{"id":5401,"date":"2026-08-31T22:45:59","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T15:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/thai-legal-news\/developer-cannot-keep-2-8-million-baht-as-a-deposit-supreme-court-sets-aside-arbitration-award-in-dika-1511-2569\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T22:45:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T15:45:59","slug":"developer-cannot-keep-2-8-million-baht-as-a-deposit-supreme-court-sets-aside-arbitration-award-in-dika-1511-2569","status":"publish","type":"tlo_legal_news","link":"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/thai-legal-news\/developer-cannot-keep-2-8-million-baht-as-a-deposit-supreme-court-sets-aside-arbitration-award-in-dika-1511-2569\/","title":{"rendered":"Developer cannot keep 2.8 million baht as a &#8220;deposit&#8221;: Supreme Court sets aside arbitration award in Dika 1511\/2569"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A buyer of an <b>11.6 million baht<\/b> condominium paid a <b>100,000 \u0e1a\u0e32\u0e17<\/b> reservation fee, then <b>2,810,780 baht<\/b> eight days after signing, and later defaulted. An arbitrator let the developer keep all of it as <b>earnest money (\u0e21\u0e31\u0e14\u0e08\u0e33)<\/b>. In <b>Dika 1511\/2569<\/b> the Supreme Court set the award aside: the 100,000 baht was a true deposit under <b>\u0e21\u0e32\u0e15\u0e23\u0e32 377<\/b> of the Civil and Commercial Code, but the 2.8 million was paid <i>\u0e2b\u0e25\u0e31\u0e07\u0e08\u0e32\u0e01<\/i> the contract and was far too large a share of the price to be security &mdash; it was part-payment, and treating it as forfeitable was <b>contrary to public order<\/b> \u0e20\u0e32\u0e22\u0e43\u0e15\u0e49 <b>Section 40(3)(b)<\/b> of the Arbitration Act B.E. 2545.<\/p>\n<p>If your developer contract calls a 20&ndash;25% payment at signing a &ldquo;deposit&rdquo;, it is not one in law. Instalments retained on default are a penalty the court can cut down under <b>\u0e21\u0e32\u0e15\u0e23\u0e32 383<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>\u21aa <a href='https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/condo-deposit-forfeiture-in-thailand-dika-1511-2569\/'>Condo deposit forfeiture in Thailand: what Dika 1511\/2569 means for buyers<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A buyer of an 11.6 million baht condominium paid a 100,000 baht reservation fee, then 2,810,780 baht eight days after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":5400,"template":"","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"tlo_news_type":"","tlo_source_url":"","tlo_impact":"","tlo_effective_date":"","tlo_source_ref":""},"tlo_news_topic":[],"tlo_news_profile":[],"tlo_news_impact":[],"class_list":["post-5401","tlo_legal_news","type-tlo_legal_news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/legal-news\/5401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/legal-news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tlo_legal_news"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"tlo_news_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tlo_news_topic?post=5401"},{"taxonomy":"tlo_news_profile","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tlo_news_profile?post=5401"},{"taxonomy":"tlo_news_impact","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tlo_news_impact?post=5401"}],"curies":[{"name":"\u0e14\u0e31\u0e1a\u0e40\u0e1a\u0e34\u0e25\u0e22\u0e39\u0e1e\u0e35","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}