Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing condos in Thailand. For those who are unaware, notwithstanding the restrictions on foreigners being able to own real estate in Thailand, namely the restriction on foreigners owning land in Thailand, it is possible for foreign nationals to get what is called Freehold Title in sort of the more British or Australian sort of Westminster sense of the vernacular, the Common Law sort of Freehold Title, or what we would call Fee Simple Absolute in an American context, what they call in Thailand, Chanote title. That is what you think of when you think of ownership title. It is possible to get ownership title to a condo in Thailand notwithstanding the provisions against foreign ownership of real estate that's otherwise inherent in Thai Law. So it is possible to do that. 

Now there are some requirements. There are some stipulations associated with gaining Freehold Title most notably, in order to gain Freehold title one must, basically there are quotas associated - so it's a 49% /51% foreign to Thai quota; foreign nationals can only own up to 49% of the total units and there is kind of a case specific metric that is going to go into how the quota system works. But as a rule of thumb, if you have a hundred-unit condo facility, 49 units can be foreign owned, 51 units must be Thai owned; that's the way that it currently works. Now there is some talk of changing the quotas under this Government and under some prior iterations of this Government, but long story short, nothing has legally changed with respect to that. 

The point of this video though is condo quotas are not necessarily indicative, I initially was going to call it the Financial Health of a condominium, but I didn't want to call it that because that is somewhat misleading, or not really to the point, but it is not indicative necessarily of the common area maintenance is what I was trying to get at. And the reason for this is there are oftentimes passive owners of condominiums. For example we see a lot of Chinese folks that will buy up condos in Thailand to act as sort of a passive investment. They will just hold the condo for a prolonged period of time and then sell it later; there are other folks that do that as well. Sometimes they will rent them, sometimes they won't. And what we oftentimes see when we are conducting due diligence - even though it is not directly part of the due diligence associated with buying a condo here - it is something that we will comment upon if we just sort of notice something. When we are doing the due diligence, we go to a condominium. We need to get information from the Juristic Person, basically the person the person tasked with legally managing the condo. We will ask them for some documentation; we will have to go to Land Office to get documentation to conduct the due diligence and make sure everything is on the up and up with regard to ownership etc., and being able to transfer Freehold Title etc. 

But the point of the video here is sometimes we will go to these places, and we will see wow the quota, it looks like there is a high occupancy rate and the quota is in good shape, this person can buy this Freehold, but it doesn't look like the maintenance is very good. Because oftentimes folks will be owning these things as a passive investment, and they might not be paying in their common area maintenance fee. And that leads to a sort of a negative feedback loop where there is not enough money to maintain the thing and then as time goes on, people are less inclined to pay those fees. As a result, the thing can become run down. So again, it is not an overly tangible part of the due diligence process, but it is definitely something you yourself should undertake as a buyer of a condo is to just do a walk through. Have a look around the area, have a look around, walk around the complex and just ascertain is it being maintained well; are the common areas in clean, good working order? Because you can't necessarily get that purely from quota information when doing due diligence on purchasing a condo here in the Kingdom of Thailand.