taxin

@ NKM, it seems your overall opinion is based purely on the example of your previous landlord, and that every other property owner is doomed and will follow suit.

You seem to like quoting this figure of 2,000 condos and 300 houses for sale, may I ask where you obtained this info from ?

39 years old, new car and house living in Phuket ? Something not quite right here. He is too young to retire

Where does it say he is retired ?

He wants to come back to Thailand and why not. Why the upheavel, the bs spun by Suthep and his ilk. Let the man come back and then no more divide in Thailand.

You would not believe the divide in Thailand if he came back.

A civil war maybe?

Would hope so, country needs a shake up !!

I just do not understand people who drink (a little or a lot) and drive, especially in Thailand, (but back home usually have turn in not drinking or stay overnight), where public transport is everywhere and cheap.

I have a motorbike and yes I drink, sometimes way too much, but when I go out I already take a mototaxi to my drinking place/bar and another one back.

Spending hundreds/thousands of baht on drinking (and girls/guys), but not wanting to spend a 50-200 baht on safety for others and yourself.

Just stupidity I guess.

The tuk-tuks want 400 baht from Kata to Patong, and 800 from Patong to Kata, later in the night. 1200 baht round trip.

You can rent a motorbike for 200 baht a day, and you can rent a car from the airport for as low as 842 baht (Ford Figo)

I do not condone drink driving, but there is such a clear financial incentive here to do so that, unfortunately, many see it as an option.

If you choose to stay/live somewhere that you get ripped off by taxi mafia, you are still responsible for your own actions. So move or pay rip-off taxi prices. A humans life other then yours is worth a lot more then max 1200baht.

I think you will find the initial comment about Phuket's rip off taxi's being to blame for farangs drink driving was a bit of satire, it was aimed at a particular forum member who jumps on every thread to bash Phuket. Nobody is really suggesting that the price of Tuk Tuks is to blame.

Interesting comments in the article about the alcohol limit depending on how long you have had your license. I'm wondering if the 5 year rule is for Thai driving licenses only

other places have similar rules

I'm sure other places do. My question is if the rule is for Thai driving licenses only, or would a foreign license be the same.

Should have said he was simply to distressed to be breathalized. Seems to work for hiso Thais...

I am afraid the cops and the injured have him in their sights take a regular Thai settlement and multiply by 25.

Or maybe not, you may or may not have noticed who he works for ? OK he's not quite the son of Red Bull but he is working for a company that is just as big. Just saying.

Interesting comments in the article about the alcohol limit depending on how long you have had your license. I'm wondering if the 5 year rule is for Thai driving licenses only

@ taxin

taxin, you don't have to read my posts. Feel free to block me. Your replies, which have ZERO substance, are of little consequence to the forum.

You obviously know nothing about how the property market functions, in any country.

For the record, I am not arguing the point with either you, the forum, or the Phuket Labor Chief.

I'm glad you think this issue will just vanish because the Phuket Labor Chief has said no work permit is needed. As stated, I have no financial interest in it, so no bother to me.

You sound like one of those guys that is covered in Thai religious symbol tattoos, of which you have no idea of their meaning, trying to be more "Thai" than every other foreigner.

I can't help but ask a question now. Tell us, how much exposure to property have you got here?

.."Tell us, how much exposure to property have you got here ?"...

So you are a spokesperson now representing everybody on this thread ? With the exception of 1 or 2 other 3,000 baht per month renters I can assure you your on your own.

Your posts are nothing more than malicious envy towards property owners in Phuket, you need to get over it.

Renting a condo for one month or longer (90% want 3 months minimum) involves a deposit, signing a lease, rent in advance, you often Connect and pay for your own power.

Why would someone on holidays want all that drama. Why would the landlord want all that drama.

Long term rentals are just that, long term.

And you are paying the cheaper long term rate.

This issue is about short term rentals in residential condo blocks, and what the authorities can do / will do to stop it.

You keep banging on about long term rental.

To my knowledge, there is no legal requirement for a condo owner to demand a signed lease, a deposit, rent in advance, the electric in the tenants name etc for ANY lease, after all, they own the property.

So this is no deterrent to 1 month holiday rentals that are really for 2 weeks.

How do police catch drug dealers, they usually pretend to be drug buyers. maybe they could do something similar with short term accom providers. Maybe the police will get the jurastic person involved. I"m sure they will work it out.

The percentage of westerners doing short term rentals is probably very small, and the percentage doing it from outside Thailand even smaller.

All is not lost. the small percentage of westerners can now switch to long term rental, and as discussed a potential customer base of 67,000,000 Thai people and 300,000 expats. They should be able to cover their condo fees.

Most will probably prefer a long term tennant and income, and wont be bothered renting out for 2 weeks and calling it a month.

Every Condo I have ever rented has required a signed lease and a deposit. Thats pretty normal for long term rental. It protects the tenant and the owner.

"Most will probably prefer a long term tennant and income, and wont be bothered renting out for 2 weeks and calling it a month." - I agree, but that that WAS Phuket, not what Phuket is NOW.

Have you considered the fact there are currently 2000 condo's and 300 houses for sale on Phuket, right now, and who knows how many for rent as well. The owners are not living in all of them. Many are vacant.

This all makes for a lot of Phuket property sitting around, not being liquidated, and not earning. All the while, more are being built. There are long term consequences to this for the Phuket property market.

To stop short term rentals just takes away a part of the earning potential of a property.

I asked the question before, yet to get an answer. Haven't ALL condo owners got a vested interest in keeping the short term rental option open to them for the future, should their circumstances change?

Even the old timers who say, "When I die I'm leaving the missus the property." Well, won't you be leaving a property with diminished use rights?

I've taken some ridicule on these two threads, but I don't even own a property here. I have no financial interests in property here. In fact, as a long term renter, I am one of those to gain from this.

I have only put forward who I consider to be the winners and losers out of the enforcement of different laws, and who I see as breaking the law, and who I see as not, mainly regarding labor laws.

For me, with no financial interests in property here, all I see is a further reduction of the potential earning capacity of property here, and a restriction placed on owners to derive such an income.

NKM, I have said it before and will say it again, nobody wants to answer your questions. Most of your posts come with "?" after every sentence, do you ever stop to think that people find your constant drivel a little tedious to warrant an answer ?

In my opinion you have gone past the stage of making yourself sound like an idiot, especially since there has now been an official notice made by the head of the labour department virtually quashing this thread, yet you still continue to argue it, unbelievable !!

This only applies to condo owners who live in Thailand. A work permit is only required to work IN thailand not out. There are many foreign directors of Thai companies who don't need a work permit as they are doing their director duties outside thailand.

That's the way I see it.

Now, how are they going to arrest a condo owner for renting out his condo, over the internet, without a hotel license, for short terms, when he is not in the country?

Easy. They can seize his condo.

I have to ask. Do you really believe this can happen, or are you just joining in on the fun ?

Hmmm

If work permit is required for condo rentals then this could perhaps be easily solved by renting your property through an agent?

A work permit is not required to rent a condo. The letter attached in the OP was a notice placed in a condo building in Patong by the management to intimidate it's owners. It is nothing more than this.

This only applies to condo owners who live in Thailand. A work permit is only required to work IN thailand not out. There are many foreign directors of Thai companies who don't need a work permit as they are doing their director duties outside thailand.

That's the way I see it.

Now, how are they going to arrest a condo owner for renting out his condo, over the internet, without a hotel license, for short terms, when he is not in the country?

The answer is simple, they will not attempt to arrest a condo owner who is renting out his condo from overseas.

It is also highly unlikely that a condo owner living in Phuket doing the same will be arrested for this.

Right. So some Chinese bloke who paid $5 million for 30 uninhabited islands is going to buy Phuket ?

The only hope here is that some superrich Chinese gone to buy all Phuket Island. They are well connected to the right people and have already bought Islands in the South Pacific so why not here and maybe it will be Phukets rescue.

Like the "connected" Chinese who were running the Tranlee Travel company ?

Can anyone confirm or deny the statement that units bought under the foreign quota (I'm assuming that's the 49%?) can only be purchased for personal dwelling? And does that mean the personal dwelling of the owner only- i.e., not for rent to others? That would put quite a wet blanket on some of my foreign coworkers who own multiple condos for rental income...

I have to say that as one that has many times warned that renting is the only way for farangs to go in LOS, OPs like this make me smile.

Do I have sympathy for those that thought they were the smart ones, scorning such as I, and bought property as an "investment"? Not at all. In fact I'm .

Not sure what you are feeling smug about.

If you read the whole thread, nothing has changed in relation to owning, investing renting long term.

Even Thai visa has said the original post is rubbish.

But if it makes you feel better. Hoping that owners fail and are ultimately punished for buying. That's a little sad.

A bad case of sour grapes

Unfortunately this is what happens with threads like this, they eventually go off topic and turn into "I am smart because I don't own property, and everyone who has bought property is stupid". Normally its the same people you see on the threads calling farangs stupid for marrying Thai ladies, when in fact they could only dream of it themselves. Sour grapes indeed !

First of all, the director of Phuket Palace is always intimidating and doing his best with disinformation to profit from the condo owners there, thus the signature " Jurassic person " on this document, This man is a complete criminal who needs to be dealt with.

Finally after reading through all this nonsense there is one other person who views the OP for what it really is, nothing more than an intimidating notice to its condo owners in a development that has been in constant battles over the years with its owners. I am truly amazed that a fake letter with absolutely no substance behind it can turn into a 13 page thread. The only "confusion" is that being generated by TV by posting this.

You do not need a WP to rent out accommodation in Thailand providing you have someone doing the work for you (i.e. handing over the keys, servicing the room), if anyone advises otherwise they are giving you false information, either because they have been misinformed themselves, or they are bitterly envious towards people who own condos as they will never own one themselves. However, the whole WP thing is completely irrelevant in the case of renting a condo under 30 days as it is illegal to do so, whether you have a WP or not.

As for future condo developments all you doomsayers will be disappointed to hear that provisions are already in place for this. As another poster recently mentioned a condo building can operate as a hotel by allocating a section of the project, this will all be put into place very early on and made clear upon the owner signing the sales agreement where owners agree from day one. There are condo developers now in Phuket who are actively selling with rules in place that stipulate the owner cannot rent out the the unit themselves, therefore eliminating the potential problems with owners selling on AirBnb and the likes. One condo developer even has a rule in place that should you place your condo in the rental pool there is a compulsory cleaning fee to pay, this is during the actual owners usage days that they are allocated as part of being in the rental pool, along with the rule of not allowing owners to rent their condos out themselves this is a great idea and a step in the right direction.

Here's some truth for you:-

Once your lawyer submits the divorce document to the court you then get a court date which will be a minimum of 45 days after the submission. This date will be for a negotiation hearing where the judge will sit between the two parties and try to get a satisfactory compromise without going for a full court hearing. If they are unable to compromise then the court will set a date for a full court hearing where the judge will hear both lots of pleas and evidence and the judge will come to a decision based on that, which both parties will have to adhere to.

This does not take years as one poster said but three months or so depending on how soon after the 45 days you want your first hearing.

The person who initiates the divorce has to pay the court fee's which works out at 2% of the 50% of the assets up to a maximum of 200,000 baht. So if the assets come to 5,000,000 baht then 50/50% is 2,500,000 baht and 2% of that is 50,000 baht which if the divorce goes to the full hearing then this has to be paid but if it is sorted out at the negotiation hearing then the court returns 70% of this to the person which means that the person only pays 15,000 baht for the court fees.

A bit of an incentive to sort things out early I guess.

The Thai law is 50/50% of assets acquired after and during the marriage but of course this is not cut and dried and depends on individual circumstances, for instance if there has been adultery, or abuse of some form, or abandonment etc. from either party, but if your conscience is clear on all these matters then you have a good chance of a successful result. The court is not concerned with what is on the title deeds and theoretically it doesn't even matter if the wife bought the property with her own money because if they were married at the time then it is shared assets, however obviously it is better for the farang if he can prove that the money came from him in the first place.

The most important thing is making sure you have a GOOD lawyer representing you.

Its not all doom and gloom as people want to make out on here and the Thai justice system is fair to both parties so long as you do your homework get a good case and have it presented properly.

HL

Good post and very well explained. I'm sure the trollers on here will continue to disagree with you and claim you are drunk, have no idea, never visited Thailand, etc, etc.

Back to the OP, if the property was initially purchased in the wife's name and then transferred to the mother without his knowledge he does have a slim chance. The wife will claim the property was gifted to the mother and he will need to prove otherwise, if it was the wife who instigated the divorce this may show some of guilt towards the wife.

If the funds where transferred to the mother and the property was purchased in the mothers name, the wife has pulled a clever scam, it will almost certainly be seen as a gift to the mother, wife can easily claim it was a sin sod.

It is also possible that the OP is not telling the truth and knowingly bought a house for the mother in law, and now things have gone bad he is merely looking to see if there is any chance he can get some of his "investment" back.

I have only ever read about 1 or 2 stories on this website where people have lost land/houses, and these stories had nothing to do with a divorce split. Every divorce case I have personally come across where the married couple acquired property during the marriage was split 50/50.

I purchased a house myself from a divorce case, an English guy who now teaches in Malaysia, the Thai wife who is also a teacher, both are still good friends who simply moved on in different directions. The judge ordered them to sell the house and split 50/50, the guy used his share to buy an apartment and visits Thailand regularly, the wife did the same and bought a condo for herself. A close friend of mine also had a very similar case.

These examples I can confidently say are from direct experiences, not stories that I heard on TV or gossip from neighbours.

So back to the OP's question, if the house/land was put into the name of the mother in law prior to the divorce he can wave goodbye to it.

Also the theory about the wife selling the house for peanuts to a family member to avoid paying the husband is a load of rubbish, either person can ask the court to block a sale if they deem it for a good reason.

Just out of curiosity, how many posters here have actually been in that position personally rather than just talking about it?

I know plenty of foreigners in Thailand who lost courts their cases...They Lost houses land buildings cars hotels etc...They still had to pay court fees,lawyers...

Thai law is not back them up much.. Even some persons house got stolen by some fake real estate agent and resold to the loan sharks they lost their houses and court cases .Every village has some of these incidents.We all know people like that ...Why are u asking?

Possibly because most TV members (such as the OP) would prefer to hear from people with real past experiences in the subject, and not from people who merely claim to know someone.

The reality is these people who claim to know such people are simply lying and making it up, especially the ones who say they know dozens.

If you claim to know of 1 or 2 instances people may believe you, if you say you know of 30 people you are clearly lying and therefore contributing nothing to the thread.

Hahah well yes I was warned that if they know English very well to be wary.

Well you learn something everyday, so if a Thai lady speaks good English she's a bar girl. I will have to remember that if I ever become single again.

I have had three Thai girl friends so far. One wanted me to pay for her son's school and I could see her "uncle" in the background while she got drunk and I was away and video chatting with her, one wanted me to buy her mother's farm, and another finally told me she was in debt to Thai mafia and if she diddnt pay up they would kill her. All times I simply moved on. Especially that last one, I actually made myself disappear very fast. I'm not to old, bald or fat. Marrying a Thai woman is not a good idea, doing business with one even worse. I know there are good ones out there, but I'm not a mind reader so I'll be a permenant renter with an escape hatch constantly prepared.

Did you actually meet any of these girlfriends ? Just wondering..

If Ian Vance's company had his wife as a Thai shareholder there is nothing illegal about this, the wife and mother of his children is hardly a nominee.

This thread is about the fraudulent activities involved in order to steal the property from the company, it's not about the actual company set up, which was totally legitimate.

All this nonsense he broke the law use nominee to try and get over law that no orang can own land so made his own grave It could happen to made but difference is I freely gave it all to my This wife in her name and 30+ years later she has not yet thrown me on rubbish. For 30+ years I've heard friends say I'm stupid and my reply is if you cant trust your wife dont marry. Happens west all time as well so stop moaning. So many posts bitter men who had no brain except one between their legs. Pathetic people IMO. And yes if you dont like it here please leave we wont need or want you.

Or you were lucky........ Plenty of farangs left broke by an evil

Thai wife. But I guess those guys are lucky, at least they are

still alive..

It still amazes me to see people referring to expat guys as "lucky" if they are in a relationship where their Thai wife has not left them broke or killed them, this has to be right up there as one of the most ridiculous statements to be made on TV.

In my 15 years of living in Thailand I have never met a farang who has been cheated by their wife. Now before anyone says I don't get out much this is not the case, I live and work in just about every tourist area in Thailand where there is a heavy expat presence, I have dozens of friends who are married to Thais, some still live in Thailand, some are back in their home countries, some living in neighboring counties such as Hong King, Singapore etc, they also have dozens of friends the same, I do all the sinful things such as frequenting girly bars where I am likely to meet farangs seeking the dream, yet I am still waiting to meet that "unlucky" farang guy.

Claiming a farang guy is "lucky" for not being scammed by his Thai wife is like saying a farang lady is lucky to go to Thailand on holiday without getting raped by a tuk tuk driver. Totally ridiculous and goes way beyond your typical stereotyping.

All this nonsense he broke the law use nominee to try and get over law that no orang can own land so made his own grave It could happen to made but difference is I freely gave it all to my This wife in her name and 30+ years later she has not yet thrown me on rubbish. For 30+ years I've heard friends say I'm stupid and my reply is if you cant trust your wife dont marry. Happens west all time as well so stop moaning. So many posts bitter men who had no brain except one between their legs. Pathetic people IMO. And yes if you dont like it here please leave we wont need or want you.

Or you were lucky........ Plenty of farangs left broke by an evil

Thai wife. But I guess those guys are lucky, at least they are

still alive..

It is worth remembering that it's not just in Thailand that wives take their husbands to the cleaners.

In New Zealand, a poor Philipino girl married a mega millionaire and had children with him ( sounding similar to what goes on in LOS ), but when it started to go bad for him she ran off and is demanding 20 million $ from his estate ( under NZ law a wife is entitled to half the husband's money and the marital house if they have young children, even if she did NOTHING to make it, and only been married a few years ). Not bad money for a poor girl with nothing except good bone structure ( of course she claims that she isn't a gold digger ). If interested, google Kim Dot Com.

In NZ law she is entitled to 50% of his assets and that is the case in many other countries.

As is also the case in Thailand under existing marriage laws. Any assets acquired after marriage is shared 50/50 between both partners upon separation. I'm not sure if cash in the bank counts towards assets in Thailand (unless of course it's a joint account).