No street vendors
At The Meadows, residents are not allowed to remodel their properties without permission; exterior colours must remain; commercial activities are not allowed; nor are visits from street vendors.
“We want our owners to enjoy a pleasant, private and safe lifestyle at The Meadows,” said Cees. “Imagine you buy this lovely Bt5m home and your neighbour decides to paint his house bright green, or open a minimart. Where does that leave your investment?”
Cees invited me to visit and speak to the on-site property management team.
I met two delightful ladies who showed me the show houses and told me of the many and varied ways they work to make living at the Meadows as pleasant as possible.
The best way I can sum up the management team’s activities would be to liken it to having helpful neighbours but these are “neighbours” who have an underlying responsibility to protect the interests of everyone.
In charge of the office is Jariya (Ta Dam) Saengeaid who had been with the development since day one. The “aid” at the end of her name is a happy co-incidence. She is helped by Paweena (Tuk) Treejak who had been there just a few short weeks at the time of my visit.
Khun Jariya told me: “We do many things for the owners from cleaning the homes before people renting the properties move in, to arranging for gardens to be maintained; if people want a taxi booked, we’ll do it do them; their pool cleaned, we’ll organise it.
“We’ll even arrange help when the water system doesn’t work. Some farangs think they can put anything down toilets. But this is Thailand. They need to understand that everything doesn’t work the same
as in their home countries.”
Home countries for residents at The Meadows are many and varied.
“We have people here from Singapore, the Philippines, the USA, UK, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Germany and, of course, Thailand itself,” said Jariya. “Many find The Meadows convenient for the international school and their workplaces in the major industrial areas such as Amata City.”
Part of the ladies’ role is providing property rental services. “Some owners bought their property as a buy-to-let investment. Because the owners are abroad we look after their tenants’ comfort. Take care of check-in and check-out procedures; contracting and the whole range, providing a hassle-free return on investment at the end of the day,” said Jariya. “Most tenants are corporate clients, by the way. They are welcomed as a genuine resident of The Meadows like anyone else!”
In addition to providing after-sales service the ladies are also there to support viewings and sales. Also, some of the properties are retained by T&C for letting purposes so that is an on-going commitment. “Even when everything is sold there we will keep a management team,” said Cees.
At the time of writing, six new pool-villas were being added to the village. These should be available from the end of the first quarter of 2009. The Meadows comprises than 46 homes in total.
The team is on-site from
9 until 6 every day. No breaks in service. The ladies cover for each other when public holidays are to be taken so there is always someone to call upon.
Have they ever had any unusual requests?

Act as interpreters
“Not really. Unless you find it unusual to take care of the pets when the owner is on a holiday,” said Jariya. “Obviously we are often asked to help-out as interpreters when any of the non-Thai residents would like to have something arranged for his house. But that’s about it.”
If people are new to Pattaya, Jariya and Parweena are happy to get out maps and recommend places to eat, drink and visit. As I said earlier, their presence on-site is a bit like having an additional friendly neighbour. It must be a reassuring feeling
for residents. Ω