What is normal wear and tear?

[SbuxPlease]

Well, it finally happened - after a lot of years of renting places in Thailand for myself, my growing harem (lol), and my businesses, I have come across a landlord who is going to be difficult about returning my deposit money.

 

This case involves a shop-house in Bangkok. I've had a business in there for 2 years with just a couple staff. As soon as I notified the landlord that I wouldn't renew he's gone bonkers looking for every satang.

 

My question is about normal wear and tear. It's subjective but in my home country there's a lot of case law and it's easy to understand what is probably included. What about Thailand? Has anybody put together a guide that might explain what this is, and is it de-facto included in any lease agreement?

 

• The white walls have gained a few scuffs here and there over 2 years that don't wipe away (it's crappy paint) - landlord wants us to repaint the whole wall (in this case, all of them?!!?)
• There were no internet lines in this shophouse at move in - I paid a professional installer to put CAT6e + RJ45 into each room and they are installed nicely with no holes or gaps. Landlord wants me to tear it out and repair the hole, paint the wall. Seems like installing internet would be a normal activity, this request is wild.
• The landlord hired a contractor to repair a broken gate, and somehow in that process a part for the gate went missing. We've never been able to use the gate because it's been broken for most of the 2 years. The landlord decided I should pay to fix the gate before we leave.

 

Meanwhile the ceiling in another part of the building got moldy and rotted out during this past rainy season, and cracks have appeared in every wall due to settling.

 

My Thai admin is handling the conversations and I'm trying to handle our responses in a very diplomatic and understanding way, but it's absurd how much is being asked for. I think aside from the known changes that we'll fix, this other stuff is landlord's problem.

 

 

 

[richard_smith237]

To place this in perspective... How much deposit is he holding ?

 

And can you hold back the last months rent to offset the loss?

 

Would it be cheaper to replace things than do walk and lose the deposit ?

 

If you repair things, will he try and keep the deposit anyway, thus any repairs may not see your fill deposit returned anyway ?

 

 

 

[OneMoreFarang]

Whatever the law is and what other people say, what will you do or can you do if he doesn't return the full deposit?

Do you want to go to court and spend time and money so that maybe after a year you get 1 month returned? 

[richard_smith237]

3 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Whatever the law is and what other people say, what will you do or can you do if he doesn't return the full deposit?

Do you want to go to court and spend time and money so that maybe after a year you get 1 month returned? 

 

 

Exactly...  I'd see this as a loss limitation exercise. 

 

As the landlord is being unreasonable, I don't see any issue with being unreasonable in return. 

Do not pay the last months rent - (delay as much as possible etc)...   

 

But that depends on how much deposit there is if its 200,000 baht its different than if its 30,000 baht. 

 

 

[SbuxPlease]

28 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

To place this in perspective... How much deposit is he holding ?

 

And can you hold back the last months rent to offset the loss?

 

Would it be cheaper to replace things than do walk and lose the deposit ?

 

If you repair things, will he try and keep the deposit anyway, thus any repairs may not see your fill deposit returned anyway ?

 

 

 

 

 

He's holding a 100k deposit. I have not paid December's rent yet (50k), and am thinking about not sending it but that runs the risk of things escalating too.

 

It's really tough to know what happens next when people start getting weird like this. Maybe I pay to refurbish his place and he still never returns the deposit, which I now fear given this behavior.

 

I absolutely don't want to go to court over 50k or 100k, but I'm willing to work on it for a bit. I've been through some other things with lawyers in Thailand and it's easy to start spending 10k, 20k, 30k fighting this kind of thing with no resolution.

 

Are there any (true) stories of farangs challenging landlords about security deposits in Thailand and winning? There is a lot of hearsay and assumptions out there but I've not heard any up to date information on the facts. In my limited interactions with court officials, they are actually quite fair to foreigners and don't want a bad reputation for the country.