PHUKET: Refunds for purchasers deceived by Phuket's Ace Condo developers are likely to be delayed because of hiccups to the prosecution process, a police investigator said today.

The latest problem has been triggered by one of four designated victims who says she is pregnant and cannot travel from Bangkok for proceedings on Phuket.

''We have a letter saying doctors won't permit her to travel to Phuket,'' Lieutenant Anukul Nuket, of Patong's Kathu Police Station, told Phuketwan today.

''We must have at least four claimants who are capable of making the case to police and to prosecutors,'' the lieutenant said.

''We will be unable to co-ordinate a case unless the purchasers who want refunds are able to produce comprehensive evidence that enables Phuket prosecutors to proceed.''

A regular stream of Ace Condo investors continue to send emails to Phuketwan asking how the case is going. The answer: It's not.

Although the responsibility of the developers appears obvious, pursuing the case through the court could become the long, arduous process that Governor Nisit Jansomwong had hoped to avoid by negotiating a settlement.

With delays continuing and negotiations faltering, the governor gave police the go-ahead to proceed through the courts.

Now Lieutenant Anukul is suggesting that the problem with the pregnant woman who cannot come to Phuket is just one of a series of hurdles likely to slow progress in the Ace Condo case.

The first phase of the project was to be erected opposite Patong Hospital between February 2014 and April 2015 but work had yet to begin.

One woman told the governor earlier this year that she had invested 2,297,000 baht in four units, valued at about 10 million baht.

Others said they had paid upwards of 300,000 baht, some in monthly installments as part of an off-the-plan purchase.

Efforts to have the Ace owners explain what the problems were had failed, the condo buyers said, when they first took their pleas to the governor in April. Little appears to have changed since then.