What a housing estate developer must provide: utilities, maintenance and handover

What the developer must do

1. Prepare the land. Fill and compact the ground so it is level across the project, at the height set in the approved project plan. The plan usually requires the ground to be at least level with, or higher than, the public road in front of the project.
2. Build the utilities to plan. Roads, footpaths, drains, parks, boundary walls and any clubhouse, pool, tennis court or lake must be built as shown in the plan approved by the provincial land allocation committee.
3. Maintain them. Until it is released, the developer must keep every utility in working order at its own cost.
4. Not reduce them. The developer may not do anything that takes away from the use or convenience of the utilities. The land they stand on is subject to a servitude in favour of the plots in the estate, so it cannot simply be sold off.

The maintenance guarantee

When the utilities are finished, the committee inspects them and the developer provides a bank guarantee for their maintenance. Under the committee's rules this has commonly been 7% of the cost of building the utilities. So if the utilities cost 100 million baht, the guarantee would be 7 million baht.

Under the amendment in force since 1 March 2026, when the developer is released from maintenance, the guarantee money goes to the residents' juristic person, or to the local authority if the utilities become public property.

Keep in mind that the committee's inspection is not proof that everything was built to plan. Problems with fill levels, drainage or road thickness often show up only later.

Handing over to the residents

The developer is released from maintenance once it has done one of these:

• arranged for the buyers to set up a housing estate juristic person and transferred the utilities to it, or
• dedicated the utilities as public property, with approval.

If the developer does not act, buyers of at least half of the plots sold can apply to set up the juristic person themselves. The amendment also allows a buyers' meeting to decide by majority in some cases. Once registered, the utilities vest in the juristic person.

If the utilities are not as approved

• Not built to plan. The developer must fix them, or pay the cost of fixing them, to match the approved plan.
• Not maintained. The developer must repay what the juristic person or residents spent on repairs that were its responsibility.
• After handover. Even after the developer has transferred the utilities and paid the guarantee, it is still liable if the juristic person can show the utilities were not built to the approved plan.

What the juristic person can do

The juristic person manages the estate through an elected committee under the control of the members' general meeting. It collects common fees, which under the amendment may differ by type of land use or plot size. It can also sue on behalf of members over matters that affect the utilities or the rights of a group of members.

How a claim usually works

1. Hire an independent engineer to check the houses or utilities against the building plans and the approved project plan, and to estimate the cost of putting things right.
2. Send the developer a written notice with the engineer's report, asking it to repair or to pay for the repairs.
3. If the developer ignores or refuses the request, file a consumer case at the court for the area where the project is located.

See how this works in court: Flooded because the land was filled too low.