Help with break lease please.

[Jabber33]

Hello, here is the situation. 

 

Have been in Thailand for five months and have been happy with my lease/landlord. No problems until now. Over the holidays our client did not submit invoices and this delayed our pay. This has never happened, I explained this to the landlord on January 1st who said we would have to pay by the 15th or be out. We agreed. On the 15th the payment still has not come through. We messaged the owner apologetically and informed her we had vacated and cleaned the apartment. We also informed her that we would unquestioningly forfeit our deposit as we felt awful. We paid our water bill but do not have a current electricity bill.  In our minds this was done as per her previous message. She messaged us today and said "no this will it do. You pay half rent now, and pay fines and we keep your deposit."

 

I am not going to pay the fines as they are not stipulated in our lease. My concern is more of what she can do from here in terms of immigration?  We vacated for nonpayment after two weeks. We left it clean. We forfeited a months rent of our deposit.

 

Does she have any recourse?

 

I know this is a s**t situation and we feel awful. We tried to communicate and be upfront but...alas....what are your thoughts?

[baansgr]

You forefit the deposit for breaking the lease, however you do owe two weeks rent...also, although you left it clean, the landlord will probably pay a cleaner anyway. A fair solution is to pay the electricity on her presenting you the bill and two weeks rent.

Its unlikely she would take the matter any further and is an idle threat about itimmigration

[smutcakes]

Legally speaking you owe the money up until the end of the lease, forfeiting the deposit does not mean you are off the hook, most landlords however would not bother taking it further and chasing up the unpaid rent until the end of your lease as its more hassle than its worth.

 

Its a misconception that forfeiting the deposit is a means of legally breaking a lease. If this was the case there would be no point having a lease term more than the deposit is for, as essentially you would have an any time break clause for the deposit amount.

 

Eg. You sign a 1 year lease with 3 months deposit.

You leave after 3 months and forfeit the deposit.

Legally you still owe the monies until the end of the 1 year lease.

However, in most cases its more hassle than its worth to the landlord in pursuing it.

 

If you could leave legally by forfeiting the 3 months deposit you may as well just sign 3 month rolling lease agreements.

[jimn]

Surely it would have been better to contact the landlady and explained that you would need more time to pay. At that point she would have accepted or told you what she expected from you. So now you have vacated the premises but you need to stay somewhere, how are you going to pay for that? Surely money cant be that tight and you are living over here month to month based on expectation of money coming in? 

I am a bit confused, but best of luck going forward.

[Max69xl]

Are you saying you couldn't afford paying 1 month rent just because you didn't get paid from your client? Don't you have any money stashed away for a rainy day? 

[ChouDoufu]

does he really lose the deposit and owe rent beyond the middle of the month?

 

op asked for more time, landlord said pay or get out.

 

he didn't break the lease...........the landlord did.

[khunPer]

On 1/15/2020 at 7:24 AM, Jabber33 said:

Does she have any recourse?

Legally you landlord would need to take it to a lawyer, and after a lawyer has contacted you by letter and if not solves, the lawyer could take the case to the court. It's a question of contract text and notice for leaving, what you might own the landlord.

 

Without a court order – or police order – immigration should not act; but I've also heard about the threat, and I believe it could happen when someone checks out of a hotel without paying, and police is called to handle it as a criminal case.

 

In this case your landlord has a deposit, and you did give a notice, so I don't see it could be a criminal case for the police.

[thailand49]

"This is Thailand right"

 

In the real world you do own the two weeks you stay prior to finding out the money wasn't coming due to your client. Things happen but living day to day with no saving that is another issue you might consider trying to address in the future.

In the real world, landlords can do two things " <deleted> happens " or put it on your credit report as a former landlord and building manager this is not worth the time and money.

In the real world, deposit can't be use towards rent unless agree by both parties rent and how you left the property are two separate issue therefore in the real world if it was me I would remind you of the two weeks and remind you of the deposit and if you are reasonable would say?  depending on the sum of the deposit versus the 2 weeks tell the landlord keep it that is all we have if greater say this is the rent per day 14 days equal so and so you have my authorization to use portion of deposit to cover those 14 days and return the balance to us.

 

If you cop an attitude I shock it to you other wise have a good life. Since this isn't the real world and it is Thailand?

 

Most likely she isn't declaring the income but smart enough to know time is money and hiring a lawyer and going to court is just a waste of time and money. There is a saying with us good owners and manager " just because you got money to buy property doesn't mean you should own and run one "  You did the best you could I wouldn't worry a whole lot about immigration!  But I would worry about living day to day.

 

 

[DaRoadrunner]

As I understand it, the law on rentals changed last May to allow a tenant to break a lease with 30 days notice providing they had a genuine reason (which you appear to have). The law was changed to prevent Landlords abusing Tenants.

 

You should also read your contract and see where you stand there.

 

As for reporting you to Immigration:- Renting a property is not an Immigration matter.

Edited January 17, 2020 by DaRoadrunner

[ChaiyaTH]

I have left plenty of places without finishing my lease, knowing to lose 2 months deposit. Never any issue. 

[Max69xl]

2 hours ago, ChaiyaTH said:

I have left plenty of places without finishing my lease, knowing to lose 2 months deposit. Never any issue. 

It can't be a very good deal if you lose 2 months deposit all the time.

[Captain 776]

Immigration is not going to do ANYTHING.........they won’t get involved in a civil case, nor will police.............

[Old Croc]

What are you doing in Thailand, and signing long term leases, with no money and just an unreliable source of income?  (legal?)

 

You have just this one post on the forum asking for advice on how to escape your debt to the landlady! Where are you going to stay now and do you plan to pay?

[steven100]

Imagine if many of the tenants were doing similar to you ..... how is a landlord suppose to run a business when tenants are doing the ' sorry, i didn't get paid '  routine. 

 

Do yourself a favor ....  go back home until you've saved enough for a rainy day.

[smutcakes]

11 hours ago, ChouDoufu said:

does he really lose the deposit and owe rent beyond the middle of the month?

 

op asked for more time, landlord said pay or get out.

 

he didn't break the lease...........the landlord did.

To be fair it seems like a pretty informal affair. If however you have a 1 year lease and you leave after month 2, then you would lose your deposit and still be on the hook for the 10 months legally speaking. (unless you have a break clause or other get out clause)

[Max69xl]

5 hours ago, Captain 776 said:

Immigration is not going to do ANYTHING.........they won’t get involved in a civil case, nor will police.............

Exactly, especially when there's a deposit which is hers if he doesn't pay the rent before leaving.

[ChaiyaTH]

16 hours ago, Max69xl said:

It can't be a very good deal if you lose 2 months deposit all the time.

No issue at all, the rents are cheap anyway compared to monthly based rents and it was often at 7-8 months or so. 
Neither feel sorry for the landlords, they were super rich already. They didn't complain about it too.

[SteveK]

Many years ago I rented an apartment in suburban Bangkok for just over 5000 a month, at a time when renting a similar flat in London would have cost £800-1000 or even more. The rent on the Bangkok flat was less than the council tax on the flat in London, hence when I left I couldn't have cared less about the deposit, the landlady seemed hell-bent on keeping it anyway, so didn't even bother to pursue it. I had never anticipated getting it back and had factored it in to the cost.

 

the whole point of the deposit is so that if there's a dispute the landlord can keep it to cover any losses. Unless you burn the property down it's a civil matter, police and immigration won't be interested.

Edited January 18, 2020 by SteveK