Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing deposit issues associated with rental property here in Thailand. More and more folks are coming to Thailand and looking to rent. As we have discussed in other videos, there are increasingly new options for renting in Thailand which at one time were not open: things akin to Airbnb etc. It's still an evolving situation so this rental market does not quite work the way that people might be used to back in the West where you can just hop onto a website and quickly get locked into short-term rentals. That said, I'm talking about long-term rentals here and we are talking about deposits. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from The Phuket News, that is thephuketnews.com, the article is titled: Officials warn of bad landlords as Phuket rental market grows. Quoting directly: "Phuket officials, private sector operators and the Phuket Real Estate Association have urged tenants to protect themselves against unscrupulous landlords, warning that the island's booming rental market is opening the door to more disputes and scams." And I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article for further insight, and there's a lot going on in there. As usual The Phuket News does a pretty good job of exhaustively laying out what is going on.

That said, I am going to quote a quick excerpt here. Quoting directly: "Under the 2025 Contract Committee announcement published in The Royal Gazette: Security deposits cannot exceed one month's rent, landlords cannot demand more than 3 month's rent in advance, utilities must be charged at government rates, not inflated prices. Also contracts must clearly state rent, payment schedule, fees, and penalties." Now again this can get vague. There are the rules and then there is how they are applied in practice. Some of this stuff can get vague in practice when the rubber hits the road if you will, when folks are looking to rent; you can kind of get into some gray areas especially how these things are written. 

A generally good rule of thumb is before putting down any kind of deposit - if you are concerned about these type of things - it's a good idea to contact a legal professional especially if you can get the rental contract in advance before putting down a deposit and having someone review it in order to get an idea what they are looking at and show possible issues associated with the terms of it, where there is gray areas that might cause problems down the road or lead to the arising of disputes down the road. We have Thai Attorneys here in the office that handle property matters on a routine basis. Good Thai Attorneys can provide a lot of insight into how best to proceed in terms of making a deposit or if the contract looks to be on the up and up and provide some insight into if it's really a good idea to engage in a long-term rental contract based on the terms of the actual document. 

Again, it's all going to be fact dependent on the underlying facts in a given case as well as the terms of a given rental contract. That being said, it may not be a terrible idea just as a rule of thumb, to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.