You paid a deposit to a developer in Phuket, then instalments, and the completion date has come and gone. The developer stops answering. The pool in the brochure was never built, or the site is still bare ground. Thousands of foreign buyers are in this position, and most of them assume the money is gone. It is not. Thai law treats a developer who misses the completion date as a party in breach of contract, and it lets you terminate, walk away, and recover every baht you paid with interest running from the day the developer received it. This guide explains how to force a developer to refund you, the one notice you must serve first, the interest rate almost every website still gets wrong, and how to act before the developer has nothing left to pay you with.

You paid the premiums for years. Then you made a claim, and the insurance company wrote back to say the policy is cancelled because you failed to disclose something, and here is your premium back. For most foreign residents in Thailand that letter is where the matter ends. It should not be. Thai insurance law puts the burden on the insurance company, not on you: it must prove what you concealed, prove that the concealed fact was material, and prove that it cancelled the policy within one month of learning of it. Insurance companies lose these cases regularly because they cannot discharge that burden. This guide explains when an insurance company may lawfully refuse a claim, when it may not, and the deadlines that decide whether you recover anything at all.

You paid the deposit. You turned up at the Land Office on the agreed day. The seller did not, and the reason is usually the same: prices rose, or someone else offered more. Foreign buyers in Thailand often assume that the only remedy is to ask for the deposit back. In fact Thai law lets you compel the sale. The court can order the seller to register the transfer and, if the seller still refuses, can direct that its judgment stand in place of the seller's declaration of intention, so that the Land Office registers the land to you without the seller ever signing. But the remedy depends on your agreement being enforceable in the first place, and on acting before the property is registered to somebody else, because once that happens the law changes against you in a way most online guides get wrong.

You win the case. You get the judgment. And then you discover the company has nothing left, because three months earlier the director signed the land over to his wife, the machinery went to an affiliate for a nominal sum, and the bank balance was emptied. This is the point at which most creditors in Thailand give up, and it is the point at which Thai law is strongest. Sections 237 to 240 of the Civil and Commercial Code allow a creditor to go to court and have the transfer itself cancelled, pulling the asset back into the debtor's estate where it can be seized. The remedy is powerful, it reaches transfers made years ago, and in the case of gifts it does not even require proof that the recipient knew anything. But it expires one year after you learn of the transfer, and the Supreme Court has been unforgiving about that deadline.

You signed. The money has gone. And then the truth comes out: the land cannot be built on, the building has a demolition order, the plot you were shown was not the plot you bought, or you were pushed into signing under threat. Many foreigners assume a signed contract in Thailand is final. It is not. Thai law treats a contract obtained by fraud, duress or a material mistake as defective, and gives the injured party a right to cancel it and get the money back. But that right is narrow, it runs on a strict clock, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly thrown out claims from buyers who could have checked and did not. This article explains exactly when a Thai contract can be unwound, what the court will demand from you, and what you can and cannot recover.

Thailand has a separate procedure for consumer disputes, and it tilts the playing field deliberately. A consumer who sues pays no court fees. Where the facts lie inside the business's own knowledge, such as how a product was made or a service delivered, the burden of proof shifts onto the business. And where a business has deliberately taken unfair advantage of a consumer, the court can order punitive damages on top of the actual loss. For anyone who has bought a defective condominium unit, a faulty vehicle, or a service that was never delivered as promised, this is usually a far stronger route than an ordinary civil claim. This guide explains how consumer cases work and what they can deliver.