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Donald Whiting and his wife Dolly at the site of their unfinished home in Hua Hin. The American couple have a dispute with a Greek developer, who claims Whiting discontinued their contract. Whiting disagrees.
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HUA HIN
Problems in paradise
In recent years, many tourists have opted to buy a home in Hua Hin. But some have fallen victim to scam artists. A popular hangout for the disgruntled foreign retirees of Hua Hin is the small office of Tuck Dechapanya, owner of the Hua Hin Hotline newspaper and founder of the Hua Hin Foreign Service Link Centre.
Published on March 7, 2008
Tuck, a spry 79-year-old, has become a beacon of hope for foreigners who have been defrauded by dubious developers, most of whom are foreign.
The most popular scam is for developers to secure payments from a buyer and then fail to stick to building timetables, leaving properties unfinished.
Unfamiliar with Thai laws, and wary of drawn-out court cases, many have approached Tuck for informal advice in the hopes he will publish their plight and attract the attention of Hua Hin authorities.
Things are slowly being done. On February 20, a provincial court denied bail for Canadian Mario Karmine Aiello, developer of the Golf Village estate, and forced him to swear he would complete obligations to 13 foreign complainants, who charged him with failing to fulfill his contract, leaving their properties without roads, utilities and registration papers.
Aiello was released on bail five days later. His case is just one of many pending.
"We've been waiting for two years and still our house isn't finished," said a retired army officer, who sold his house in Germany to invest in a Bt6 million home at Orchid Villas, built by Asia Property, run by Briton David Allan McDonald.
Broken dreams
Donald Whiting and his wife Dolly sold their home in Hawaii to invest in a Bt13.6-million villa, with guest-house, tennis court and pool.
The American couple claim Greek George Mastronikolis, a building contractor who also runs the Hua Hin Today newspaper, took their money and left them with an unfinished, substandard concrete monstrosity instead of the Thai-Bali style mansion.
"This is a nightmare," said Whiting. "No foreigner should ever get involved here."
Mastronikolis claimed Whiting discontinued the building contract with him in 2005. He has refused to pay back the couple's money.
"There are some problems here," he told DPA. "Last year there was a slowdown in sales and many developers didn't have the finance to continue a project, because their finance is based on new sales, so they stopped building."
By Peter Janssen
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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