Real Estate

Soil, Bricks and Mortar in our Blood
Hughes Krupica’s team has an ingrained strength in law and real estate matters which shines through in investment structuring, transactions and difficult and challenging issues requiring detailed investigation to assess risk, solutions and costs.

Hughes Krupica’s team has structured, restructured, investigated, conducted due diligence upon and transacted for clients at many of the most prominent projects in Phuket and across a wider spectrum in Thailand. We also service one of the world’s largest property companies on their regulatory compliance and to assist with their service to their diverse corporate and individual client base.

Transactions
Due Diligence on Property Assets and Connected Facilities

The discussion of an asset and its price cannot be crystallised properly until the quality of the asset and risk has been assessed and, if the parties agree, reflected in the valuation or price. Hughes Krupica’s team, including its Co-Founders have been immersed in real estate transactions as a mainstay of their practice for decades allowing their due diligence scope and skills to evolve to a sharp set of tools for any investor acquiring or disposing of assets. If necessary in the context of a deal, we are able to conduct checks to a degree that has been used to defend legal titles against revocation claims on assets estimated at an aggregate exceeding 200m USD or 6,200,000,000 THB. We are also comfortable handling due diligence checks for smaller value transactions including personal home or buy-to-rent investments, and will tailor scope of due diligence in consultation with you with regard to management of a budget.

Balancing Efficiency in Property Transactions with Personal Service

Thailand’s property system, containing a variety of potential investment structures as alternatives to the more straightforwardly regulated condominium investments, requires a combination of efficiency and an ability to align with our client’s objectives for a development or deal. We keep our teams lean and efficient by ensuring works are assigned in accordance with the role of the team member and competency. You will receive personal one on one engagement with our Partners and Senior Associates and regular updates on transaction progress. Critically, when issues and challenges arise in a real estate deal, we ensure that you feel comfortable and confident approaching us for our rational, well-thought out and researched view to take into consideration as you see fit before moving to the next stage in a transaction cycle.

Strong Combination of Contract, Law and Practice

A property transaction in Thailand can range between a straightforward sale and purchase agreement to a more complex set of contracts which are governed by Thai regulatory principles combined with more international property law and practice provisions which must, if Thai law applies, not conflict. Critical awareness of the interplay of these elements, jurisdictional issues and the consequences for a violation of the contract and potential remedies is essential for a competent analysis and amendment of a contractual package. We will deliver reasoned amendments backed by law and practice and our reputation for doing so has resulted in less reputable market participants shying away from interacting with our robust, candid and transparent approach to advice. We remain detached and independent, but commercial and bullish with regards to our clients’ objectives.

Safe, Secure, Logical and Organised Legal Interest Registrations

In order to assign or delegate the registration of a legal interest a strong degree of trust between the principal and the agent is required for the correct preparation of documents, registration fees, computation of applicable transaction costs and taxes, and efficiency and competence at the relevant Government office. For share sale and purchase transactions connected to property interests, an additional layer of planning and competence is required without forgetting the importance of the underlying asset, or as a novice real estate agent might be trained on their first transaction – not forgetting the inspection of, access and ‘keys’ to the property itself. In a system which lacks holistic automatism of records and does not have integration between data and practices between state departments, a professional approach to a registration beyond mere ‘attendance and execute’ is required.

Real Estate Project Development
Planning a Project with Wide Thinking

Poor planning and lack of agile governance can cause delays, heightened risk, dissatisfied investors and consumers, which can be avoided by a wide inclusive approach to project planning. We can either be involved on a consultative basis during the land site identification process or further along the development cycle and adjust our scope and advice accordingly. Our corporate structuring and governance expertise can be neatly applied into a real estate venture context to allow, if required an interplay between a foreign entity and domestic entities through debt and equity arrangements. This can include developing preliminary letters of intent into structured shareholder arrangements with tailored corporate constitutions.

Mixed-Use Expertise

We also advise local public company entities on their planning and compliance during their development phases, in particular when there is a ‘mixed-use’ element, or a difficult set of physical and regulatory challenges with legal impact to overcome to make a project work. Our experience includes condominium-hotels, conversions, retail/office/residential and hotel mixed use in resort areas and in Bangkok. We have a track record of involvement in projects from start to finish and are aware of the issues that developers face in practice with regards to disparity between state departments and challenging approaches to innovation in real estate.

International, Pragmatic, Balanced, Smart and Attractive Sales Contracts

A famous narrative-style saying in law is that there is no such thing as a perfect contract. A contract can never stipulate for every eventuality, risk, liability and obligation and therefore a contract must be a balance between experience, knowledge of the parties, issue solving mechanisms and clear provisions.

However, when the sales ‘value’ of a project is placed in a budget, there is no ‘assumption’ that the contracts for the project will be of a high quality and standard to manage relationships with buyers and also to elevate the reputation and standing of a project above its peers. We will design your sales and related agreements around the project and will not accept or engage in using stale templates and simply attaching annexes to differentiate the model. Where there are time savings that can be made by using tried and tested models, we will act accordingly, but we will also use our extensive experience to refine your agreements. We are also very much aware of the potential outcomes when a contract is challenged or disputed, and this aids us in our contract design so that provisions work within the applicable law or applicable legal system used to determine issues.

Legal and Commercial Opinions to Assist Solve Difficult Real Estate Issues

Throughout any given year, our firm will be involved in several operational real estate projects by advising global property management companies on managing risk and issues as the commercial and legal climate is constantly changing, or advising committees and asset managers on how to resolve difficult issues on the correct legal basis. Issues can range from complex shared facility rights, private and public utility service mixes, unusual access and geographical features causing legal structural issues in relation to rules and regulations, gaps in structure and contract causing uncertainty and disputes on common area maintenance and ongoing preventative maintenance fees. Our opinions have been used to assist with decision making in ongoing court and arbitration proceedings, or as a discussion document on a dispute resolving basis between disputing parties. We ensure our opinions are not a regurgitated remanufacture of legal provisions. Instead, our opinions are structured clearly to relate to the relevant facts, the objectives of obtaining the opinion, the correct applicable laws, the analysis of law and fact together with potential outcomes and solutions, and candid advice on strengths and weaknesses of any parties involved.

Real Estate Disputes
Solving Difficult Real Estate Disputes

Our team has extensive experience in the full range of subject matter that can be the basis for a real estate dispute both in court litigation and arbitration forums. We have represented developers in their disagreements with contractors and sub-contractors, other suppliers and with defaulting purchasers acting in bad faith. We have represented individuals and groups of purchasers suffering losses from illegal underlying assets, mismanagement and/or fraudulent use of purchase funds. Further, we have had to defend spurious criminal proceedings typically coupled with weak civil claims designed to leverage parties to ‘settle’ on an unfair basis, and we have had to deny jurisdiction to claimants seeking to ignore the agreement to arbitrate as they may rightly or wrongly feel they have a stronger chance of success in a domestic court. We have also had to step in and take over cases which has been lost prior to Supreme Court level and assist ‘losers’ mitigate and in some cases overcome their losses through commercial negotiations.

Real Estate Resources

FAQ

REAL ESTATE FAQ

Frequently asked questions relating to legal matters in our office jurisdictions.

REAL ESTATE CASE STUDIES

Our Case Studies set out example scenarios, amended from real transactions, disputes and legal problem engagements relating to the relevant practice area.

REAL ESTATE MINI GUIDES

Our Mini-Guides are a brief guide to topics that clients often find of interest relating to legal matters in our office jurisdictions.

REAL ESTATE ARTICLES

Our articles may assist provide an insight into our practical approach to problem solving and also how we will handle your matter.

Why Hughes Krupica?
SMALL TO SOPHISTICATED

Hughes Krupica will handle real estate matters from a small private party investment basis, through to large and sophisticated structuring for mixed use projects. Our team will adapt both fee structuring, methods and working processes to you according to the investment or transaction type.

SPECIALIST OPINIONS

We are experienced with assisting through the entire cycle of real estate development from development to consumer purchase, and we are often called upon by corporate clients who only operate in the property sector, to provide specialist opinions to their in-house legal teams to assist with their advice to clients to overcome or address legal issues in Thailand.

HIGH ETHICAL STANDARDS

We operate a rigorous approach to compliance, based on our personal, professional and corporate ethical standards, which enables our small firm to service large multinational enterprises, high net worth individuals with large reputational risk exposure, and people like our own team who simply want to invest in property in a clean, efficient and productive manner.

STRONG COMBINATION OF CONTRACT, LAW AND PRACTICE

We understand small technical issues of interpretation of difficult areas of Thai law which affects real estate development and investment, for example: rights of way, conversion of buildings from residential to commercial, interpretation of building height restrictions and shoreline setback measurement rules, the history of National Park and Forestry Area rules and regulations.

Real Estate Specialists

I strive to complement my Clients’ business skills and strengths by providing a different lens on potential risks, costs and outcomes. A strategy can be optimized by collaboration.

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Desmond Hughes
Co-Founder and Senior Partner

I have combined my legal training and experience with a broader set of skills including biochemistry to enable wider scientific thinking to be a key strength of my advice. My European, American and Asian professional and life experiences enable me to use a comparative approach to assist clients navigate international and domestic legal systems

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Robert Krupica
Co-Founder and Senior Partner

I understand the interplay between client objectives and the framework of the Thai legal, regulatory and cultural system. I will identify the optimum method of applying a law in practice and deal ethically with challenges

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Pongsak Daengkaew (Oad)
Co-Founder and Partner

I pride myself on my international mindset, track record of transaction closing successes and my ability to emphathise and communicate with our diverse client base. I seek to continually sharpen my skills and mind through experience in a wide range of commercial tasks. My entrepreneurial nature is evident in my dealings

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Sirikwan Tan (Bee)
Senior Associate

I believe in precision and diligence in research to optimize the basis on which solid reliable legal advice is provided. I have widened my approach to understand the interaction between domestic and international legal systems and enjoy the daily challenge of new client challenges to address

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WHO WE WORK WITH

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