On 1/16/2020 at 11:41 PM, Scouse123 said:

I think the majority using these ' agents ' can not fulfill the legal financial or medical or other requirements for extensions. That's why they use agents and then Immigration gets their pound of flesh. If you are open, above board and legal, an agent is usually not needed but you have to jump through some hoops.

 

From my understanding ( I haven't lived in Pattaya for 14 years now) Jomtien is particularly hard nosed enforcing regulations, sometimes legal but usually their own interpretations of the law to push you to an agent, especially using any means of an excuse, such as work permits for a foreigner renting out his condo, or the Thai owner of a condo won't do what is required for immigration etc etc.

You are absolutely right! The funny part here, is that all this fall on the one making an extension to fix. We only rent a place and have a contract. We report our address when applying for an extension. How can we be responsible for that a condo owner shall have a WP or whatever they must have? That is entirely something that should be up to immigration or other authorities to take up with and deal with the condo owners about. It´s not our problem. We just rent.

3 hours ago, Matzzon said:

You are absolutely right! The funny part here, is that all this fall on the one making an extension to fix. We only rent a place and have a contract. We report our address when applying for an extension. How can we be responsible for that a condo owner shall have a WP or whatever they must have? That is entirely something that should be up to immigration or other authorities to take up with and deal with the condo owners about. It´s not our problem. We just rent.

You are correct when it comes to the question who's responsible for this and that when renting a condo. It shouldn't be the tenant. The problem is that several owners don't have a clue (or maybe don't even care) about rules and regulations when putting up a condo for rent. You're not allowed to do that as a retiree on a Non-O or Non-O-A Visa. That's why they need a wp.This is not something new. Many owners don't want to use an agent because they don't want to pay 10% of the rent every month. On top op that, they don't check out what they can or can't do. How hard can it be to ask some questions before putting up a condo for rent? Because of this several foreigners have problems with immigration. Blame the owner, not immigration. Normally it's smoother (and safer) using a real estate agent. 

1 hour ago, Max69xl said:

You are correct when it comes to the question who's responsible for this and that when renting a condo. It shouldn't be the tenant. The problem is that several owners don't have a clue (or maybe don't even care) about rules and regulations when putting up a condo for rent. You're not allowed to do that as a retiree on a Non-O or Non-O-A Visa. That's why they need a wp.This is not something new. Many owners don't want to use an agent because they don't want to pay 10% of the rent every month. On top op that, they don't check out what they can or can't do. How hard can it be to ask some questions before putting up a condo for rent? Because of this several foreigners have problems with immigration. Blame the owner, not immigration. Normally it's smoother (and safer) using a real estate agent. 

As a tenant it never occurred to me that you cannot legitimately rent directly from a foreign owner who doesn't have a work permit. And although I didn't know this it was also an unknown unknown so it never occurred to me to ask...

 

Just now, britishjohn said:

As a tenant it never occurred to me that you cannot legitimately rent directly from a foreign owner who doesn't have a work permit. And although I didn't know this it was also an unknown unknown so it never occurred to me to ask...

 

I direct rent from a foreigner, what is the issue ?

Out of curiousity did you rent direct from the Hong kong owner or via a management company? I would think the mgt company info should satisfy this.

You dont need a work permit to buy a condo as a foreigner, unless that is the type of visa they are on I suppose.

22 minutes ago, WalkingOrders said:

Out of curiousity did you rent direct from the Hong kong owner or via a management company? I would think the mgt company info should satisfy this.

Go back to page 1 or 2 and you will find an answer to that question.

On 1/18/2020 at 1:07 PM, britishjohn said:

As a tenant it never occurred to me that you cannot legitimately rent directly from a foreign owner who doesn't have a work permit. And although I didn't know this it was also an unknown unknown so it never occurred to me to ask...

 

If you rent a condo from a foreigner who doesn't work here, you basically rent from a tourist. I was in almost same situation 2 years ago. I was about to change condo,but the owner didn't have the papers needed to make immigration happy. He went to a real estate agency and through them it was ok.