When an investor hears “8–10% net yield”, the next question is usually: “And what is left after fees?” It is the right question, asked in the wrong order. First you need to understand which deductions exist, who receives them, what base they are calculated on and at what point they are taken. The same figure — “40%” or “75 THB per square metre” — means different things in different contracts, and a headline yield without a breakdown of the cost lines is only half the picture.
This article takes the cost of managing a unit in Phuket layer by layer: the profit split with the management company, mandatory building charges, taxes, one-off payments and the costs most often left out of the calculation. The project figures come from the Layan Real Estate catalog; everything else is market logic, not a forecast. We only outline tax and legal details: this material is informational and is not legal advice, so confirm specific calculations with a Thai tax adviser and lawyer.
Contents
- The layers that make up management cost
- How management companies get paid
- The 60/40 split: what your share is calculated from
- CAM fee: the monthly building charge
- Sinking fund and other one-off payments
- Taxes: what the owner pays separately
- Costs of the unit itself: furniture, insurance, repairs
- How to read a management contract
- Traps
- Mini-case and next step
1. The layers that make up management cost
The word “commission” is misleading: an investor pictures one line, but money leaves the owner’s income and wallet on five different grounds. They differ in nature, in recipient and in timing, so they cannot be merged into a single percentage.
- Management company pay. In a pool this is a share of profit; in other models it is a percentage of revenue or a fixed fee.
- Building juristic-person charges. CAM fee for common-area upkeep and a sinking fund for future major repairs. These go to the building’s juristic person, not to the pool’s management company.
- Operating deductions. VAT, city tax, service charge, bank fees, booking-channel fees, cleaning and linen. In a pool they are deducted before the profit is split.
- Owner’s taxes. Rental income tax is calculated separately and depends on your tax status.
- Costs of the unit. Furniture, appliances, insurance, minor repairs as items wear out.
A simple honesty test for any presentation: ask for the stated yield to be broken down across these five lines. If the manager quotes a “net” figure but cannot say which of the five layers it includes, that is a signal to dig deeper. We covered the income mechanics in detail in the Phuket rental management programme and the general calculation method in the ROI guide; here we focus purely on cost.
| Layer | Who receives it | When it is paid | Part of the manager’s 40% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Management company share | Management company | When pool profit is distributed | This is the 40% |
| CAM fee | Building juristic person | Monthly | No |
| Sinking fund | Building juristic person | Once, at purchase | No |
| VAT, city tax, service charge, card processing | State, banks, payment systems | Before profit is split | No, deducted earlier |
| Rental income tax | State | After the period | No |
| Furniture, insurance, repairs | Contractors and insurers | As incurred | No |
2. How management companies get paid
Four main schemes exist in Phuket, and the “price of management” is calculated differently in each. You cannot compare percentages from different schemes directly — you have to compare the owner’s final income under the same assumptions.
| Model | How the owner pays | What is usually forgotten | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rental pool (60/40) | Manager takes a share of the pool’s net profit | The list of deductions before the split | Passive investor, condo-hotel |
| Percentage of revenue | Fixed percentage of every booking | The base (gross or after channels), cleaning charged separately | Villa owner renting individually |
| Fixed fee | Monthly sum regardless of occupancy | Low-season risk sits with the owner | Rare, with high occupancy |
| Guaranteed income | Manager pays an agreed percentage of the price | Term, buy-back conditions, changes after the term | Conservative investor at the start |
The Layan Verde and Layan Green Park pool belongs to the first row: the owner gets 60% of the pool’s net profit, the management company 40%. This is not a fee “per night” but a sharing of the result: if the pool earns little, the manager earns less alongside you. That aligns interests, but it does not remove the questions about the calculation base (next section).
We wrote separately about guaranteed income in contracted rental yield in Phuket. In short: a guarantee is not the absence of a commission — it is a commission already built into the unit price and the conservative percentage.
3. The 60/40 split: what your share is calculated from
The phrase “the owner gets 60%” is worthless without an answer to “60% of what?”. In the Layan Verde and Layan Green Park pool the answer is the pool’s net profit. The sequence looks like this:
- Guests pay for their stay — this is the pool’s gross revenue.
- Mandatory payments are deducted: VAT, city tax, service charge, bank fees for card acquiring and international transfers.
- Then come operating costs the contract assigns to the pool: cleaning, linen, consumables, booking-platform fees.
- What remains is the pool’s net profit. Of it, 60% goes to owners and 40% to the management company.
- Your 60% is distributed among the pool’s unit owners. From the sum you receive you separately pay rental income tax and your own ownership costs.
To see the logic, take a hypothetical example not tied to real project figures: suppose that after all deductions the pool’s net profit for a period equals 100 notional units.
| Line (hypothetical example) | Units |
|---|---|
| Pool net profit | 100 |
| Management company share (40%) | 40 |
| Owners’ share (60%) | 60 |
| Owner’s tax and CAM fee | calculated separately |
This table is not a yield forecast: it shows that the manager’s 40% is taken from a sum already cleared of deductions, not from gross receipts. For comparison, if the same “40%” were calculated on gross revenue with deductions taken afterwards, the owner’s result would be noticeably smaller. That is why the wording of the “calculation base” must be found in the contract and checked against the presentation.
The benchmark we quote for both projects is about 8–10% net per year when participating in the pool. It is a programme target, not a guarantee, and it already reflects the 60/40 split. We collected market benchmarks for occupancy and seasonality in the article on rental seasons and occupancy in Phuket; payback at such a yield is about 12 years, which is likewise a calculated estimate, not a promise.
4. CAM fee: the monthly building charge
CAM fee (common area maintenance) is the owner’s contribution to the upkeep of common areas: security, cleaning, landscaping, lighting, reception, maintenance of pools and infrastructure. Every owner pays it, and it has nothing to do with rental management: whether the unit is in the pool, rented independently or empty, the charge is the same.
According to the Layan Real Estate catalog:
| Project | CAM fee | Sinking fund | Example: studio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Layan Verde | 85 THB/m² per month | 850 THB/m² one-off | 36.2 m²: 3,077 THB per month, 30,770 THB one-off |
| Layan Green Park | 75 THB/m² per month | 650 THB/m² one-off | 30 m²: 2,250 THB per month, 19,500 THB one-off |
The annual CAM fee for these studios is about 36,924 THB at Layan Verde and 27,000 THB at Layan Green Park (calculation: rate per square metre × area × 12 months). For two-bedroom units the sum grows in proportion to area, so projects should be compared in THB per square metre, not by “the price of a studio”.
What matters on the legal side of CAM fee. Under condominium law, a building’s common expenses are governed by the juristic person’s regulations and by decisions of the owners’ meeting; the general procedure for registering a condominium and the juristic-person documents is described by the Department of Lands (dol.go.th). Disputes over common charges are a topic of their own, covered for example by the Bangkok Post in its piece on joint-owner disputes. The practical conclusion: before buying, request the regulations, the CAM fee budget and the juristic person’s report on how funds were spent. We gave a detailed breakdown in our article on sinking fund and CAM fee.
5. Sinking fund and other one-off payments
A sinking fund is a one-off contribution to the major-repairs reserve: it pays in future for large works such as replacing the roof, lifts or facade. In the catalog it is 850 THB/m² for Layan Verde and 650 THB/m² for Layan Green Park. By nature it is not a management fee, but it is part of the full cost of entry and must not be forgotten when calculating payback.
Besides it, other one-off and recurring payments appear during purchase and ownership:
| Payment | Nature | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Sinking fund | One-off, at purchase | Project catalog, contract |
| Leasehold registration (Layan Verde) | 1.1% every 30 years | Project catalog, legal check |
| Re-registration costs on resale | One-off, at the transaction | Article on the cost of buying |
| Unit utilities | Monthly, by meter | Article on utility bills |
| Special levies for common areas | By owners’ meeting decision | Building juristic-person regulations |
Note the leasehold registration row: if a unit is held as leasehold, the registration payment arises again with each term. That too is part of the cost of ownership, and freehold and leasehold should be compared with this row in the table. We covered the topic in freehold vs leasehold in Thailand.
6. Taxes: what the owner pays separately
The tax layer is part of neither the 60/40 split nor the CAM fee. Income from renting a unit is the owner’s income, and how it is taxed depends on tax residency, ownership structure and type of income. Official rules and forms are published by the Revenue Department (rd.go.th).
What to do before buying:
- Establish your tax status in Thailand: resident or non-resident. The criterion is days spent in the country (more in the article on tax residency and the 180-day rule).
- Ask an adviser how pool income is taxed in your situation and whether a return is required (see rental income tax).
- Check whether a double-tax treaty applies between Thailand and your country (article on treaties).
- Find out what the pool withholds at source and what remains on your own return.
We deliberately give no rates here: they depend on the income category and can change, and plugging an outdated figure into a model is a common mistake. Take current rates from the primary source and from your adviser.
7. Costs of the unit itself: furniture, insurance, repairs
A unit in a hotel model wears faster than an apartment used by one household: there are many guests and turnover is frequent. Part of the cost falls on the owner, and it belongs in your personal budget rather than being assumed “inside the pool”.
- Furniture and appliances. Renewal as they wear out. The terms are in the contract: some programmes require an approved furniture package, others allow replacement to the project standard. More in the article on the furnishing package.
- Unit insurance. Building insurance and contents insurance are different products; clarify what the building’s juristic person covers and what you must arrange yourself.
- Minor repairs. Usually part of the manager’s service, but materials and major works are often paid by the owner.
- Low-season gaps. In a pool they are smoothed by spreading across all units, but seasonality remains: in Thailand the high season traditionally runs November to March.
- Currency difference. Payouts arrive in one currency and your costs may be in another; we wrote about it in the article on exchange rules and foreign currency.
A rule that protects against unpleasant surprises: keep a separate “unit upkeep” budget and do not subtract it from the headline yield after the fact. Then the comparison of projects is honest — on one set of lines.
8. How to read a management contract
The management contract is the key document on this topic. Read it not for “what percentage” but for “what, from where, when and who decides”. Control questions are below.
| Question for the contract | What to look for | Warning answer |
|---|---|---|
| Split base | Net profit after deductions or gross revenue | Base is not defined |
| List of deductions | An explicit list of lines before the split | “Other costs at the manager’s discretion” with no limit |
| Reporting | Frequency, format, access to primary data | A once-a-year report without detail |
| Term and exit | Programme term, termination conditions, exit fee | Auto-renewal without notice |
| Personal use | How many nights and on what terms | Restrictions not written down |
| Licences | Who is responsible for permits and what happens if they are lost | Responsibility not stated |
| Changes to terms | Who can change the split and tariffs, and how | Unilateral change |
| Transfer on resale | Whether the programme passes to the buyer | Terms not described |
Pay particular attention to the licence clause: a unit in a condo-hotel operates under the operator’s licence, and whether guests can be accepted at all depends on it. We covered this in the article on the hotel licence and the format as a whole in the article on the condotel.
At Layan Green Park phase 1 has been operating since 2024, so pool reporting can be requested for actual periods. The whole phase 1 price list consists of resales from owners, and when buying on the secondary market you need to separately clarify how the programme passes to the new owner. For Layan Verde handover is planned for December 2028, and until then there is simply no pool reporting — only the model.
9. Traps
- Comparing percentages without the base. “40% of profit” and “20% of revenue” cannot be compared without calculating the owner’s result under the same assumptions.
- Gross yield instead of net. Figures such as “~22% gross” and “~8–10% net” can describe the same situation on different lines of the report.
- Forgotten one-off payments. The sinking fund and leasehold registration are invisible in the monthly flow but affect payback time.
- Tax “we’ll sort it out later”. Rental tax is not part of the pool and is not withheld automatically in your favour; plan for it in advance.
- No free lunch: “0% commission”. If a management fee is not charged directly, it may be recouped through an inflated unit price, paid cleaning, a mark-up on the furniture package or other deductions.
- A guarantee without a term. A fixed percentage for two or three years is not a fixed income for the whole period of ownership: after the term the model changes.
- An unknown exit. If the contract does not describe termination and transfer on resale, the unit’s liquidity is limited.
- The agent’s commission in the price. An agency’s fee is a separate topic: at Layan Real Estate it is a market commission, terms discussed at a meeting. Demand transparency from any intermediary and check their words against the developer’s contract.
10. Mini-case and next step
A hypothetical example for illustration — a scenario, not real data about specific people.
An investor considers a studio at Layan Verde for $235,995 and a studio at Layan Green Park (a phase 1 resale or phase 2 from $224,043). They ask the manager for the “net yield”. They are given a benchmark of 8–10% per year. They do not stop at the figure but build a table of five layers: the 60/40 split of the pool’s net profit, CAM fee at the per-square-metre rate, the one-off sinking fund, rental tax under their own status and a budget for upkeep of the unit.
The first thing they notice: Layan Verde’s CAM fee (85 THB/m²) is higher than Layan Green Park’s (75 THB/m²), and the one-off fund is 850 versus 650 THB/m². On a single studio the difference is not dramatic, but on larger areas it grows. Second: at Layan Green Park the model has been operating since 2024, so they can request actual pool reporting and check the benchmark against real periods, while for Layan Verde, still under construction, only the contract and the model can be checked. Third: they calculate tax not from the presentation but from a consultation with their own tax specialist.
The investor’s conclusion is simple: the choice between projects is determined not by the “percentage of commission” but by the full set of lines and how far each of them can be verified in documents. This is an observation about calculation logic, not a yield forecast.
Checklist before signing:
- The full management contract, with the definition of the split base and the list of deductions.
- The CAM fee budget, the building juristic-person regulations, the sinking fund amount.
- Terms of personal use, exit from the programme and transfer on resale.
- Pool reporting for actual periods (for an operating phase).
- A tax consultation for your status.
- A personal budget for unit upkeep.
- Review of the package by an independent Thai lawyer.
If you are choosing between districts, compare Layan and Bang Tao: the charge structure and rental demand depend on location. Yield parameters by project are collected in the ROI section, with project details on the Layan Verde and Layan Green Park pages.
Want a calculation of all cost lines for a specific unit? Leave a request — Layan Real Estate agency, an authorised sales partner for VillaCarte Group projects, will match a project to your goal and send the current price list, the pool contract and a table of charges. The agency’s fee is a market commission, terms discussed at a meeting.
