Booking a Phuket Villa Before You Arrive

Why are listing photos not enough?

Listing photos catch a house on its best day. Wide lens, flattering light, and quite often taken before the building site next door appeared.

What they can't show you is what spoils the first week: the noise, the smell, weak water pressure, whatever's just outside the frame. Nobody moves out over the colour of the walls. And photos age. The same pictures can stay on a listing for years, so the house may well look fresher in them than it does today.

So we use photos for a first shortlist and nothing else. The real decision gets made on a live video, filmed to your script.

Rather have someone on the island go and look? Send your dates and the number of guests and bedrooms in the chat. We visit the houses on the shortlist ourselves and tell you what we saw, what we heard in the yard and what we didn't like.

How do you run a video viewing?

The trick with a video viewing is that you're the one directing. Ask for particular spots, not nice angles, and insist it happens live rather than as a recording.

Begin outside the gate. Get them to walk the camera in from the main road, show the gate and turn round to show what's opposite; you'll never see any of that in interior shots.

Inside, follow the way you'd actually live. Kitchen first, then the bathrooms, then each bedroom and the view from its window. Say 'open that tap' and 'switch that unit on', and watch it happen. Then finish in the garden with one slow, unbroken pan across the yard, the pool and the terrace view; with no cuts, you get to see the neighbours and whatever borders the plot.

The list shifts a little with the type of place. Studios are quick, one sweep from door to window and you know where a desk would go. Near the sea, we'd want to see from the balcony and from the entrance what stands between the flat and the water, be it a road, a building site or another block. And on a hillside house, in Kamala say, get them to film the access road on the move, since a slope and a broken surface don't show in a still frame.

What should you ask while the camera is on?

Ask your questions while they're showing you things. If the answer is on screen at the same moment, it counts for far more than a reply typed into a chat two days later.

Water's the first topic. Where does it come from, is there a pump and a tank, what happens when the power cuts out? Ask them to open a tap upstairs and just leave it running for a bit.

Then the internet. Get them to show you the router and run a speed test from the room furthest away from it. 'The wifi's great' means nothing without a number, especially if you're planning to work remotely.

Last, our favourite: ask them to go out into the yard, hold the phone up and say nothing for half a minute. You'll hear the road, any building work, the neighbours' dogs and whatever machinery hums nearby. Thirty seconds of that tells you more than the whole photo gallery.

TipAsk for the viewing on a weekday morning. That hour shows what a weekend hides: school traffic, builders at work and how the street sounds on a normal day.

What is the checklist for a remote booking?

Keep the order of steps in front of you. A skipped one usually surfaces after the prepayment, when it is much harder to put right.

Most of the list fits into a single call, and the rest is paperwork you can ask for by message.

• A live video viewing along your route, no recording and no cuts
• Footage of the approach to the house and of what faces the gate
• Water pressure at the furthest tap, on camera
• An internet speed test in the furthest room, not next to the router
• Thirty seconds of silence with the microphone on in the yard
• Every air conditioner switched on in shot and left running for a few minutes
• The contract received and read before any payment
• Clarity on who the owner is and who your contact for repairs will be
• What the rent includes and what is extra, confirmed in writing
• An inventory sent in advance and checked on arrival

How do you handle the contract and money from abroad?

Read the contract before any prepayment, with no exceptions. The text is usually short and should state the term, the deposit, how renewal works, how many people will live in the house and who is responsible for repairs; the lease contract page lists the clauses that matter.

Look separately at what happens if you leave early or arrive late. Those clauses matter most on a remote booking, while plans can still shift.

Check who exactly receives the prepayment and in what role: the owner, a management company or an intermediary. The answer should match the name in the contract, and the receipt for the deposit should say the same.

Keep the whole message thread. On a remote booking it stands in for a face-to-face conversation and becomes the only record of what was agreed.

Worth knowingDo not send a prepayment for a house you have only seen in photos and a recorded clip. If the person letting it will not do a live video call, take that as the answer.

What do you do on the first day?

The first day is the only chance to record the state of the house without an argument. Walk through the inventory and film every room, including small items and any damage that is already there.

Check everything you could not see remotely: appliances under load, the drains in the bathrooms, the mattresses, the mosquito screens. The full order is on our villa inspection page.

Read the electricity and water meters on move-in day and send the figures to the owner, which removes most future disagreements about bills. If something does not match what you saw on video, say so at once rather than a week later: in the first days these things are settled calmly, later they turn into a dispute.