Getting Damage Deposit Back

Post by **marklv** » September 4, 2014, 10:22 pm

Wife and I recently moved to a new house, but haven't completely vacated the old rental, because I prepaid the rent, and the old lease hasn't expired yet. My old landlords know we moved and we will return possession of the house back to them soon. There isn't any reason for them not to return my damage deposit, but I have been warned by people who know them that they will try to keep it anyway. This hasn't happened yet, and I don't want to jump the gun, but I want to plan for this eventuality, should it happen, without accusing anybody of anything. These are small time individual landlords, which I won't identify, and not a rental company. Has anyone else has been in a similar situation in Thailand? Neither I nor my wife is Thai, but I speak the language a little, and she speaks very well. Possibly we will talk with the Tourist Police, regular Police, or Puyaiban. If anyone else has been in a similar situation, I'd appreciate knowing how you handled it. There isn't enough money involved to make it worthwhile to hire a lawyer.

Post by **wazza** » September 6, 2014, 1:34 am

It happened to me, they will claim anything as being damaged, even the fridge that stopped working a day after I moved in, my fault etc

Only thing you can do, is not pay the last power and water bills.

My lawyer said it happens a lot, You can go to the Police, make a report, and they wont to get involved anyway.

Threaten them with notification to the tax department for not declaring the income etc

Be surprised if you get it back....

Post by **Sakhonnick** » September 6, 2014, 10:28 am

Happened to me..

Rented a house in Sakon Nakhon for 12 months, 5,000/month 12,000 deposit

I installed a new bathroom tiled it and painted all the walls on the outside just to make it cleaner and more homely for myself waiting on my house to be built..spend prob 35,000 in it, I just factored it into the rent as if it was 8,000/month

so check out, im at work so wife dealing with it...they would not give the deposit back, simply would not return it..i gave up in the end...

what can you do...

Post by **Drunk Monkey** » September 6, 2014, 10:57 am

wazza wrote:It happened to me, they will claim anything as being damaged, even the fridge that stopped working a day after I moved in, my fault etc

Only thing you can do, is not pay the last power and water bills.

My lawyer said it happens a lot, You can go to the Police, make a report, and they wont to get involved anyway.

Threaten them with notification to the tax department for not declaring the income etc

Be surprised if you get it back....

More times than not this happens , the landlord can more less say anything they want to avoid giving back the deposit the favourite being re painting , cleaning and the like ... Small time /private landlords never declare the rental income to the tax office and this being a serious offence is your only leverage as stated in Wazza post .

If its only a small amount i would just put it down to a TIT experience and say goodbye with a smile .

DM

Post by **marklv** » September 7, 2014, 9:31 am

I doubt that threatening to report them to the Tax Office would do any good, because the landlords live in the same neighborhood as the rental rental house, and all their neighbors know and despise them. Everybody knows that they have rental income. If reporting them to the tax authorities were a viable option, then someone else would have beat us to it.

Has anyone tried talking to the local puyaibahn to mediate a dispute?