What Happens To Condo Owners When The Building Is Torn Down

[HC82]

Every condo tower has to be torn down at some point, right? When they are, what happens to all of the people who own condos in that building? Do they have any equity or ownership stake in anything? Or do they just lose their entire investment?

[trogers]

All condo owners are co-owners of the land the building sits on. If the building collapses, sell the land and each gets their share as stated in the title deed.

[Crossy]

The developer (who intends removing the building) should buy out all the existing owners at a mutually agreed price, hopefully above market rate. He may offer owners a discount on units in the new building.

Whatever, owners should not end up out of pocket.

Note the use of the word 'should' in the above statements, of course, TiT. YMMV.

[oracle]

The condo units and common areas is co-owned by all the unit owners. What happens with a condo is up to a resolution by the co-owners and revocation of the condominium. There is a copy of the condominium handbook with some info on this subject translation

[HC82]

Ok now I understand why my building always refer to us as 'co-owners' in bulletins and notices.

Thanks

[FarangBuddha]

Depends if freehold or leasehold. If free, then yes all owners would have to be bought out or share in sale proceeds. If lease, after 30 years (generally) the gigs up.

[trogers]

Depends if freehold or leasehold. If free, then yes all owners would have to be bought out or share in sale proceeds. If lease, after 30 years (generally) the gigs up.

Leasehold projects will not be called condos nor title deeds issued during transfer of ownership.

[HC82]

Depends if freehold or leasehold. If free, then yes all owners would have to be bought out or share in sale proceeds. If lease, after 30 years (generally) the gigs up.

Leasehold projects will not be called condos nor title deeds issued during transfer of ownership.

Is a title deed the lite brown/peach colored over sized document with the red bird at the top center? If I have one of those it means I have a freehold condo and own it forever?

[FarangBuddha]

Depends if freehold or leasehold. If free, then yes all owners would have to be bought out or share in sale proceeds. If lease, after 30 years (generally) the gigs up.

Leasehold projects will not be called condos nor title deeds issued during transfer of ownership.

Makes sense.

[scorecard]

Ok now I understand why my building always refer to us as 'co-owners' in bulletins and notices.

Thanks

Although staff use using the word 'co-owners', it may be worth checking a few points:

- Has the original developer actually transferred the management of the building to a committee of 'co-owners'. There are laws about this and a requirment, by law, that the building be officially (I mean documents, rather than ceremony), pass to the hands of a management committee elected by a metting of the 'co-owners'. The laws on this include maximum time allowed for the developer to hand the building over to the 'co-owners' committee.

- This also means that one 'co-owner' must also agree to be nominated (officically recorded with a government agency) as the building 'juristic person'.

- Does the building have regular meetings of the 'co-owners' with all 'co-owners' notified well in advance about the meeting, at least once a year? Does this include an election to either reconfirm the committee members or to elect new office bearers?

- Are the records of running the building inspected from time to time by the government agency which is responsible to monitor condo management activities? (Our condo (in Bkk) has had numerous such checks and the committee has been scolded numerous times for very tiny transgressions within the documentation to buy cleaning supplies, repairs to the common areas of the building, etc.)

- Are you aware of any other 'co-owners' selling their units with no hassles in terms of changing the name on the chanut (Land Title deed) at the Lands Tiles Office?

I raise these points for a reason. I'm aware of two people (one Thai and one farang) who live in condo buildings (one in Bkk, one in Pattaya) where the original developer refuses to hand the buildings over to a 'co-owners' committe.

In fact because the developers won't hand over the buildings there is no 'co-owners' committee. In both cases the developers are ruthless and have highly placed connections and in both cases demands from the 'co-owners' have been totally ignored.

In both cases the vast majority of 'co-owners' are Thai. In the building in Bkk the Thai 'co-owners' will not agree to try to take further action against the developer (avoidance of conflict / fear). In the case of the building in Pattaya, maybe 90% of the owners are wealthy Bkk Thais who use these units once a year or similar, one meeting was held several years back, it produced no actions whatever against the developer, and the wealthy Bkk 'co-owners' basically indicated that they don't care.

[HC82]

I don't know about all of those but everything here appears to be on the up-and-up.

We just had an annual meeting and the on site management and security are excellent.

[Khun Jean]

Depends if freehold or leasehold. If free, then yes all owners would have to be bought out or share in sale proceeds. If lease, after 30 years (generally) the gigs up.

Leasehold projects will not be called condos nor title deeds issued during transfer of ownership.

Is a title deed the lite brown/peach colored over sized document with the red bird at the top center? If I have one of those it means I have a freehold condo and own it forever?

If you have to ask i think you very lucky that you actually have a freehold. You didn't even know it until now.

Amazing....

[HC82]

I wasn't aware there were different types of ownership when buying a condo. I did very little research actually - I asked my lawyer to do due diligence and I trust him. He said everything looked good and I was getting a good price.