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A typical situation assembled from practice; details are changed.
The request
A buyer in the United States bought a unit in a Phuket condo that was still being built. He paid the reservation deposit, signed the sale contract and followed the payment schedule, sending dollars by bank transfer each time. Handover is now a year late, and the developer gives a new date by phone but will not put it in writing. He asked whether he could get his money back, and what waiting would cost him.
What we found
The contract let him terminate after a grace period, which had now expired, and it named a refund deadline. The weak point was the money: it sat with the developer, paid by date rather than by building milestone, with no escrow. The Escrow Act B.E. 2551 does not make escrow compulsory, and most developers take payments directly (Hua Hin Legal, 14 July 2025; Palmora, 28 March 2026). A refund could come only from a settlement or a claim.
Waiting carried a second risk: the foreign quota counts floor area and can change between a check and registration (Condominium Act B.E. 2522, s. 19; terms.law, February 2026).
| What we checked | What we found | What it meant |
|---|---|---|
| Contract | Right to terminate after the grace period, refund deadline named | A basis for the demand |
| Payments | All with the developer, no escrow (illustrative total USD 60,000–90,000) | The refund depends on the developer agreeing |
| Developer | Company, building permit and EIA in place, construction behind schedule | A dispute about timing; legality is not in question |
What we did
- We gathered the reservation, contract, schedule, receipts, a bank document for each transfer and the emails about the delay, and built a timeline.
- We checked the developer on DBD DataWarehouse+, then the building permit, the condominium registration and, for a large project, the EIA approval in the ONEP database (Palmora, 28 March 2026).
- We read the clauses on handover, grace period, termination and refund. Since 31 January 2025 the rules of the Office of the Consumer Protection Board (OCPB) bar a reservation clause that frees the developer from liability for late handover (Palmora, 28 March 2026). Our sources do not say whether they reach earlier reservations, or confirm the allowed deposit and refund steps, so we built the claim on the contract text.
- We asked the developer for a written completion schedule and a new date. The reply had no dates and no liability for further delay.
- We set out three paths: wait with written compensation, swap to a finished unit, or terminate. He chose to terminate.
- We sent a claim demanding termination and a refund within the contract's refund deadline, with the timeline and payment documents, then negotiated a termination agreement: the amount, the refund schedule and a release of further claims. The developer paid him directly, bypassing our account and any agent's.
Every transfer had been converted into baht by a Thai bank, and he held the bank's document for each, naming him as sender and the unit as the purpose. The Land Department asks for that paper at registration, and sources disagree on whether the old USD 50,000 trigger for the FET form still applies, so we ask for a document on every transfer (Montmari Asia, 25 November 2025; ThaiLawOnline). The settlement also named the currency and date of the refund transfer, because exchange-rate moves can leave a dollar buyer with fewer dollars than he sent.
The result
The developer signed and refunded the payments in two transfers by schedule. The client left the project with his money back because the contract gave him a right to terminate and the timeline and bank documents proved the amounts and dates. Without such a right the path differs and the refund may take longer. The outcome depends on the contract wording and the developer's position, and there is no guarantee.
For his next purchase he will insist on payments by construction stage or an escrow account, with release tied to registration of the title transfer, as ThaiLawOnline advises.
The takeaway
Read the handover date together with what happens on delay, and before paying find out whether the money follows construction stages and whether an escrow account exists.
Our approach to checking a developer is on the page Property due diligence in Phuket. Before a deposit, use the condo buyer's checklist and the 49% quota check. A related case: The 49% quota ran out a week before closing.
Rules are as of 6 October 2026.
