Owner all of the sudden unwilling to return deposit

[DKNY77]

On 9/24/2016 at 3:12 PM, manfredtillmann said:

man, remember where you live now. this is THAILAND!

lease conditions, lawyer? you are writing about loosing a few thousand bath... just walk away, learn,  and start again.

'''you are writing about loosing a few thousand bath... just walk away, learn,  and start again.''

It's that kind of cowardly attitude  that cause thai to  try ti get away with not returning peoples deposits. The more idiots that cower down and ''let it go and just walk away'' the more thais try to pull this crap. Maybe in this situation there is speculation, but I've read about too many ex-pat cowards to afraid to take action and retrieve THEIR  own money..

[madusa]

On 20/09/2016 at 10:45 AM, blackcab said:

Read your contract. In most cases, if the tenant does not complete the minimum period specified in the contract the tenant agrees to forfeit their deposit.

Yes,that's right.  Sometimes you will find the guy who rent you the property is not the owner he is just an agent and make some profit from the owner. If you leave before the contract expire he will lose money.

The owners are rich people who just don't have time to deal with the tenants because there are always small little things that are annoying. Repairs, noise, next door neighbours giving problems, etc., 1001 problems to deal with. Middle of the lunch he receive a call about a water pipe burst, no, the owners rahter let the agent make some money for easy life for themselves.

[boykieboy]

Hi Ronmnk

I have had a similar problem. The lease had expired and I was on a month to month basis ,it was mutual for both parties .When I eventually gave notice ,I redecorated the place had professional cleaners  come in to clean, I even had a tenant move  in after me ,who is still there today three years later and he still would not return the deposit . I learnt a lesson  about Thai landlords

[manfredtillmann]

4 hours ago, DKNY77 said:

'''you are writing about loosing a few thousand bath... just walk away, learn,  and start again.''

It's that kind of cowardly attitude  that cause thai to  try ti get away with not returning peoples deposits. The more idiots that cower down and ''let it go and just walk away'' the more thais try to pull this crap. Maybe in this situation there is speculation, but I've read about too many ex-pat cowards to afraid to take action and retrieve THEIR  own money..

i just know from experience WHEN it's worth to fight and when it's not.

what's it got to do with cowardice if you know it is not worth spending $100 to save $10?

[Steiner]

Quote

Now over two months later, he still hasn't returned the deposit and all of the sudden says that he handed over the whole thing to a lawyer, because the agent doesn't want to return part of his commission, which he supposedly have to, because I moved out earlier. He said he will just let a lawyer deal with it.. and I'm sensing that she's either just incredibly slow with everything or she's trying to keep the deposit.

 

I'm obviously aware that it's a common issue in Thailand. What's the best way to handle it? Threaten with a lawyer? Hire a lawyer? Not worth it and just accept the loss? Deposit is roughly 50.000 Baht.

 

Why did your agent not deal with this? If you have a real agent from a real company then they should have been the go between in this. 
If you rented from 'some guy/girl freelancer, then you can't expect much help.

If you went directly to the owner, why would you do that if you had an agent? I see more trouble from people doing this, owners will try to mess tenants around in a way they wouldn't do with a company.

A company would have had an agreement on paper and both parties would have signed it, not some mythical agreement, that is as much use as the 'rolling contract' which people seem to believe is actually a thing.

Contracts have a start and end date, it's really pretty black and white.

The agent wouldn't have to return anything after the 3rd month anyway, owner is lying to you and in typical Thai style, they are trying to blame someone else.
Whether it's with a lawyer or not, and even if there was to be a percentage returned it would be tiny: 25k / 12 x 2 =4,167 baht.  Tell the owner you will cover that and he can return the rest to you, that will expose his BS.

[Steiner]

7 hours ago, madusa said:

Yes,that's right.  Sometimes you will find the guy who rent you the property is not the owner he is just an agent and make some profit from the owner. If you leave before the contract expire he will lose money.

The owners are rich people who just don't have time to deal with the tenants because there are always small little things that are annoying. Repairs, noise, next door neighbours giving problems, etc., 1001 problems to deal with. Middle of the lunch he receive a call about a water pipe burst, no, the owners rahter let the agent make some money for easy life for themselves.

 

What a load of BS, an agent can't authorise what is required for a condo tenancy, owner will use an agent to rent the place, that's it, what you describe is pure nonsense.

[Steiner]

On 9/24/2016 at 10:24 PM, blackcab said:

In Thailand lease contracts heavily favour the lessor. A standard Thai lease contract contains a clause that basically says the lessor can terminate the lease at any time, for any reason, and keep the deposit.

 

 

What a load!

I've never seen a contract like that, terminations for both sides must have a reason, if I ever encountered some old Thai Chinese with a contract like that (and I haven't even seen one of those old crows with such a ridiculous piece of paper) I would laugh at them.
 

You need to read that nonsense back to yourself out loud, you are actually saying that there are contracts that allow an owner to rent you a room on Monday and chuck you out on Tuesday with no deposit.

[Steiner]

On 9/26/2016 at 3:17 PM, williamgeorgeallen said:

try to go for 3 or 6 month leases and barter down to a lower deposit. assume  you are going to loose the deposit when you leave.  

Good luck with that, what agent would touch a 3 month lease, not worth leaving home for.
What owner would reduce their deposit unless they were desperate to rent the place, meaning they had a bad name or it was a bit of a dump.

The only people that get ripped of are dumb people who don't use real companies.  I've rented well into 4 figures of condos in this city and never had a deposit not returned without there being substantial damage to the property.
If you work with fools and amateurs what do you think will happen.
Mobile phone, no office, has 'other jobs'  Jesus would people actually rent from someone like that in the west and then be surprised when they were done over!

 

 

Quote

must have been a nice place to put down 50 000thb. quite a bit of money in thailand 

That would be a 25 k condo, that's a lot of money in Bkk!?!

[williamgeorgeallen]

5 minutes ago, Steiner said:

Good luck with that, what agent would touch a 3 month lease, not worth leaving home for.
What owner would reduce their deposit unless they were desperate to rent the place, meaning they had a bad name or it was a bit of a dump.

The only people that get ripped of are dumb people who don't use real companies.  I've rented well into 4 figures of condos in this city and never had a deposit not returned without there being substantial damage to the property.
If you work with fools and amateurs what do you think will happen.
Mobile phone, no office, has 'other jobs'  Jesus would people actually rent from someone like that in the west and then be surprised when they were done over!

 

 

That would be a 25 k condo, that's a lot of money in Bkk!?!

actually i dont have a lot of first hand experience with renting as up until recently i have owned my own place in pattaya but i have many friends who have rented and some have had problems with deposits. you are right dealing with an agent is less risky but more expensive. bangkok is a very different market to pattaya. there are literally hundreds of vacant houses in pattaya. cant get them for 3 months unless you drive around and contact the owner direct. there are so many vacant there is room to bargain. i am back to pattaya next month and i think i have already got a house for 2 months with 5000thb deposit on power and water.

[blackcab]

30 minutes ago, Steiner said:

 

What a load!

I've never seen a contract like that, terminations for both sides must have a reason, if I ever encountered some old Thai Chinese with a contract like that (and I haven't even seen one of those old crows with such a ridiculous piece of paper) I would laugh at them.
 

You need to read that nonsense back to yourself out loud, you are actually saying that there are contracts that allow an owner to rent you a room on Monday and chuck you out on Tuesday with no deposit.

 

I've seen such contracts. The contract our company uses is a little less restrictive in that the tenant has to break the contract before we can evict them.

 

There are lots of times (in fact most of the time) the tenant breaks the contract and we do not evict them. People playing loud music, having a blazing row or leaving shoes in the hallway don't get evicted. Instead the building manager has a polite chat with them.

 

A few months ago the police turned up because we had a drug dealer living and dealing drugs on the premises, and half his landing tested positive for yaba. They all were shown the door on their release from the police station. Even then we gave them their deposits back.

[NickJ]

Years ago I had a friend who was going through a similar situation. He knew he would not get his deposit back. He was set on leaving the country.  This guy was pretty smart and also devious. He sabotaged the entire house.  Plumbing, electric and the structure.  He rewired stuff. Messed with drains. Spent considerable effort on this. The place was rigged to fall apart. 

[blackcab]

2 hours ago, NickJ said:

The place was rigged to fall apart. 

 

Yes, that's how they build them nowadays.

[greenchair]

On 24/9/2016 at 2:49 PM, ronmnk said:

Definitely was a problem with building quality. Heard that several other apartments had issues like me as well during that time and the owner also said that exactly the same thing happened last year during rainy season.

 

The lease also states that the owner is responsible for keeping the apartment inhabitable.. which he didn't do. Asked them for several weeks to fix the problem, said that I'm having health problems due to the mold, nothing happened. I asked if we can terminate early since the lease would run two months later anyways, he agreed to it.

 

Now he all of the sudden goes back on his word and doesn't want to return the deposit.

 

Really no chance to get the deposit back? Even with a lawyer?

I think you could pay a lawyer around 10000 baht for this case as it is not complicated. That's 40000 in your pocket. You did ask him to fix it. You were getting sick. 

A doctor's certificate saying you are alergic to mould should be easy to get. Maybe you were having a bout of asthma during that time because of the mould.