Renting to Chinese?- A heads Up

[Thailand]

Huge influx of Chinese in to ChiangMai, many of whom are putting their kids in to school here and for other reasons. They are renting property that at first sight seem to be too big for the family then it turns out they are sub letting rooms via the likes of AirBNB and in particular lesser known Chinese companies operating in the same way.

 

This information is first hand and confirmed from a number of Chinese friends here that are familiar with what is going on, and apparently it is very prevalent. Of course operating illegally but more to the point putting the house/property owner at risk, in a number of ways.

 

This is not an anti Chinese thread (many friends and relatives),simply they appear to be the main culprits at this moment in time.

 

If you are a landlord then just be aware.

 

[impulse]

Years ago, when I first moved to China I met several locals returning from owning failed hotel businesses in the USA.  Seems it's customary for expat Chinese to offer free lodging to family, friends and former neighbors from their villages.  They had so many freeloaders that they had to sell their hotels because they weren't able to make any money.

 

But, as in a lot of things related to the exchange of money, they're fast learners.

[mesquite]

Thanks for the heads up all

[Scott]

Troll post reported and removed.  

[KhonKaenKowboy]

They also rent rooms and share the keys with others.
 

Edited March 19, 2017 by KhonKaenKowboy

[Rimmer]

A troll post has been removed

[evenstevens]

What is wrong with sub letting etc etc???

most   landlords,  are so hard up here,  in C/mai,  largely due to a massive over supply ,    the savvy  ones,  could ,nt give a fluff about subletting etc etc that goes on , its all about having your peice of the action, rented out  365 days a year, otherwise your R.O.I. plummetts  to ????

its what u don,t see,,will never hurt you,  good afternoon to all

 

[KhonKaenKowboy]

They are by definition, operating illegal hotels.  It is not fairy to those, who have gone to great expense to be above board and pay their employees accordingly.  Illegal landlords are also cheating on the taxes they owe...Everyone does it, is never a good excuse to break the law.

[Thailand]

9 minutes ago, KhonKaenKowboy said:

They are by definition, operating illegal hotels.  It is not fairy to those, who have gone to great expense to be above board and pay their employees accordingly.  Illegal landlords are also cheating on the taxes they owe...Everyone does it, is never a good excuse to break the law.

Exactly,and I guess that sadly,  it comes as no surprise that on a TV thread providing information and is so short there have been 2 troll posts removed and one advocating breaking the law. 

[mamborobert]

26 minutes ago, evenstevens said:

What is wrong with sub letting etc etc???

most   landlords,  are so hard up here,  in C/mai,  largely due to a massive over supply ,    the savvy  ones,  could ,nt give a fluff about subletting etc etc that goes on , its all about having your peice of the action, rented out  365 days a year, otherwise your R.O.I. plummetts  to ????

its what u don,t see,,will never hurt you,  good afternoon to all

 

CM108 reported problems in an upmarket Moobahn earlier.  Cars and mini buses arriving all hours and parking and blocking the road and adjacent driveways, loud noise parties, karoake...this went on for weeks with a set of Chinese renting the house and then being defacto tour guides.  It was the Thai neighbours that eventually had a gutfull and called BIB and other relevent authorities.  Chinese insisted that all "guests" were only visiting extended family members and not staying there overnight.  Either way lease terminated and it closed down and the warning went out in the Moobahn (and CM108) similar to OP..  It was not exactly an Airbnb or single bedroom condo type sublet.  Neighbours made several complaints before actioned as owners in Bangkok.

[theguyfromanotherforum]

33 minutes ago, evenstevens said:

What is wrong with sub letting etc etc???

most   landlords,  are so hard up here,  in C/mai,  largely due to a massive over supply ,    the savvy  ones,  could ,nt give a fluff about subletting etc etc that goes on , its all about having your peice of the action, rented out  365 days a year, otherwise your R.O.I. plummetts  to ????

its what u don,t see,,will never hurt you,  good afternoon to all

 

 

It is not subletting.... it's being rented on AirBnB.

 

If I was the owner, I would rather have my room sit empty and have a horde of unknown people trash my room.

 

As a matter of fact, I would sue.

[mamborobert]

Similar event at Karnkanok six months ago, I thought I had seen a report in TV as well.

 

 

[Thailand]

31 minutes ago, mamborobert said:

Similar event at Karnkanok six months ago, I thought I had seen a report in TV as well.

 

 

 

[Wandr]

I was talking with some realtors recently, and they absolutely refuse to do business with Chinese nationals.

It is sad that a particular group has been singled out but people's perceptions are based on their experience. I guess the experience with Chinese nationals has not been that good - ranging from cleanliness to outright cheating as mentioned above.

[scottiejohn]

2 hours ago, theguyfromanotherforum said:

As a matter of fact, I would sue.

In CM or China?

[Greenside]

Any lease worth its salt should define who can occupy the property, prohibit subletting and the operation of a business of any kind without the express (written) permission of the lessor.  It's not just Chinese tenants who feel that it's OK to move their extended family into a rental, I have heard this sometimes happens with Thais and others too.  Other cultures may have a different view about renting and an agent or a landlord to let a property without specifying what they expect of a tenant is simply asking for trouble.

Edited March 19, 2017 by Greenside

[NancyL]

Yes, it definitely happens with Thais and others.  

 

At the end of our first year of retirement here, we considered renting a house.  I remember looking at one that was really too big for Hubby and me, but we had a nice tour from the daughter of the owner.  It was a newer house in a Thai-style family complex within the Old City.  Actually probably would have been pretty interesting living experience.  The daughter, who was studying English at CMU was stretched to use her English language skills to communicate with us, as were we with our YMCA/AUA Thai language training.  The house was much too big for us, but the rent they were asking wasn't really much outside our range. But, we gamely looked at the house and commented at how nice it looked.  The owner's daughter quizzed us about why were in Chiang Mai, if we had children, or friends, or anyone else who would live in the house.  No, we said just the two of us, never had children even after 40 years of marriage.  No car, or motorcylces, just song thaews.  And then suddenly, after a brief consultation with her mother, the rent decreased by half because "we look like nice people".   We hadn't brought up the subject of rental pricing.

 

In the end, we didn't rent the house, mainly because we would have had to spend too much, even with the lower rent, to install a couple aircon units and some kitchen appliances.  

 

I've been by later and seen a herd of motorcycles parked outside.  Probably have 10 Thai people or more renting because of the five bedrooms and great central location.

 

 

[cyberfarang]

Going through the Thai legal system it can take 4 years to evict a bad tenant. This happened to a friend. Tenant stopped paying rent and refused to leave. 3 court cases and thousands of bahts legal fees later, the bailiffs came in and threw out the tenants. First time bailiffs came, they could not enter because the tenant had 3 big dogs guarding the property. Next time the bailiffs had to bring in a police escort and were successful.   

 

My friend went through hell with those tenants and I know of similar cases. Renting; mugs game.

[dcnx]

13 hours ago, Wandr said:

I was talking with some realtors recently, and they absolutely refuse to do business with Chinese nationals.

It is sad that a particular group has been singled out but people's perceptions are based on their experience. I guess the experience with Chinese nationals has not been that good - ranging from cleanliness to outright cheating as mentioned above.

The Chinese have their own realtors here now. 

 

My GF is Chinese. She tells me all sorts of stuff they are doing here, including what the OP is talking about. It's just what they do.

[Dante99]

There have been several articles recently in the Thai press stating that many Thai owners refuse to rent to Chinese because there is a history of abuse and trashing properties.  A growing trend.

[siam2007]

17 hours ago, Wandr said:

I was talking with some realtors recently, and they absolutely refuse to do business with Chinese nationals.

It is sad that a particular group has been singled out but people's perceptions are based on their experience. I guess the experience with Chinese nationals has not been that good - ranging from cleanliness to outright cheating as mentioned above.

 

 

not surprising, as the entire Chinese-mainland-society and economy is based on cheating and little else.

 

I feel pity for the Millions of decent HongKongers, Taiwanese and Singaporeans who are now labelled the same way unjustifiably

[Trujillo]

Quote

Going through the Thai legal system it can take 4 years to evict a bad tenant.

Not in Samui. You don't pay, people will come (including the police) and physically throw you and your belongings out. Quick sticks, not years, not months. 

[junglechef]

15 hours ago, Greenside said:

Any lease worth its salt should define who can occupy the property, prohibit subletting and the operation of a business of any kind without the express (written) permission of the lessor.  It's not just Chinese tenants who feel that it's OK to move their extended family into a rental, I have heard this sometimes happens with Thais and others too.  Other cultures may have a different view about renting and an agent or a landlord to let a property without specifying what they expect of a tenant is simply asking for trouble.

It can go the other way too, a few years ago I rented a vacation house in Hua Hin from a Swede who lived in BKK. He wanted all the members of my nucleus family on the lease (myself, wife and our 3 kids) and said no one else was allowed to enter the property. It was a huge 5 bedroom house for 70,000 bht/mnth which we thought of inviting the MIL to visit if we wanted to for a few days or having our local friends over for a meal.

He said no so I said no deal but in the end his wife realized they would never rent it with those conditions so they accepted the revised lease I wrote up.

[Nowisee]

There's a lot that can be said about what the Chinese are doing regarding renting/buying in western cities...it is changing the real estate landscape for many, including forcing some people to move.  Times are a changing and its predominantly one culture doing it.   Reason #1 I don't own/rent out property. 

[jmd8800]

This is karma coming back to visit from half way around the world.

 

In Los Angeles I know several Thai families that have bought large square foot homes to live in and also to remodel and rent rooms to others. This violates zoning laws as usually these properties are in single family areas. Since the zoning is violated there can be no issuing of a building permit. No issue of a building permit... that cuts outs out any licensed / registered building contractor. Which in turn becomes construction not in compliance with building codes.

 

You know how the electric wires are run along the wall in Thailand? Same Same in these places. 3 wires for ground? Nope. In fact one room I looked at had used bulk wire that one would use for a lamp plug. No conduit or Romex wire here!! The list could go on but you get the idea.

 

Its all about enforcement because people are going to save (or cheat) money if they can. If the state/city etc have no means of enforcing the laws how can they do so?

 

This is also karma coming back to those in the west who bitch about government overreach and intrusion into citizen's lives and work to defund these government programs that would protect the property owners.

 

(I think it is time to put on my flame retardant suit.)

[WinnieTheKhwai]

4 hours ago, Nowisee said:

There's a lot that can be said about what the Chinese are doing regarding renting/buying in western cities...it is changing the real estate landscape for many, including forcing some people to move.  Times are a changing and its predominantly one culture doing it.   Reason #1 I don't own/rent out property. 

 

LOL, What?  :)  How is the former related to a reason for not owning/renting out property?

 

BTW I forced people to move just 2 months ago.  (And I'm not Chinese)  It's the way of things.

[Thailand]

2 hours ago, jmd8800 said:

This is karma coming back to visit from half way around the world.

 

In Los Angeles I know several Thai families that have bought large square foot homes to live in and also to remodel and rent rooms to others. This violates zoning laws as usually these properties are in single family areas. Since the zoning is violated there can be no issuing of a building permit. No issue of a building permit... that cuts outs out any licensed / registered building contractor. Which in turn becomes construction not in compliance with building codes.

 

You know how the electric wires are run along the wall in Thailand? Same Same in these places. 3 wires for ground? Nope. In fact one room I looked at had used bulk wire that one would use for a lamp plug. No conduit or Romex wire here!! The list could go on but you get the idea.

 

Its all about enforcement because people are going to save (or cheat) money if they can. If the state/city etc have no means of enforcing the laws how can they do so?

 

This is also karma coming back to those in the west who bitch about government overreach and intrusion into citizen's lives and work to defund these government programs that would protect the property owners.

 

(I think it is time to put on my flame retardant suit.)

[jobin]

Whether the Foreign Affairs Dept of the China govt or personal chinese interactions with folks unknown, the basic chinese life policy is simply 'lie and deny, lie and deny, lie and deny'. 

[metisdead]

An offensive troll post has been removed. 

[dcnx]

On 3/20/2017 at 7:57 AM, mesquite said:

Off topic, but I'll ask anyway:  Dude, how did you land a Chinese girlfriend? 

It was pretty much mission impossible but I somehow managed with a lot of effort and time spent going back and forth between here and China. 

 

She's wonderful. A lot of work, but it was worth it.