Developer Payment Plans in Thailand: How They Work, What to Check

For many foreign buyers, the developer’s payment plan is what makes an off-plan condo in Thailand possible at all: no mortgage to arrange, and the price spread over the construction period. The schedule usually arrives as one short table that seems to need no checking. In fact it holds the core terms of the deal: when you must pay, who carries the risk of a delay, and what happens if you cannot, or no longer want to, pay.

This article explains how a typical plan is built and how to read it as a budget. How to check the developer itself, its finished buildings and where your money goes, is covered in how to check the developer before you pay. It is general information, not legal advice: your contract should be reviewed by an independent Thai lawyer who acts for you.

What a developer payment plan is

A payment plan is an agreement with the developer, not a loan. You pay the price of the unit in parts, and the developer hands over the finished unit when the building is complete. Because there is no bank in the deal, there is usually no interest and no credit check. That is a large part of the appeal for foreigners, for whom borrowing from a Thai bank is often not straightforward; our guide to financing a property purchase in Thailand explains the options.

The other side is simple: until the unit is registered in your name, what you hold is a contract and a set of bank receipts. Every instalment is trust placed in that contract and in the company that signed it, so the plan deserves as careful a reading as the price.

The usual shape of a schedule

There is no single template. The number of payments, the amounts and the dates differ from developer to developer, and sometimes between buildings in the same project. Most plans, though, are built from the same pieces:

• A reservation deposit, which holds the unit while the contract is prepared.
• A payment when you sign the sale and purchase agreement.
• Instalments during construction, tied to stages of the work, to dates, or to a mix of both.
• The balance, paid when the building is finished and the unit is transferred to you at the Land Office.

Where we have a project’s payment plan in our database, the project page shows its stages. Developers change terms during sales, so before you decide, a manager asks the developer for the current plan and sends it to you in writing. Our guide to developer payment plans goes through each stage in more detail.

Stage payments or calendar payments

Each line in the schedule has a trigger, and the trigger decides who carries the risk. A stage payment falls due when construction reaches a defined point, such as the completed structure or the roof. If work slows down, so do the demands, and you pay for what has already been built. A calendar payment falls due on a fixed date, whatever is happening on site, so money can keep leaving your account while the work has stopped.

You cannot always choose. If the plan you are offered runs on the calendar, ask whether payments pause during a delay, and get the answer in the contract rather than in a message. If it runs on stages, ask who confirms that a stage is complete and what proof you will receive abroad, such as photos or a progress report.

Plan for the balance at handover

The last payment is the one buyers plan least, and often the one that needs the most planning. How much is left for handover varies widely between plans, so look at that line, not only at the instalments, and decide in advance where the money will come from. Counting on selling something else in time is a risk you carry, not the developer.

Handover also brings costs that are not in the payment plan: the fees and taxes due at registration, the building’s common fee, which may be billed in advance, and the contribution to the sinking fund. Who pays which transfer cost is set in the contract, so read that clause as well. Our guides to taxes and fees and ongoing ownership costs list them, and a manager can ask the developer for the figures that apply to a specific unit.

The balance is also your leverage. If the final payment is linked to the handover inspection and the list of defects, the unpaid amount is your strongest argument while the developer puts things right. Our guide to handover and inspection explains what to record before the final transfer.

Currency and the paper trail

The price in the contract is in baht, while your savings are probably in pounds, euros, dollars or another currency. A whole construction period passes between the first payment and the last, and exchange rates can move either way. So you only learn the real price of the unit in your own currency after the final transfer.

• Build your budget in your own currency, with a margin for a worse rate than today’s.
• Decide in advance which account, and which currency, each payment will come from.
• Ask your bank how long transfers to Thailand take and what repeated transfers cost.
• For each payment, keep the date, the amount in both currencies and the bank’s confirmation.

We do not give currency advice. There is also a technical side that matters when the unit is registered in your name: for a foreign buyer of a condo, each transfer from abroad generally needs to leave a document from the receiving Thai bank, and with a payment plan that means one for every instalment, not just the first. Our guide to transferring money to Thailand explains what is needed and the foreign ownership guide explains why; agree the route with your lawyer before the first payment.

Comparing plans between projects

Two projects with a similar price can have very different plans, and the size of each instalment tells you little on its own. When you compare, look at:

• The total price, not each payment. Some developers price a unit differently depending on the plan you choose.
• How much you pay before the structure is up, and how much is left for handover.
• Whether a discount is offered for paying early, and what you give up in return: more of your money sits with the developer before the unit exists.
• What the price includes: furniture package, appliances, parking, and what is charged separately at handover.
• Whether the price in baht is fixed until completion, or the contract allows it to change.

A manager can put several plans side by side for you. Our article on common mistakes foreign buyers make in Thailand covers a few more traps worth avoiding.

If your plans change

Life can change during construction. These clauses are easiest to negotiate at the start; read them as if everything had gone wrong:

• The reservation deposit: whether it is refundable, in which cases and how quickly.
• Your late payment: what penalty applies, after how long the developer may cancel, and what happens to the money already paid.
• Assignment: whether you may pass your right to the unit to another buyer before completion, on what terms and at what cost.
• Changes to the project: what happens if the area, layout or finish at handover differs from the contract, and how that affects the final payment.

Ask the developer these questions in writing and pass the answers to your lawyer with the draft contract. A salesperson’s “don’t worry, that never happens” is reassurance, not a term of the contract. Our guide to reselling and exiting a property explains the options before and after completion.

When you shortlist off-plan projects in our project catalogue or on the pages for new developments in Pattaya and new developments in Phuket, a ROMA ThaiProperty manager can request the current payment plan, the draft contract and the specification, send your questions to the developer in writing and explain what each line means. We are not lawyers: the contract is reviewed by an independent Thai lawyer, and we help make sure the right questions are asked in time.