A typical situation assembled from practice; details are changed.
The request
A buyer living in the UK chose a condo in a developer's project in Phuket. She had paid the reservation deposit and signed the sale contract, and registration at the Land Department was set for a week later. Before the final payment she asked a lawyer to check the papers: the developer had shown her a quota letter but had not said when it was issued.
What we found
The letter the developer sent was dated before her deposit. A fresh letter from the condominium's juristic person told a different story: the area still open to foreigners was smaller than the unit. The quota counts floor area, not the number of units (Condominium Act B.E. 2522, s. 19), so "there are still units available" guaranteed nothing. Units can still be on sale while the area open to foreigners is gone, and the figure moves between a check and registration (terms.law, February 2026).
| What we checked | Where | What we found |
|---|---|---|
| Quota | The condominium's juristic person | Less open area than the unit |
| Register | Land Department | Data on the check date matched the fresh letter |
| Reservation | Deposit agreement, OCPB rules | No clause for a quota shortfall |
| Money | The client's bank | Final transfer not yet sent |
What we did
- We asked the juristic person for a new letter on the open area and got the figures for the current date.
- A lawyer compared the area registered to foreigners with the Land Department data.
- We asked the developer to confirm in writing that the unit fits the quota. No confirmation with figures came back.
- We held the final payment. She planned to send it in pounds from her UK account, and the Thai bank has to convert it and issue a document that names her as sender and the unit as the purpose. Sources disagree on whether the old USD 50,000 trigger for the FET form still applies, so we asked for a document on every transfer (Montmari Asia, 25 November 2025; ThaiLawOnline).
- We checked the reservation against the OCPB notification in force since 31 January 2025: a standard Thai-language form, and a ban on clauses that keep the deposit when the buyer is not in default (Palmora, 28 March 2026). Our sources do not confirm the allowed deposit size or the refund steps, so we read the refund terms in her own form.
- We sent the developer a claim: return the deposit, or offer a unit where a juristic-person letter confirms the quota.
- For the next project we added two terms to the contract: the quota is confirmed by a juristic-person letter on the registration day, and if the quota runs out earlier the sale ends and the deposit is returned.
The result
The developer returned the deposit after the claim, and the final payment never left her account. She chose another project where the juristic person's letter confirmed the quota, and she came to the payment with three documents: the letter, the developer's written confirmation and the bank document for the transfer. In another case the outcome could differ, because it depends on the reservation wording, the correspondence and the developer's position.
The takeaway
A quota letter shows the day it was issued, so you ask for a new one before you pay and again before registration.
Our approach to condo purchases is on the page Buy a condo in Phuket. The full list of checks before a deposit is in the condo buyer's checklist.
- Outcome
- The client held back the final payment and, after a written claim, got the reservation deposit back from the developer. The outcome depends on the contract wording and the correspondence; there is no guarantee.
- Time
- 3 weeks
- Fee
- [price]
Buy a condo in Phuket: legal support
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