I rented a house just outside Bangkok.  The landlord had a foreign husband who was dating another woman so she put the house in her son's name so she wouldn't have to share the house proceeds with her husband.

The son sold the house out from under his mother without telling her.  For some months, she collected rent from me.  One day, a guy shows up at the house and says he is the new owner. He tells me I have to sign a new lease with him or be evicted.  A contract written in Thai was brought over. The Contract was pretty straight forward. It was a one year contract. It required a two month deposit and one month deposit.  I told the new landlord I needed to collect the deposit back from the previous owner and he agreed.  However, a few days later, he made a threatening call saying I had to come up with the deposit or be thrown out and sued.

I came up with the deposit but never collected the deposit back from the first landlord.

The new landlord harraased me by calling and saying either I extend my lease or he would throw me out and sue me.

Finally, one year was up.  I sent a FAX to the owner as I didn't have his phone call stating I was moving out at the end of the contract.  I got a call back.  The landlord said I had to give him 3 months notice. I told him the contract was over and I was giving him 30 days notice.

I then got an letter from a lawyer saying that this landlord was claiming he had never recieved any rent from me.  He also claimed I had one damage to the house and also claimed that I was reponsible for paying for the rent prior to him introducing himself as the new owner.

I got a lawyer who charged me 60,000 baht and said I should sue for my deposit.  In court, I showed all the receipts.  The landlord said he didn't receive the FAX (even though he called me after getting it).  I was surprised to loose the case. The court ruled I wouldn't get the deposit back. However, considering that we had established that I had paid for the rent and no mention of damages were made to back up me not getting back my deposit, I thought the case was over.

My office now tells me that a letter stating I was being sued by the landlord for 1 million baht. I haven't seen this yet but I assume he is repeating his charge he didn't get paid and that the rent period extends back to when I was paying the previous landlord as well as his false claim there was any damage to the house.

So, for moving into a house which I took good care of, I wound up loosing 300,000 baht in deposits, paid out 120,000 baht in lawyer's fees and face another 1 million baht possible losses based on false charges.  

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