Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing condos and something recently came to my attention. I was talking to somebody; I was talking to him in passing; they were kind of a friend of a friend, they were an acquaintance and they were kind of asking me what I do, not so much what I do but what the firm does, and we were talking about due diligence on a Thai condo. This person proceeded to tell me the story of basically a fake due diligence done by a fake lawyer here in Thailand. It was actually a Farang person. This wasn't particularly recently, it was some years back but it has been within my time here. They were telling me "oh yeah, I got involved in this condo situation. I thought I was buying a condo; it turned out it was basically sort of like Government housing sort of thing." This person thought they were buying what would sort of be the equivalent of a townhouse, but they thought it was classified as a condo and then it turned out to be Government housing that foreigners were not even eligible to purchase or really have anything to do with. But this person went through this whole rigmarole before finally realizing that they had just been taking for a ride and paid some money to somebody who had just basically given him the runaround.

This is the issue with fake lawyers here in Thailand. That's why I make videos from time to time talking about it and that is they rip people off at the end of the day and it is one of the things that I really find quite galling. I mean literal fake lawyers. We have had to deal with that out here for years. They are still running around. People that are claiming to have some kind of legal expertise and they have none. I am not the kind of person that tends to appeal to expertise. That is not something I like, especially in rational arguments but when it comes to matters of the law, you want people who are qualified and understand the Law. It is one of the reasons I constantly remind people on this channel that I am not a Thai Attorney because I want people to be aware when I am talking about this stuff, it is for informational, educational purposes.

Meanwhile, the other thing to bear in mind, I know people hate me for this, especially from within the ranks of my own profession from back in the United States, but I really don't care. Foreign Attorneys are not allowed to engage in the practice of Thai Law. It is something that is reserved for Thai nationals only. And I have to be honest with you, I have seen a lot of problems from those folks over the years because they give out erroneous information; they tell people to do things that's not correct. 

So long story short and the point of this video is the discussion I had with this other person regarding this run around from a foreign fake lawyer got me to thinking about the fact that yeah, real due diligence is important and not only that, dealing with somebody reputable who actually is qualified and legally able, that is a good point. Those who are operating outside the parameters, or past the line of restricted occupations in which Legal Services, secretarial services, accounting services, tax type of services, all of that falls into, you are dealing with somebody who is operating criminally at the end of the day. They are in violation of Thai Law, so why would you want to deal with somebody operating like that?