My wife's friend has been married to a German guy and living in Germany for about 5 years. Apparently they came back to Thailand several months ago to open a jewelry shop. She (the abandoned wife) suspects that her husband ran off with one of the young employees. He left her a note saying he was leaving her and took everything with him and left her holding the rented house, rented shop and a car bought on payments in her name. He also took the bank book and her Thai passport.

Now there's probably more to this story than I'm getting but it does seem rather rotten to just dump her like that if that's whats happened. I'm assuming that she has some legal rights since she is still married to him under German law.

My guess is that he does have some legal responsability here and if he were to be reminded of them he may decide to do the right thing. My question is how she can go about getting what she deserves. Should she be contacting a lawyer in Germany to remind him? What do you think?

One thing I'd suggest is don't get involved in other peoples domestic problems.

It however does sound rotten, so she certainly should take some legal advice here in Thailand first and try to establish what her rights under German law are as well.

Depends on where they are now resident. There are Euro lawyers who will work on commission to strip farang of all their loot, her friends back in Germany will know. If he has no fixed assets or proper job in Germany unlilkely many lawyers will take it on.

The only leverage she would really have is if the guy wants to get divorced fast in a Thai court to marry the new woman to take her back to Germany.

If he has taken her passport the Thai police will doubtless rush in to help.

I find that all "stories" about some "friend" are very suspicious and in most of the cases in many parts "untrue", not to tell trolling!

And comments like this: ""That's what you get for marrying Germans"" from slackula are racistic!

Cheers.

I always wait to hear both sides before I presume to judge.