Contents
Operating model: one owner, long leases, full service
Status: first draft, 21 Oct 2026, revised 21 Oct 2026 (park and
sports centre, padel hall, standby generator; natural park, club at the
edge, water tower), revised 3 Nov 2026 (Type C corner houses with
private pools, perimeter trail, green lanes, fitness stations, places to
sit and play in the park; 14 houses on 16.9 rai). Running costs are
estimates from model/cost_model.py
(generated output: model/results.md). Legal
points are summaries of published commentary, to be confirmed by a Thai
property lawyer in phase 0 (plan.md). Bracketed
numbers such as [30] refer
to sources.md.
The three rules
- The mooban owns everything. One company owns the land on one title deed, every house, the roads, the park, the club and every utility: the shared grid, the PV on the roofs, the central battery, the water plant with its water tower and the sewage plant. Nothing is ever sold house by house, neither as freehold nor as sub-plots. If the owner ever needs an exit, the estate is sold whole, as one title with its leases.
- Long-term leases only. Minimum term 12 months, normally 2 to 3 years, with registered long leases of more than 3 and up to 30 years as an option. No nightly or weekly stays, ever.
- Full service. The tenant never arranges, supervises or pays for maintenance. Air conditioning, electrical, plumbing, hot water, appliances, filters, the garden and, at the corner houses, the private pool: the estate's own team looks after all of it, and electricity and water come with the rent up to an allowance.
Why one owner for everything
- Quality pays the owner back. An owner who keeps every house for 30 years or more pays for every shortcut in repairs and energy, so the plan is to build for lifecycle cost, not for handover (spec.md §0).
- Shared utilities need one operator. One grid behind one PEA connection, one battery and one water plant only work because one company owns all the houses and the land under them (utilities.md).
- The spec stays intact. No owner drills through the air barrier, swaps the ERV for a cheap fan or the inverter AC for a bargain unit. The house a tenant moves into in year 15 is the house that was tested at handover.
- One title, no land allocation. Selling ten or more sub-parcels counts as land allocation and needs a licence;[29] allocators also carry infrastructure maintenance obligations backed by bank guarantees under the 2569 amendment.[21] Renting every house and never subdividing keeps the estate out of that regime (to confirm with the lawyer).
- One operator sees every meter. Fault codes, filter pressure, leaks and energy use from all houses on one dashboard let the team fix problems before tenants notice them.
Leases
| Lease | Term | Paperwork | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 12 months to 3 years | Written and signed; no registration needed for 3 years or less[31] | Relocation packages, school and NGO staff, families |
| Long lease | More than 3 years, up to 30 | Must be in writing and registered at the Land Office to be enforceable beyond 3 years;[31] registration fees are typically about 1.1 % of the rent over the term[31] | Long-stay families and retirees who cannot buy land |
Thai law caps a lease of immovable property at 30 years; a longer term is cut back to 30.[31] Because foreigners cannot normally hold land in their own name,[22] a registered lease is the practical alternative used by most expats, retirees and foreign investors,[31] which makes long leases a natural product for this estate.
Why never short stays. The Hotel Act excludes accommodation let on a monthly basis or longer only; a single nightly or weekly booking takes the property out of that exclusion.[32] The estate therefore never takes nightly or weekly bookings, not even to fill a gap between tenants.
Consumer protection rules that apply to every lease
The 2025 notification of the Consumer Protection Board's Contract Committee applies to any lessor with three or more residential units,[30] so it covers the estate; the two-house pilot falls below the threshold, but its leases follow the same rules so the templates are tested early. The points that shape the operating model:
| Rule (summary of [30]) | What the estate does |
|---|---|
| Two standard contract types: short term (up to 3 years) and long term (more than 3 and up to 30 years or the tenant's lifetime); Thai-language contract | Thai lease with English translation for both types; lawyer drafts them in phase 0 |
| Advance rent plus deposit at most 3 months' rent (short term, or long term paid monthly) | 2 months' deposit + 1 month in advance |
| No increase of rent or service charges before the lease ends | Rent fixed for the term. For long leases, whether fixed steps written into the contract are allowed must be confirmed by the lawyer; otherwise long leases carry inflation risk |
| Utility charges may not exceed official government tariffs | Electricity above the allowance billed at no more than the PEA residential rate, water at no more than the PWA rate |
| Written invoices at least 3 days before payment; tenant may inspect the cost data | The house dashboard shows the sub-meter readings behind every invoice |
| Lessor responsible for repairs except minor repairs from normal wear and tear or force majeure | The estate does the minor ones too (full service) |
| Tenant may end a fixed term after half of it with 30 days' notice | A 3-year lease is secure for 18 months; the model assumes one month of vacancy a year |
| No charge to the tenant for normal wear and tear; no renewal fee; no entry without notice except emergencies | Repainting between tenancies is in the reserve; service visits are booked |
Non-compliance can mean up to one year in prison, a fine of up to 200,000 THB, or both.[30]
What the rent includes
| Included in the rent | Paid by the tenant |
|---|---|
| All maintenance and repair of the house and everything in it: structure, roof, windows, doors, AC, ERV, electrical, plumbing, hot water, appliances, PV, EV charger, sensors | Electricity above the allowance, at no more than the PEA residential rate[30] (EV charging is metered at the charger and billed the same way) |
| Scheduled servicing: AC cleaning three times a year, ERV filters before and after smoke season, PV cleaning, pest and termite control, repaint between tenancies | Water above the allowance, at no more than the PWA rate[30] |
| Garden care, including the private garden; at the Type C corner houses the care of the private pool (weekly, chemicals and salt included) | Internet subscription (fibre to every house; tenant picks the provider) |
| Electricity up to 500 kWh a month (Type A), 600 kWh (Type B) or 800 kWh (Type C, including its pool pump) | Damage beyond normal wear and tear |
| Water up to 30 m³ a month (Type A), 36 m³ (Type B) or 50 m³ (Type C) | Contents insurance |
| Estate services: 24-hour guarded gate, intercom to the guard house, parcel shelves (security-and-access.md); the natural park with its places to sit and play (table tennis, picnic lawn, pavilions, seating circle, benches), the perimeter trail with its fitness stations, the green lanes and the club: badminton hall, gym, co-working, padel hall, pool, multi-use court (site-plan.md) | |
| 24-hour fault line, backup power for the whole house from the estate battery and standby generator |
The allowance is set so a normal month costs nothing: the model's
reference family (both parents out at work, children at school on
weekdays) uses about 450 kWh a month in a Type A house; a household with
someone home all day uses about 640 kWh and would pay for the last 140
kWh or so (results.md,
tenant view). Billing every kWh instead of including an allowance would
lower the rent needed by about 2,700 THB a month on the flagship
(sensitivity table in costs-and-rent.md); the allowance is kept
because "no electricity bill" is easier to sell than a lower one.
What tenants elsewhere carry themselves. Leases in Thailand often leave routine air-conditioner cleaning and small repairs to the tenant, while the landlord pays for structural and major-system repairs.[38] AC cleaning in Chiang Mai costs about 450 to 500 THB per wall unit.[39] Priced that way, what our rent covers is worth about 4,200 THB a month to a tenant in this house, and a tenant in a normal leaky house pays about 6,400 THB a month for electricity, water, AC cleaning, small repairs, purifier filters and garden care.
How full service works
The team. For the 14-house flagship: a lead technician (AC, electrical, plumbing), a second technician, and half of a facilities engineer shared with B4L, with a workshop and spare-parts store by the gate. The team also cares for the four private pools of the Type C corner houses every week. Specialist contractors do pest control, the sewage plant, the water lab tests and the battery's annual service. The 2-house pilot uses outsourced AC cleaning and B4L technician visits instead. Wages are estimates well above the legal floor, which is 357 THB a day in Chiang Mai outside Mueang district.[40]
One number, day and night. Tenants report faults in the app or from the intercom's indoor station. In working hours the call goes to the estate office; at night it goes to the guard house, which is staffed around the clock, and the guard wakes the on-call technician for anything in the 1-hour class below (security-and-access.md).
One model per system. The spec names one approved AC model, one ERV, one inverter, one heat pump water heater, one window system (spec.md §0). The store holds spares for all of them, so most repairs are done the same day without waiting for a supplier.
Service levels (targets, not legal requirements):
| Fault | Response | Fixed |
|---|---|---|
| No power, no water, water leak, no cooling in a bedroom in the hot season, security | Within 1 hour, day or night | Same day, or a temporary fix the same day |
| Anything else that stops normal use | Within 24 hours | Within 3 days |
| Cosmetic and minor | Booked visit | Within 2 weeks |
Maintenance calendar:
| Task | How often | Who |
|---|---|---|
| AC indoor units cleaned | 3 times a year | In-house |
| ERV F7 pre-filter | Twice a year: January, before smoke season, and May, after it | In-house, from the plant room |
| ERV H13 filter | Every January | In-house |
| PV inspection and cleaning | Every May, after smoke season | In-house |
| Electrical check: RCD trip test, thermal imaging of boards | Yearly | In-house + engineer |
| Pest and termite inspection | Quarterly | Contractor |
| Water plant: samples to a lab | Monthly | Lab |
| Blower-door spot check, house passport update | At each change of tenant | B4L |
| Interior repaint | Between tenancies, about every 4 years | Contractor |
| Transfer pumps, battery, transformer, sewage plant | Per maker's schedule | Contractor and in-house |
| Water tower: inspection and tank cleaning; repaint about every 10 years | Yearly | Contractor |
| Private pools (Type C): water balance, salt, cleaning, filter, top-up | Weekly | In-house |
| Pool pump, filter and salt cell replaced; pool resurfaced | About every 8 years; every 15 | Contractor |
| Perimeter trail, bollard lights, fitness stations, green lanes: check and repair | Monthly | In-house and gardeners |
| Park furniture: table tennis tables, picnic tables, pavilions, benches, hammocks: check, clean, repair | Monthly | In-house and gardeners |
Monitoring, with privacy. Equipment data (AC fault codes through the local ESP32-Faikin controllers, ERV filter pressure drop, leak sensors with automatic shut-off, electricity and water sub-meters) goes to the estate dashboard. Room data (PM2.5, CO₂, temperature) stays on the house's own Home Assistant unless the tenant chooses to share it.
Access. The plant room is outside the living space, so filter changes, inverter and meter work happen without entering the home. Entry to the home is by appointment except in emergencies.[30]
What full service costs
Running costs per house per month, flagship Type A, from the model:
| Group | THB/month |
|---|---|
| Full service: in-house team share, consumables (filters, parts, pest control), repairs | 8,760 |
| Component replacement reserve (ACs, ERV, water heater, inverter, appliances, garage door motor, repainting, kitchen and bath refresh) | 8,090 |
| Estate systems: water plant and water tower, sewage plant, transformer, gate, CCTV and intercom, battery and PV, standby generator, sports centre, padel hall, pool and courts, stormwater, perimeter trail, green lanes and fitness stations, park furniture: service and reserves | 6,270 |
| Electricity: the estate's PEA bill share, less electricity billed above the allowance | 700 |
| Security: contracted guards, gate 24 h and night patrol | 5,160 |
| Common services: three gardeners (park, private gardens, green belt and lanes), pool, cleaning, estate office | 5,930 |
| Insurance and land and building tax | 3,600 |
| Total | 38,500 (462,000 a year) |
Management (8 % of collected rent) and one month of vacancy a year come on top. A Type C corner house costs about 51,150 THB a month to run: a larger team share, consumables and component reserve (1.6 times Type A), care and chemicals for its pool (about 36,000 THB a year, est.), a pool reserve (pump, filter and salt cell every 8 years, resurfacing every 15, est.) and higher insurance and tax. Looking after the perimeter trail, the green lanes and the fitness stations (surface top-up, edging, equipment service, bollard lamps) is its own line of about 60,000 THB a year for the estate (est.), about 360 THB per house per month, in the estate systems. The places to sit and play in the park (table tennis tables, picnic tables, pavilions, benches and, in the larger estates, hammocks) carry a care and replacement reserve of about 40,000 THB a year on the flagship (est.), about 240 THB per house per month, also in the estate systems. The three gardeners keep the park with its shrubs and trees, the private gardens, the green belt and the lanes.
The guards are one of the four large blocks. A 24-hour gate post costs the same in a 14-house estate as in a 150-house one, so per house it costs about 10 times as much (security-and-access.md).
The biggest single block is the component replacement reserve: the
money to replace four ACs every 12 years, the appliances every 11, the
ERV every 15, repaint inside every 4 and outside every 12, and refresh
kitchens and bathrooms every 20 (results.md lists every
component). A normal landlord sets aside about 0.8 % of the building
value a year (about 2,000 THB a month for a standard house) and leaves
the small things and the bills to the tenant.
The honest comparison. On the lean estate, running the house this way adds about 25,000 THB a month to the rent needed for a 5 % net yield, on top of about 27,700 for the better building (costs-and-rent.md). The tenant gets back about 4,200 THB a month in costs they no longer carry. So full service is not a saving for the tenant in cash; it is part of the product: never dealing with a repair, a contractor, a utility bill or a dead pump. Whether tenants pay for that is what the rent test in phase 1c has to find out. A ±25 % change in the full-service cost moves the rent needed by about 6,000 THB a month on the lean estate and 6,900 on the flagship.
What never selling rules out
- No sales income. The estate is financed by equity and debt against rent, never by selling houses; the investor has to accept the yield on that basis (plan.md, decisions).
- No owners' association. There are no buyers, so there is no housing-estate juristic person and no common fee; the company runs the estate.
- No piecemeal exit. The estate can only be sold whole, as one income-producing asset.