Rent A House

[binnsy]

Who is responseable for the upkeep of a rented house?

Was going to move into a house but the owner wants me to pay 20000 baht to paint the interior and fit new shower unit.However I think that it should be down to them to maintain the property.Is this the case?

No contract has been signed.

[Caliguy]

It is up to the owner to maintain the property. Find another place for rent. You think the 20,000 baht would be the end of it?

[shepsel]

What I have found that "what you see is what you get". The owner has no forsight to maintain the property and any repairs, modifications and upkeep are up to the tenant unless a prior agreement is reached. Unfortunately most property owners here don't realize that if their property shows pristinely they are most likely to get top price for a rental or sale, and rent or sell the property quicker than if it is in disrepair.

[nocturn]

tough call on this.

12 years ago i put 100,000 thb towards the refurbishment of a house i was to occupy. The house had basically been destroyed by a gay american doctor who was working at a nearby hospital and the toy boys he left the house to when he moved out under a bit of a cloud with a full paid year on the rent. they had dogs, parties etc and basically stole everything that was not tied down before leaving in the middle of the night at the end of their free year.

All hardwood needed redoing, the whole place had to be painted. windows had been broken. Bathrooms need to be almost completely redone. Arson seemed the only way to get the place clean. The whole place needed a new roof, and all the teak windows, doors etc needed refinishing. the place was a disaster.

I was already a tenant in one of their neighboring apartments and the landlord let me stay on rent free after i paid my 100k until the house was ready, abt 2 months. The agreement was i help refurb and i receive no rent increases. I basically oversaw the work.

I cover all basic maintenance, though things like roofing repairs, due to a couple wayward coconut tree hitting the roof in a large windstorm and removing a significant number of tiles, were covered by the landlord. The tree, a 3 story plus palm had to be very carefully felled as his expense as well.

I however have replaced 2 ACs in that 12 years.

My rent for a 2 bedroom house about 300 sq meters with garden on lower sukhummvit remains to this day 15,000 THB. that 100k was probably the best money i ever spent in terms of good will. The landlord is very happy to have me and my daughter in the house, and we are happy to be here, well located with lots of our own space. We have a chat every month when he comes to collect the rent in person.

I mentally budget about another 5k per month for maintenance, though i have only rarely needed to spend anywhere near that, and maintenance generally take the form of improvements, like a bathtub etc.

will you be getting that kind of good will for your 20k? Is the property special enough to merit you shelling out? In my case the answer was yes, if , in your case, the answer is no, move on.

[dave111223]

Was going to move into a house but the owner wants me to pay 20000 baht to paint the interior and fit new shower unit

Seems like a weird request?

Do you mean that you demanded new paint and shower units before you move it, and the owner says "Well you can pay for it then"?

Or they literally out of the blue demanded that you pay for this stuff or you cannot rent it?

[ludditeman]

What I have found that "what you see is what you get". The owner has no forsight to maintain the property and any repairs, modifications and upkeep are up to the tenant unless a prior agreement is reached. Unfortunately most property owners here don't realize that if their property shows pristinely they are most likely to get top price for a rental or sale, and rent or sell the property quicker than if it is in disrepair.

To add to this post

There appears to me to be two types of rentals, Thai rental, foreigner rental.

Thai rental

What you see, is what you get, you live there as long as you like with no rent increases, and the landlords only duty is to collect the rent. You want anything changed or repaired, you do it yourself. You can't stand the state of the place anymore, you move out.

Foreigner rental

You pay twice as much as the Thai rental and get to pester the landlord for every little thing and repair, your rent is increased regularly.

Your landlord appears to be confused about the rules, it's a bad sign, rent somewhere else.

[pattayadingo]

Two seperate rents....

At the first house I rented the couple who owned it painted and decorated it throughout inside and out before I moved in. Any other problems like plumbing or electrics were also rectified. I stayed there for 2 years and they serviced the air con and fixed any problems quickly. I paid the massive sum of 3,000 Baht a month for that 3 bed house.

Current house rental He grumbled like crazy at putting in mosquito screens Will not decorate at all.

On the other hand he has had all 3 air con units fixed when there has been a problem, also an electrical problem.

He is and has been trying to sell the house and I believe that is why he refuses to spend much money on the place. That is also 3 bedrooms and is 8,000 a month.

Neither have asked for money for repairs or anything else except the rent.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Well, the answer is: It depends. If the rent is really cheap, and you want to make a change or improvement that the owner doesn't feel like doing, then it happens that the renter pays for it. (I don't know the area you want to rent, so impossible to say if 20,000 would be high or not; outside of Bangkok or Phuket or downtown Pattaya it'd be fairly high I'd say.)

My wife will rent out a house soon, and for sure she's going to make sure all the basic stuff is taken care of which definitely includes painting and making sure everything works properly. But you never know what a renter's requirements might be; they might want to put in a nice big bath tub for example.

While she'd be open to such a request, it would likely mean some discussion; either she puts it in and the rent goes up a little, or the renter pays for it, but some sort of discount would likely be offered. It all depends.

So in short, I don't think this question has a short, single answer.

Edited February 12, 2012 by WinnieTheKhwai