Chuck Bao
2/23/2008, 06:19 AM
I’m in the process of buying a new condo. It is a failed restaurant, attractively priced for the center of Bangkok and with an equal amount of money, I think I can turn it into pretty decent living quarters.
I found out about the opportunity from my best friend, whose wife, Dang, was initially bidding on it. They found something more to their liking in the same building and passed on the opportunity to me.
I wasn’t involved in the negotiations and just assumed their bid price was good. I paid the 10% down and my company is financing the balance. We haven’t done the title transfer yet.
The stinger is that Dang apparently negotiated a kick-back to the bank officer, Cheap, in charge of selling the repossessed property. I’m not sure why. It seems pretty stupid to me.
Now, Cheap is demanding the kick-back and it’s not subtle. She has done so many things to impede my purchase, like showing up with the wrong set of keys when I scheduled my company’s property appraisal guy and my interior designer to visit the unit last Monday.
Cheap finally gave Dang a set of the keys yesterday, which was passed on to me.
Today, Cheap calls Dang and demands 500 baht deposit on the keys. Then, she calls me and does the same and wants the telephone number of Nope who is buying the unit with me. I didn’t give it to her because there is no reason to bother Nope with this silly business.
This woman really wants her under-the-table commission, NOW! The funny thing is that I’m copying the key and I don’t mind the silly little 500 baht deposit on the key.
Is this the way it’s supposed to work?
I suppose US banks are going to have to get a lot of new officers to manage all of the repossessed properties in the near future.
I just hope none of them are like Cheap.
What would you do?
Any good kick-back stories that will make my hard-earned cash payment to Cheap feel any better?
I found out about the opportunity from my best friend, whose wife, Dang, was initially bidding on it. They found something more to their liking in the same building and passed on the opportunity to me.
I wasn’t involved in the negotiations and just assumed their bid price was good. I paid the 10% down and my company is financing the balance. We haven’t done the title transfer yet.
The stinger is that Dang apparently negotiated a kick-back to the bank officer, Cheap, in charge of selling the repossessed property. I’m not sure why. It seems pretty stupid to me.
Now, Cheap is demanding the kick-back and it’s not subtle. She has done so many things to impede my purchase, like showing up with the wrong set of keys when I scheduled my company’s property appraisal guy and my interior designer to visit the unit last Monday.
Cheap finally gave Dang a set of the keys yesterday, which was passed on to me.
Today, Cheap calls Dang and demands 500 baht deposit on the keys. Then, she calls me and does the same and wants the telephone number of Nope who is buying the unit with me. I didn’t give it to her because there is no reason to bother Nope with this silly business.
This woman really wants her under-the-table commission, NOW! The funny thing is that I’m copying the key and I don’t mind the silly little 500 baht deposit on the key.
Is this the way it’s supposed to work?
I suppose US banks are going to have to get a lot of new officers to manage all of the repossessed properties in the near future.
I just hope none of them are like Cheap.
What would you do?
Any good kick-back stories that will make my hard-earned cash payment to Cheap feel any better?