Off-plan risks

Mostly, no - and this is the structural fact the showroom does not volunteer. Thailand has an escrow law, but it makes escrow voluntary, and most developers decline it: your instalments are working capital for the build. If the project completes, the system works. If it stalls, the money you paid is in the concrete, and an unsecured contract claim is what you hold.

Where escrow is genuinely offered, take it seriously - and verify the account sits at a licensed bank or financial institution, not at a law firm or agent. Where it is not, your protections are the ones you construct: a developer who can be trusted with prepayments (see below), a contract that fixes the delivery date, late-delivery penalties and termination-with-refund rights, and a payment schedule that keeps the pre-completion share as low as the deal allows. The smaller the fraction you pay before keys, the smaller the problem you can ever have.

In four movements. A reservation fee - commonly around THB 100,000 for a condo as of this guide's review - takes the unit off the market. The sale and purchase agreement follows with a down payment, typically 10-20%. Instalments then run through construction, tied either to calendar dates or to milestones, with the balance due at handover and registration. Prefer milestone-linked schedules: paying against poured floors rather than passed months keeps your money loosely synchronised with the thing it is buying.

Negotiating weight toward the final payment is the cheapest insurance available in an off-plan deal - a developer confident of delivering has little reason to refuse, and one who resists hard is sharing information. For a foreign buyer every instalment should also arrive from abroad with proper bank documentation, since the total must be covered for registration; the mechanics are in our FET guide. Current launches are in the under-construction catalogue.

Then the structure of the market works against you: with no escrow, a buyer whose developer collapses is an ordinary unsecured creditor in a slow insolvency, recovering - if anything - a fraction, years later. Thai law will not rescue the position afterwards; the work happens before the SPA is signed.

That work is concrete. Compare the developer's registered, paid-up capital to the project's scale - a THB 5 million company building a THB 100 million tower is the textbook red flag. Count delivered projects, and visit one a few years old. Prefer listed developers, whose finances are at least disclosed. Then make the contract carry its share: a fixed delivery date, automatic penalties for delay, and a termination right with full refund if the delay passes a defined threshold. None of this guarantees completion; together it filters out most of the projects that do not complete. Our due diligence guide covers the full checklist.

Treat handover as the last moment you hold leverage, because it is. Inspect the unit before signing the handover act and before the final payment - for villas and higher-value condos, with an independent building inspector, which is normal practice and money well spent. Every defect goes into a dated snag list with photographs, delivered to the developer against signature or written acknowledgment.

Then hold the line on one sentence: do not sign “accepted without remarks” while remarks exist. Defect disputes in Thailand are won at the snagging stage, almost never improved in court, and a clean acceptance signed under a handover-day smile is the developer's best exhibit. A unit with a real defect list is a unit not yet ready for final payment - that is what the staged structure was for.

Two overlapping layers. The contract gives you the developer's warranty, conventionally tiered - longer for structure and load-bearing work, shorter for finishes, systems and equipment; in licensed condominium projects warranty obligations are part of the mandatory contract content. Beneath it sits the general law: a seller is liable for defects that reduce the property's value or fitness, including latent ones - defects present at handover but not discoverable on reasonable inspection - and that liability applies even where the contract says nothing. A seller who knew of a defect and concealed it cannot hide behind an “as-is” clause.

Thailand's climate writes the typical defect list: rainy-season leaks through roofs, balconies and bathrooms, failed waterproofing and in-wall mould, hidden wiring and plumbing faults. Timing is the discipline that preserves your rights - for latent defects the claim period runs from discovery, not purchase, but delay reads as acceptance, so send a written, photographed claim as soon as a defect surfaces. Common-area defects - roof, lifts, pool - belong to the juristic person and developer, pursued collectively through the co-owners' committee rather than unit by unit.