Illegal villas closed on Koh Samui

Officials post a closure notice at one of the 21 illegally built villas on the mountainside at Bo Phut on Koh Samui, Surat Thani, on Tuesday. (Photo: Internal Security Operations Command)
Officials post a closure notice at one of the 21 illegally built villas on the mountainside at Bo Phut on Koh Samui, Surat Thani, on Tuesday. (Photo: Internal Security Operations Command)

Authorities have closed 21 villas built illegally on Koh Samui, some of them housing foreign tenants who were ordered to leave.

Officials on Tuesday posted closure notices at the villas, which are on Khao Ma Ngaen mountain in Bo Phut.

The 21 villas were among 46 built illegally by three companies in Bo Phut. They had no building permits and encroached on the mountainside. 

There were foreign tenants in three of the 21 villas. One of them, a Frenchman, said he had a one-year lease and paid a monthly rent of 20,000 baht. 

The other villas were empty, but were advertised as available for rent.

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Vocabulary

  • closure (noun): the shutting down of a school, factory or other business or service - การปิด
  • empty (adj): having nothing inside; with no people or things - ว่างเปล่า, ว่างโล่ง
  • encroach: to gradually enter, cover or take control of more and more of an area of land or sea - บุกรุก, ล่วงล้ำ
  • lease: a legal agreement in which you pay money in order to use a building, piece of land, vehicle, etc. for a period of time - สัญญาเช่า
  • permit: an official document that gives you permission to do something - ใบอนุญาต
  • tenant: a person who pays rent for the use of a room, building, land, etc. to the person who owns it - ผู้เช่า
  • villa: a house usually in the countryside or near the sea - บ้านพักตากอากาศ, บ้านพักของเศรษฐีในชนบท

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