a weird one too as developers shouldn't even be paying for these repairs, their builder will as it's piggy-backed onto their contracts. A lot of it is a falling out and things getting personal.

SJ

[Jockey]

The more I think about this "problem" the more I realise a lot of the problems stem from the buyer putting every faith in the agent & developer something they would never be allowed to do back home because most properties are bought using a mortgage and the lenders insist all the securities of the purchase are in place, such as ensuring the developer works withing a registered trade standard, or in the case of 2nd hand purchases, structural and thorough surveys conducted. Buyers would also need to hire a lawyer. Over here buyers brains get left behind on the plane. I know mine did when I first bought a house. All these "experts" we use back home are forgotten about, but they are there for a good reason - to protect the purchase. All are profit making businesses, and I see no reason why a similar business could not be set up here. I think Splitlid first muted that suggestion - and after a lot of deliberation, I can see no other way how this could work. At the end of the day its the buyers choice how they spend their money, and if they are given the option to use a contracts / building inspection / escrow service, I think any wise buyer would jump at the chance. So why has some entrepreneur not already done this I wonder?