THAI LAW - Insurance in Thailand

THAI LAW - Insurance in Thailand

             

Thai law

             Thai law | As a foreigner in Thailand you can easily apply for and gain life insurance, but you are required to have a work permit or barring that a long term visa of some sort such as a Non immigration O which is the visa for marriage, retirement or family members. There is a myriad of choices and policies to choose from which can be daunting especially with the different information and language barriers encountered. 

Thai law

            There are two types of insurance here in Thailand; life insurance and non-life insurance which include possessions, cars and property. When you take out insurance on say a property, if it were to be damaged or destroyed then the insurance company will compensate you for the amount of the property or damage. One factor that should be considered is to only take out insurance equal to the value of the property being insured. This is because if you take out an insurance policy of five million baht on your house but the real value is only one million you will only be compensated up to one million baht while paying the extra premium of the five million. The chance of losing large property such as a house is slim, there has to be a catastrophic event such as fire, an earthquake or large storm. Usually only a part of the property will be damaged such as the roof and as such it is not uncommon for people to take out insurance to the amount where large repairs may be compensated, but not insure for the entire property.

Thailand law

             With regards to road accidents the Thai system does not use the words right or wrong, but rather the wrong party is considered to have committed the act by negligent means. If you are involved in a traffic accident and are the victim then under Thai law you have the opportunity to sue the negligent party for one year. Damages incurred on the car, medical expenses, work compensation and any concerned expense such as the rental fees of a replacement car can all be requested. Please also not that if no party is found to be negligent and the police become involved then normally they will deem one party negligent. But if they cannot determine the wrongful party they will consider both parties to be negligent and drag both parties to court by submitting a criminal case between the two parties to settle the dispute. Usually the insurance company in this situation will compensate the party not at fault first and then wait for reimbursement from the party at fault or their insurance company if they have one.

Thai law

              Thai people tend not to worry so much about insurance, they are usually adventurous and take a “whatever happens solve it later approach”. This isn’t the same mentality shared by foreigners, especially if they are residing overseas long term. Thai insurance companies do not have the best reputation and are not as effective as they should be. This is because it is always difficult for them to pay compensation, say if a case for compensation of a car cannot be negotiated for less than two hundred thousand baht. Then they will let you take the case to court and sue them for fulfilling obligations, dragging the case out until the court orders them to pay up, this will of course waste the clients time and money to follow up. Insurance has its uses and it can help you out when it is needed but you have to be wary and think it through on which one is the best for you.

THAI LAW - Insurance in Thailand

THAI LAW - Call Center Scam

THAI LAW - Call Center Scam

Thai law

               Thai law | Most people have heard about call centre scams which are not unique to Thailand. You may already have been contacted by them, either here in Thailand or other countries. It is so easy to set up a ‘dummy’ business and use it to extort money from another country. There’s nothing wrong with the principle of a call centre.  They were set up to provide a service to a company’s clients and have worked well in that role.  The system is designed to queue incoming calls which are then answered one by one by an operator(s) until they are complete. Indeed they are used quite legitimately in Thailand by such companies as AIS, telephone directory and even the police.

             The scam usually involves groups of people both local and foreign.  They will call targets with the aim of getting them to invest in fake companies that deals in valuable resources such as gold, oil, diamonds etc. They will promise large returns on your investment.  On closing the deal, they will ask for the transfer of cash to them which will never be seen again.  Common targets are senior citizens from Europe, Australia, USA and other developed countries. Senior citizens and retirees are often thought to have savings tucked away and are the ‘soft target’.  The callers will show themselves to be extremely successful in a high value market and one jump ahead of all their competitors.  They will be aggressive and bullish to convince the target that this is an opportunity not to be missed. They will not allow time for the target to ask questions and promise almost anything including ridiculous bargains but of course these promises are never kept.  They will underline the importance of investing now as tomorrow will be too late.

              Operations of this nature should be reported to the police and they will be dealt with under Thailaw.

Thai law

               The Thai police sometimes call these operations a “Boiler Room” scam as it is usually set up in a clandestine area such as a home or apartment building with the scammers working at night to coincide with the different time zones. Most of the time the people who set up these companies are gangsters who will try to declare themselves as a one hundred percent legitimate business with a good looking website and advertising, when actually they do not have a business at all so they only try to deceive you into paying them money for free. When they are finally caught and arrested the police usually do not have enough evidence to convict them abroad and the victims never come to Thailand to be a witness in Thai court or give evidence or money transfer. They will be convicted in Thai court and usually receive a six month sentence maybe even less and will have to pay a fine; these punishments are minimal compared to the damage they have caused, if any of the convicted are foreigners then the immigration department will choose to deport them back to their own country and they will be put on Thailand blacklist for re entry.

               If you are contacted on whatever basis listen to them first, if they keep talking like a salesman constantly asking you to buy something without proof of a real product beware. Do not trust them and believe everything that they say because they will try to steal the money from you, please understand that they are not the real article. Always check through trusted sources and consider researching about their company to make sure they are legitimate. Be safe and protect yourself and it will save you in the end.

THAI LAW - Call Center Scam

THAI LAW -Real Estate Juristic person

THAI LAW -Real Estate Juristic person

Thai law

               Thai law | Many foreigners come to Thailand to set up a property business. The aim is to buy pieces of land and subdivide it to build houses for sale to customers both Thai and foreigners. If the land is divided into more than 9 plots, a licence is required from the Land Dept.  . Many owners choose not to do this and find ways around this process. Some project owners only apply for a licence after building is complete.  To enable transfer of the land and house to the buyer a licence is then necessary.

Thailand law

              In such a project, there will be ‘common property’. i.e. swimming pool, roads, clubhouse etc. These properties have to be transferred to the co-owners.  A meeting will be arranged between the co-owners in order to elect a juristic person to be registered at the Land Dept.  All the common property will then be transferred to him/her.  Any money that has been reserved for the maintenance of this property is also transferred to the juristic person.  This enables the proper maintenance of the common property.  One of the advantages of this is that the co-owners will not wish to make a profit from this therefore the fees charged to individual owners will be lower.

Under Thai law, if common property is not transferred to the juristic person, then there is a case to be answered.

Thai law

            If the common property remains under the name of the developer, then the situation is fraught with problems.  The developer will ask the co-owners for money to maintain the common property.  This will be charged at a level he chooses and is subject to increase when he sees fit.  Because the co-owners have no control, the developer may not use the money for the intended purpose, does not pay bills due and generally does not fulfill his responsibility.  He may also offer to sell the common property to the co-owners which is also wrong.

Thai law

           Assuming the developer has a real estate license, the co-owners can elect a juristic person and then take him/her to court  to force the transfer of the common property to the juristic person. If the developer does not have the real estate license then the problem cannot be solved this way. The co-owners will then have to take the developer to court charging him/her with fraud if the developer in his advertising had promised to provide facilities such as a swimming pool. If this is the case then a juristic person cannot be elected and will be necessary to set up a company owned by the co-owners as shareholders and to allow the transfer of the common property into the company name.

THAI LAW -Real Estate Juristic person

THAILAND LAW,THAI LAW -Purchase or Loan

THAILAND LAW, THAI LAW -Purchase or Loan

Thai Law

            Thai law | Some time ago I came upon a case regarding a loan agreement between two Thai individuals and a foreign man, the deal in question was a scam where the two Thai people in this case a man and a woman where trying to cheat the foreigner by lying about the agreement. The details were that the two Thai’s would borrow one million baht and put a land and house up as collateral but unbeknownst to the foreign man the contract stated that it was a sale and purchase agreement not a loan as originally agreed.

           The way they did this was to provide the contract with no English translation and to deceive the foreigner and his interpreter who was present at the time. Knowing that his interpreter was not skilled in English and that the foreigner did not know more than a few words in Thai they convinced his interpreter that the foreign man had agreed to purchase the land and house in question. The interpreter wanting to speed up proceedings pointed to the blank space for the man to sign and that was that, nothing out of the ordinary had happened and a deal was made, it was only later that the foreigner came to realize the consequences of putting pen to paper that day.

Under Thai law, any contract can come into question if the signatory does not understand what he is signing.    

Thailand law

          On a normal sales and purchase agreement you would have a deposit amount, a percentage based on the overall price and then you would pay the rest after the property transfer is complete. The contract that the man signed had it as a one off payment up front with no deposit and with a thirty thousand baht interest to be paid to him monthly which in a real sale and purchase agreement there is no such thing. They had tried to swindle the foreigner of his money but he would not notice until the Thai man involved in the deal was murdered and the woman did not make the interest payments stated in the contract.

Thai law

         Thus the case was submitted to court only then did the foreigner know the depth of his problem, when finally briefed on the details by his attorney. In court the case is taking a long time to process and a sentence is still pending, the woman is fighting the case by using the contract that the foreigner had signed against him. Stating that it is a sales and purchase agreement and that the amount he had paid was correct and that she did nothing wrong, also as she only signed the agreement as a witness she is trying to get out of any wrongdoing even though she received and spent the money. The piece of property in question was never transferred to the foreigner and it was later found out that neither one of the two Thai’s who made the agreement even legally owned it.  

         The root of this problem stems from the start in which the foreigner brought an interpreter who was not fluent in English with him to the meeting and who only told him where to sign and not what the document was all about. So when you sign anything please make sure that you have a lawyer that is both proficient in Thai and English present so you are sure to protect yourself and know exactly what it is that you are signing, or even better get a translation made for yourself to look over. Nowadays a loan agreement and some other contracts can even be made in English with zero hassles.

THAILAND LAW,THAI LAW -Purchase or Loan