"Twenty buyers of a total of 70 who agreed to buy land allocated during the project's first phase are now asking the company for refunds of their deposits," said Boon Vanasin, a major shareholder of Rajthanee Realty Co Ltd, developer of the project.

"The refunds could damage the company's estimated sales of up to Bt182 million."

The Peak is on 451 rai in the northern area of Koh Samui and the project is broken down into three or four phases. The plans include a spa complex on the top area of the site, as well as detached houses.

In the past few months the company has been promoting the first phase in overseas markets, especially Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. Pre-sales of 70 plots of leasehold land covering 23 rai have been offered. Samui Property Solution Co Ltd was assigned as the project's sale agent.

Boon said since the company launched pre-sales of land leases, they had been fully booked. Each plot of 300 square wah costs about Bt9.1 million, of which Bt2.77 million is required as a deposit. The completed houses with land will cost about Bt20 million to Bt30 million each.

The Peak has been a hot topic for a month since it was revealed that it might be encroaching on certain areas. It is also said that the land has slopes of more than 35 per cent, that some parts tap the forest area, and some titles were issued illegally.

Part of the project's land that encroaches on forest might be expropriated, an issue exercising the Land Department and the Royal Forestry Department.

Property tycoon Boon said yesterday the total project development would cover 600 rai. Of that, 451 rai is held by Rajthanee Realty and the rest by Great Hills International Co Ltd. He owns a majority stake in both firms along with other Thai partners.

The project is planned for development over the next five years and is worth Bt20 billion. Besides the housing project, there will be two hotels on a nearby site.

He said the firms had acquired all 600 rai since last year, comprising 120 rai from the Legal Execution Department and the remaining land from individual owners.

"I insist that all plots of land the companies bought are legal because they were issued with land ownership papers before 1980," said Boon, adding that it was impossible that the two firms would make any effort to encourage officials to issue the land titles.

He said it was, however, possible that the land acquired and the land shown in the papers differed in size because of variations in methods of land measurement. He said the landowners had also reported holding smaller areas in order to pay lower fees.

Explaining the slope issue, Boon said he had already developed a luxury housing project with a gradient of more than 35 per cent. "Therefore, this matter should not be significant", he said.

Boon said the land causing the problem was on uphill areas, covering 38 rai, which the company had bought from Chusri Somwang. A court had recently ruled that the land was owned by someone else. In this case, he said, the company would wait and see what policy the Royal Forestry Department applied.

If the land is considered part of forest areas, he said, the company would accept that, "but we will file a law suit against the Land Department because the title was issued legally by the department. It had a land ownership paper".

Boon is also a director of Piyavate Hospital and owner of other hospitals in Bangkok, including Thonburi I and Thonburi II.

Sasithorn Ongdee

The Nation