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SbuxPlease
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Posts posted by SbuxPlease
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I think your embassy would issue a renewal passport without any mention of your current immigration status. If the person you talk with at the embassy notices your overstay they might explain what you need to do to handle it. I highly doubt they'd "tip off" Thai immigration.
As others have mentioned, after you renew you're now just a typical case of an overstay, which Thailand is quite efficient at handling. Bring your 20k to the airport and go. They'll stamp your passport, ban you for a while, and you'll be home free.
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Cost of living in Thailand year round is going up.
If there's even an ounce of enforcement on this scheme, I suspect many are going to measure that tax (and the PITA of filing a tax return) next to the cost of spending the other 181 days in other places.
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It's interesting the main suggestions are basically like:
-don't get yourself into this situation
-use some form of physical intimidation
It's like the "law of the jungle" theory where the more intimidating party or the one who has less to lose will always win.
As foreigners a lot of us probably take for granted coming from places where the legal structure is dependable and that alone keeps people playing fair. It's hard to imagine how a society could ever hope to grow up without that dependable system, because of course people will consider resorting to violence if they have been deeply wronged and there's no other pathway to make it right again.
In the American system we have a small claims court for small money amounts where lawyers are not permitted and the rules are accommodating to people who aren't experts with the law or process. This all makes it fairly easy to get in front of a judge quickly, force the other guy to show up, hear your case, and get a judgement. For cases where landlords don't return deposits or Joe the Plumber doesn't dig the pool he promised it's all pretty efficient. Even if Joe can't pay today, the judgement follows him until he can with increasing interest accumulating along the way. In fact, you don't even need Joe to pay up directly as you can present the claim to his bank which can be ordered to give you his money. If Joe has a provable habit of operating this way the judge can even order Joe to pay a whole lot more as punishment. I think all together this keeps the "Joes" of the society at a minimum, making life better for all.
I have to believe Thailand has something like this too but perhaps it is inaccessible and lesser known. I feel like foreigners aren't always welcome to use the same remedies as locals.
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50 minutes ago, jippytum said:
Our condo management have perused legal action against co owners at the Thai civil court for between 15/25 ,000 baht fees to conclusion .Sue pool guy via a lawyer in the Thai small claims court .Initial letter from lawyer may have the desired effect.
Yeah this is the kind of comment I was looking for. I guess the condo association decided it's worth it to pursue even if only 15-25k. Maybe the lawyer didn't ask for too much to write up the complaint and go argue the case with the judge.
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22 minutes ago, bob smith said:They should be on the frontlines, fighting for their supreme leader and hero Putin.
Would you volunteer for the frontlines of any random war that the leader of your great country decided to start?
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14 hours ago, scottiejohn said:
Is not also the case that you can only either liquidate your company or sell it on to a fellow US citizen that meets the Amity requirements rather than to a non US citizen?
That's a great question, and would the new owner need to jump through all the hoops of re-qualifying as well. These cases may be so rare that few have ever attempted to do it.
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26 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:
lawyer will cost less than 50k, even a threat letter will be a few thousand. If the guys broke its not worth the effort
What if we hypothetically say the guy is loaded - not a "hi-so" name but it seems like he might have a side business out of earning revenue from these "deposits"
We used to occasionally need to send threat letters in the US - sometimes it worked and sometimes it resulted in getting another threat letter back. Those always relied on the threat that we could sue which might result in him paying attorneys fees or punitive damages, so it's better to sort it out ahead of time. Not sure that Thailand recognizes any of that stuff.
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Say that you enter a contract with a pool company and make a 50k deposit. The next week he changes this mind and doesn't want to dig pools any more, but feels your deposit was a nice gift and doesn't think he needs to pay you back.
Of course the best answer is to not have made the deposit in the first place. But sometimes even reputable parties disagree.
How are these type of civil disputes handled in Thailand? Is there a way to handle claims this small?
Most legit Bangkok lawyers I've worked with want that much money just to think about looking at the case, so using a lawyer feels like giving it all away a second time. But trying to navigate your way around the district court system yourself with a translator seems like a task that will take so much energy and time that you'd actually pay 50k just to avoid having to expend that amount of work.
I guess this probably means the 50k is toast.
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I own a treaty of amity business. Initially it is set up just like any other Thai limited company, but then the Treaty approval takes about a year() and lot of additional documentation. My lawyer charged about 40k for this component and I've heard some charge upwards of 100k to get the treaty of amity approval completed. It's possible that the more they charge the more they know what they are doing but you can never be sure.
Once you have the business, you still run into all the typical issues with running a Thai company. There is a lot of ongoing filing work to keep a company alive in Thailand which is often not exactly transparent before you start. Unless your Thai partner is an accountant or experienced admin, you'll hire an accountant to do this for you for like 8-15k baht a month even if you have no business activities at all.
The rules for getting a work permit include hiring 2-4 thai people and paying their SSO and handling their taxes. Perhaps between your nanny, your maid, your GF and/or their friends, you can find 4 people to work with you. I say 2-4 despite the most often quoted rule being 4 because my work permit was accepted with just 2 Thai employees initially. Overall maintaining these employees means maintaining all their records of employment. This is not trivial - the accountant will create several filings for you to sign and submit monthly. Maybe they can do it and sign for you - if so great because it will save you time. All in you'll likely spend 50-100k to set up the company and at least 150k a year to hang on to it.
Every year when it's time to renew your work permit and your B visa, you or someone who works for you will need to go around to several government offices collecting official receipts/copies that prove you're filing your annual return, your business financials, your audit, paying taxes for employees, and official/updated copies of business location, a hand drawn map to the office, photos of you and all the staff at "work" and in front of the company official sign.
When this is finished you'll have 100 sheets of paper evidence that you should qualify for a B visa, that you take to Chaeng Wattana at 6am so you can be the first in line, only to find that you're the 100th in line already. The immigration officer will find a strange looking signature on page 32, 44, at 65 and reject those pages making you sign again, so you physically must be there. Then they'll find you forgot to include a letter about why you stopped working at your last job, which despite not being anywhere in any list of required documents, is being asked of you today. So you leave, write the letter, and do it all again the next day. The next immigration officer doesn't care about that letter and finally stamps your passport at 7:48pm on a Friday night, and now you get to fight Bangkok traffic back to your condo.
All in, using a Thai company to maintain a visa in Thailand isn't as easy at it first sounds.
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28 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:
To place this in perspective... How much deposit is he holding ?
And can you hold back the last months rent to offset the loss?
Would it be cheaper to replace things than do walk and lose the deposit ?
If you repair things, will he try and keep the deposit anyway, thus any repairs may not see your fill deposit returned anyway ?
He's holding a 100k deposit. I have not paid December's rent yet (50k), and am thinking about not sending it but that runs the risk of things escalating too.
It's really tough to know what happens next when people start getting weird like this. Maybe I pay to refurbish his place and he still never returns the deposit, which I now fear given this behavior.
I absolutely don't want to go to court over 50k or 100k, but I'm willing to work on it for a bit. I've been through some other things with lawyers in Thailand and it's easy to start spending 10k, 20k, 30k fighting this kind of thing with no resolution.
Are there any (true) stories of farangs challenging landlords about security deposits in Thailand and winning? There is a lot of hearsay and assumptions out there but I've not heard any up to date information on the facts. In my limited interactions with court officials, they are actually quite fair to foreigners and don't want a bad reputation for the country.
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Thought I might pop in here to note that this idea was indeed DoA (dead on arrival)
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Well, it finally happened - after a lot of years of renting places in Thailand for myself, my growing harem (lol), and my businesses, I have come across a landlord who is going to be difficult about returning my deposit money.
This case involves a shop-house in Bangkok. I've had a business in there for 2 years with just a couple staff. As soon as I notified the landlord that I wouldn't renew he's gone bonkers looking for every satang.
My question is about normal wear and tear. It's subjective but in my home country there's a lot of case law and it's easy to understand what is probably included. What about Thailand? Has anybody put together a guide that might explain what this is, and is it de-facto included in any lease agreement?
- The white walls have gained a few scuffs here and there over 2 years that don't wipe away (it's crappy paint) - landlord wants us to repaint the whole wall (in this case, all of them?!!?)
- There were no internet lines in this shophouse at move in - I paid a professional installer to put CAT6e + RJ45 into each room and they are installed nicely with no holes or gaps. Landlord wants me to tear it out and repair the hole, paint the wall. Seems like installing internet would be a normal activity, this request is wild.
- The landlord hired a contractor to repair a broken gate, and somehow in that process a part for the gate went missing. We've never been able to use the gate because it's been broken for most of the 2 years. The landlord decided I should pay to fix the gate before we leave.
Meanwhile the ceiling in another part of the building got moldy and rotted out during this past rainy season, and cracks have appeared in every wall due to settling.
My Thai admin is handling the conversations and I'm trying to handle our responses in a very diplomatic and understanding way, but it's absurd how much is being asked for. I think aside from the known changes that we'll fix, this other stuff is landlord's problem.
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I've been in Thailand the better half of a decade and I'm starting to figure out the government playbook.
The playbook:
- High level official has a random idea pop to mind while consuming (insert some banned substance) with his 2nd or 3rd mia.
- He asks a lower level guy (in their super-secret LINE group) to float it to the public as an announcement
- The announcement: "The ministry has decided to start (insert impractical idea). We don't know when we'll start, maybe next week or maybe never, update you soon. Also we don't have answers to the obvious questions. No, no further questions are permitted."
- The high level guy lays low and watches to gauge the public reaction. He periodically sends lower level guys out to make random comments to see what happens.
- If it starts looks like it would be a win, they assign it to the "do it next year team". If it looks like it would result in a lost election, or cost any money, they just stop talking about it.
- Nobody in the public knows if the idea will ever come to fruition, and the public eventually forgets about it because the next night -> (go to step 1)
Edit to add: After step 4, if the low level guy is getting torn apart by the madness, the high level guy just cuts ties. "That announcement was incorrect and not approved, we don't even know that guy!" But if the public likes it, the high level guy claims the idea as his own.
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She's playing you - she knows the police will do nothing but you might be uncertain enough to give her some money. She has nothing to lose either way. The police don't waste their time with bargirls like this - they know about these games too.
At some of these bars it is better to act just a few notches up from a bum - no money, nothing to extort. Mention that your thai wife doesn't know you're here tonight. When you pay use a wad of mashed up 20s from your pocket and no thousands.
The perceived lack of free cash flow and the fear of a worthy equally deranged opponent (the virtual thai wife) will keep them off your back.
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Nobody goes there anymore, the place is too crowded
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In the beginning of my Thailand life I was a bit like this TikTokker. This problem annoyed me in ways that is impolite to say.
- "But it's the law to use the meter!"
- "He should get in trouble for this, he HAS to use the meter and can't decline my ride!"
- "I'm going to complain! This kind of scam hurts tourism and hurts the country. Somebody should take action against this ScAmmEr!!1!"
Finally, two crucial "aha" moments hit me and I've been chill about it ever since:1) Many of these taxi drivers and service workers are, using the kindest words I can muster, not yet educated and appear to operate with what we would consider to be "13 year old brain" in my home country. You just cannot expect any more from someone who's coming from this position and that's why they only make a few bucks an hour on their best days.
2) It's just $10. I'll blow that amount on my first drink at the bar when I get there. I have serious things to stress about in my life, and this just ain't worth the heartache. I get to choose what I allow to bother me and what I don't, and that choice directly impacts my happiness.
I appreciate that some people will say "no s**t sherlock" about my aha moment, but I'd like to think that I came here to grow and learn, and that's what I'm trying to do.
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My first year in Thailand: 8
Second Year: 5
Third Year: 2
Fourth Year: 6
Fifth Year until now: 7
The initial fascination with the place wore off fast once it stopped being new. I started a business which hastened my discontent and went through a stage where I felt like I couldn't shake the stress. Every time some new senseless red tape popped up (which as we know can be pretty often), it was like one more nail in the coffin of my personal hellish insanity.
Since that difficult period I decided to either a) leave or b) figure out how to accept what it is - without trying to change all of Thailand to match my ideas of what's best. ????
I've leaned hard into option B and found that after I started getting to the beach more often, better delegating tasks to people who are equipped to deal with bull-splat, and just stop worrying about everything. I also really leaned into building a good social circle of others who are also happy. Now I've found the enjoyment again.
Home country, USA: 6.5-7.5. I do miss my friends and family, and honestly sh*t just works pretty well in my city and it's gorgeous in the summer time. But I don't miss how hard I hard to work just to keep pace with the next unhappy guy when I lived there.
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After business success in my home country, I decided to invest in Thailand 6-7 years ago and have started and operated several businesses since in Bangkok. One was a startup that needed top talent, another is a retail shop in a specialized industry, and another (was) an attempt at a BOI company software startup.
As an American I'm eligible under the Treaty of Amity to own businesses 100%, however the process for registering for the treaty takes from half a year to more than a year with a lawyer involved, and potentially 100k+ THB if you use an internationally reputable firm. During the lengthy process various DBD officers may request the same set of documents multiple times, which leads you to forward the last email you already forwarded to them with the scanned attachments - again.
Once the business is properly registered, normal business operations such as opening bank accounts or getting a credit card terminal still feels like an egregious document and red-tape saturated experience if a foreigner is the sole owner. There is no access to small business operating capital unless the business has a long standing relationship with the bank and plenty of assets. Local traditions such as putting a physical tax stamp on documents that must be signed immaculately on every page will take hours out of the CEOs day - every day. Time that would be much better utilized developing the business model.
These experiences are smoother if you have a Thai partner who can handle all these in their own name and/or know which shortcuts are available, so some people (like me!) recommend opening and setting up the company entirely under a trusted Thai person and then transferring it all later.
Filing monthly payroll forms, annual and half year tax reporting requirements, withholding tax and VAT reports is either a full time internal job or needs to be outsourced to an accounting firm. Outsourcing may be cheaper and more reliable but you'll still need an internal person to handhold the accounting firm through documenting every transaction. For these regulations alone expect to spend a minimum of $10k USD annually just to keep your company registered and ready for business whether you have a single sale during the year or not.
After some time you begin to wonder if your luck (and time) might be better spent with the tax enforcement officers instead of the front office.
If you're unlucky and get some employees that can't meet the demands of your growing business (a serious risk), you might find them to be difficult or extraordinarily expensive to replace. As a founder or CEO that's another drain on your capital reserves.
I started the BOI company as my second business, and after approved for it I came to realize that while the incentives are nice, the reporting requirements to maintain the company are much higher than for a traditional company. If the startup has not yet found its market, that could mean the only thing gained is more wasted CEO time and baggage holding the company back.
In summary, Thailand has a long way to go before any smart money founders are going to label Bangkok as a "start up hub" of any kind.
A large international firm that needs a local HQ will hire Deloitte to cut through the tape and get them running and doesn't mind the USD 5-6 figure annual holding costs. If the local staff will be dozens of people or more, it will be easier to spread the various expenses across the team.
However, top talent may not necessarily choose Bangkok as the best city in the world to live in because of ... well... I think we all know the difficult parts.
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My condo was built in the 80s. Either they were aware of their own engineering limitations and tripled up on concrete and beam sizes, or we'll be the first to go.
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>Pattaya police reminded gogo and nightclub owners to immediately call police if a customer refuses to pay a bill to avoid a further confrontation and to never, ever, under any circumstances, physically attack a customer.<
Phew, good thing.
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This article, posted here, is like throwing a filet mignon into the lion's den.
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A lot of landlords don't even know (or care) to do TM30. It's very likely they'll take your signature and your money and that's it.
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I live in lower Sukhumvit and totally gave up on all public taxis. They park and clog the throat of this Soi waiting for tourists who don't know better to pay outrageous fixed prices. Anyone else who tries to park there is verbally attacked by these taxi gangsters and they use orange cones to try and reserve their spots.
At night they sit there drinking beer with the policeman who hangs out on the soi as well. I hope they sleep it off before taking the next fare but I doubt it.
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This is a sophisticated crime if true, most people wouldn't know how to pull it off.
So many white collar crimes go unpunished, I'm impressed the FBI bothered to track this guy down in Thailand.
“Strictly screen foreigners entering and leaving the Kingdom”, Deputy Chief of police
in Thailand News
Posted
I think the photograph on the front of this is a bit old - from what I remember the guy seen is the husband of the Thai owner of a large visa agency. I think they found something like 100 cannabis plants upstairs (this was before it was legalized). After some negotiations he was released and the visa agency re-opened.