British tenant accused of trashing Phuket villa

A luxury villa owner in Phuket has filed a police complaint after discovering more than 300,000 baht in damage inside a property rented to a British tenant. The villa belongs to Talaticha Loney and has been rented to British national Farah Hashi since March. According to Nattakan Hankeaw, acting on behalf of the villa owner, the property was inspected on June 4 and was reportedly found to be in normal condition. However, when another inspection was carried out on June 6, numerous items inside the villa were found damaged. CCTV footage recorded at around 8pm on June 4 appeared to show the British tenant causing damage in several areas of the villa. Equipment allegedly used to inhale nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, was also found inside the villa during the inspection. Officials said the circumstances surrounding the discovery and any connection to the reported damage would be investigated further. The owner has filed a complaint with Chalong Police Station and submitted evidence for investigators to review. Police are now gathering further evidence before deciding on the next legal steps. Under Thai law, intentionally damaging another person’s property may constitute the offence of damage to property under Section 358 of the Criminal Code. The offence carries a penalty of up to three years’ imprisonment, a fine of up to 60,000 baht, or both. No charges had been announced at the time of reporting. This incident highlights the importance of thorough property inspections and the need for landlords to take necessary precautions to protect their properties from damage. In a separate incident reported in May, a British man allegedly went on a rampage, cutting the seats of several motorcycles and damaging a food shop sign with a knife in Phuket.

Why it matters for Phuket buyers

Three hundred thousand baht of damage on a single tenancy is the risk that owner-managed letting carries and that almost no yield projection includes.

The specific lessons are procedural rather than dramatic. Take a deposit that reflects the replacement cost of what is in the villa rather than a conventional one or two months. Document condition properly at check-in (dated photographs of every room, the pool plant, the air conditioning units and the furniture, signed by both sides), because without that record a claim becomes one account against another. Hold copies of passport and visa pages. And write into the tenancy who is responsible for what, in terms that a Thai court would read the same way you do.

For an absentee owner the more important point is supervision. A villa let long-term and visited by nobody for six months is where this kind of loss happens. A managing agent who inspects quarterly costs a fraction of a claim like this one, and is the reason full-service management fees are worth modelling into net yield rather than treating as an avoidable expense.

The second-order risk is insurance. Ask specifically whether your policy covers malicious damage by a tenant, since many Thai landlord policies do not.

Source: The Thaiger