Phuket Property Is Your TV More Important Than Your Home? So off I went. But I promised a client I would go on his behalf. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a lover of meetings.

A few days ago I went to a condo owners meeting in Phuket, Thailand. Often people use them as an excuse to avoid making decisions – except deciding to have another meeting, of course.

The meeting had been called to discuss much needed improvements to the common areas. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. I thought this would be fiercely debated. And there was going to be a vote on increasing common area maintenance fees (CAM) from 45 Baht to 65 Baht per m2 – a 45 per cent increase.

The meeting was scheduled for 10 am. Another person turned up at 10.30 and helped himself to coffee and biscuits. She said the developers were representing several owners and they’d be there soon. By that time only one other person had showed up. By now, I was starting to get fed up. I asked the person in charge who else was coming.

There were big financial decisions to make which would directly affect the investments of 52 condominium owners. I was so sick of waiting. Finally, at 10.45, another 6 people sauntered in and the meeting began. So I volunteered just to get things moving. I expected uproar. And if the owners didn’t agree to pay more there would be no money for anything. Were they really not bothered? As usual, the first thing on the agenda was to appoint a chairperson. You won’t be surprised to hear that nobody wanted to do it. The first topic was the increase in CAM fees: The condo was almost out of money.

But there was silence. To be honest, I was shocked. Or, who is responsible for this? Not one person asked; why is the condo nearly bust? I asked if people understood what was being discussed. “It is your money not the developer’s” I said, with little response. There was some muttering. What happened to the money?

So I cast my vote. And things moved swiftly on – without a single question from anyone. In fact, they didn’t seem interested at all. Others got up to help themselves to more biscuits. Some were sending text messages or maybe playing games on their phones. But when we got onto the subject of satellite TV people became animated.

Their current provider charges 2,500 Baht a month. Does everyone have to get the same package? Can we get Premier League Football? What channels would be included? The condo manager wanted to change to a new supplier charging 7,000 Baht a month. Would the signal strength be better? This was serious stuff.

The subject was hotly debated for over 10 minutes. The sinking fund had been pretty much wiped out. I pointed out that there wasn’t actually any money left to pay for anything. As the meeting continued it became clear there were real problems with the way the condominium was being managed. It had mysteriously vanished and was unaccounted for. Eventually the juristic person was told to find out more information. The juristic person said they would have to use what was left to pay for essential things like cleaning equipment, a repair to the water tank and some additional lighting. 900,000 Baht (US$30,000) was missing from the sinking fund.

So, if the CAM fees were not increased there would be no money to run the condo. One guy, who I think had been asleep, finally woke up and said:

“I think we better find out how much all these things are going to cost before we agree to spend any money on anything.”

“We should find out exactly what’s left and have another meeting!” he declared.

And that was it. The meeting was over. What had we achieved? We had decided to have another meeting.