Tenant leaves country owing rent and bills

[dario713]

 Tennant leaves my wife's house rental in Thailand with 2 months' rent and utility bills arrears and skips the country. He will not answer any phone calls or messages. He leaves many of his possessions.What can the landlord do with his possessions?. Can he legally take the possession or can he dump everything in the rubbish? She would like to rent the house again as soon as possible and wants to clear the house.Any advice would be great from anybody who has experienced the same situation 

[happy me]

What does the rental document say?

 

[Celsius]

2 minutes ago, happy me said:

What does the rental document say?

 

 

What does it matter if he left the country?

 

Wife should just bin everything. If there is a PS5 keep it.

[Hummin]

Left the keys? Deposit? 

 

Clear the flat, keep the belongings in boxes for awhile, clean and rent out. Send the bill on e-mail, sms keep copies

[JeffersLos]

17 minutes ago, dario713 said:

What can the landlord do with his possessions?

 

Keep them for himself.

 

 

Or maybe make a tom yum het. 

[simon43]

1 minute ago, JeffersLos said:

 

Keep them for himself.

 

 

Or maybe make a tom yum het. 

I thought those were triffids!

[JBChiangRai]

Realistically, you have no chance of recovering money from someone overseas.

 

There are 2 ways of looking at what you do with his possessions.  Firstly, following the law, I'm not 100% sure what that is and the 2nd way is the practical way, which is what I recommend.

 

Clean the apartment and relet it. Keep any of his possessions you want and dispose of the rest.

 

If he ever gets in touch, do not give any details of what you have done in writing.  Your position is he left nothing in there, he owes you rent, cleaning fee and utilities (which you can justify), if it gets legal with police or lawyers (which I very doubt) you state nothing was left and ask for your money.

 

I suspect you will never hear from him again, learn from this, always take 2 months deposit and get right on it when they are late with rent. Trust your instinct on tenants.

[Patong2021]

Unless you are certain tenant has left, there is potential for a legit reason  tenant  is gone: in hospital, in detention, dead or otherwise incapacitated. If you have reported the absence, undertake a formal eviction.  The lease will set out the terms like 5 days grace period to pay, eviction after 15 days past rent due date. You are still obliged by law to give notice to the tenant's contact location. In the meantime, you are usually allowed to cut the electricity and the water.