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Cleareye

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    I am Done With Thai Retirement Extensions - Relocating to Ecuador or Mexico on Permanent Residency

    in ASEAN NOW Community Pub

    Posted

    I'm planning on leaving as well. I would stay if it were easier, but I switched to using an agent the last couple of years because I was tired of going through all the hassle of filing for an extension. Plus, I didn't want to put 800,000 in a Thai bank and just let is sit there. This system doesn't make any sense to me. Why force retirees to keep 400,000 in the bank? You would think they would want you to spend the money and help the economy. You can't use it for emergencies either because the moment your balance dips below 400.000 you're technically in default of the visa rules. And tha'ts not even to mention the issue of how safe the money is.

     

    I have to say the agent was great. 14,000 for an extension and I didn't have to do a thing. Courier picked up my passport and it was returned by EMS a few days later. The agent also handled all of the 90 day reports, reminding me when they were due, filing the report, and sending the receipt by mail. It was well worth the price.

     

    Many will say that the extension is not a hassle but I just don't want to think about what my  balance is every month, whether I might have fallen below the minimum inadvertantly, having to get banks reports for all my monthly statements, and then have to worry about an I/O telling me my application is refused because of some techinal violation. I don't wnat to have to think about filing a TM30 when I move, a residence report every 90 days, or wondering whether next year all foreigners are going to have to have an app on their phone that that allows immigration to track them at all times.

     

    However, all the agents are on hold now apparently because of the reshuffle of the top immigration officials, so i don't know if I'll be able to do another extension. And of course there's the risk involved in using an agent.

     

    So I'm planning on going to Mexico. It's hard because I've been here since 2004. At that time, getting the retirement extension as a breeze. It took 15 minutes at immigration, no questions asked, and no need for money in the bank. They didn't even care if you did the 90 day reports. I was never once asked for proof of a 90 day report when I did an extension for the first 14 years.

     

    But things change. Thailand isn't that cheap anymore and the value for the money isn't there anymore. I also feel like Westerners aren't really wanted anymore.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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    Backtooth implant or not?

    in Health and Medicine

    Posted

    I had two implants put in last July,  The cost was 110,000 for both.  I went to several well known places to  get assessments, Bangkok Smile, Bangkok International Dental Hospital  (BIDH), and BFC Dental in Bangna.  BIDH is the newer sister hospital to BIDC, which is popular among foreigners.  They offered me a package of two immediate load implants and zirconium crowns for 139,000.  However, when I went to have the teeth extracted, the implantologist told me that I would actually need a major bone graft that would cost 50,000 per tooth and take 7 months to heal.  I passed on that one.

     

    I ended up going with S Clinc Sathorn, which is over on Suan Plu Soi 8, and was previously recommended on this forum.  The dentist, Dr, Pokpong, studied at UCLA and has been doing implants for more than ten years.  The other three places I went to had all said I would need a bone graft but he said it wasn't necessary as long as I had the implant put in before the bone was reabsorbed.  Apparently, over half of the bone mass is reabsorbed during the first three months after a tooth is pulled, so after that a bone graft may be required.

     

    He offers Osstem, which cost 55,000, and Nobel Biocare, which was around 75,000, if I remember correctly.  Each of the other places had strongly recommended Straumann, which is the  most expensive implant, but Dr. Pokpong explained that the patents on implant technology has already expired so now all of them were basically the same and recommended Osstem.

     

    He has a computer program that monitors the procedure, which took maybe twenty minutes or so per tooth.  I received pain medicine so I didn't feel anything nor was there any pain afterwards.  He gave me pain medicine to  take home  just in case but I didn't have to take it.  He didn't do a CT scan though.  He said it wasn't necessary.

     

    So far I haven't had any problems.  I can eat pretty much anything with no problem but it's not a real tooth and the implant doesn't move, so there is a difference in the way it feels but it's still a lot better than being toothless.

     

    Based on my experience, I would say avoid the big, famous places that target foreigners and find a privately owned clinic with a dentist who trained abroad.   Just about every clinic in Bangkok offers implants but many of them hire an outside doctor who receives a commission, so there is an incentive to offer unnecessary procedures or higher cost implants.  So if you find a clinic where the dentist does the implants himself, it will reduce your cost and you'll probably get better aftercare service as well.

     

    My girlfriend is now going Dr. Pokpong for Invisilign, which is another one of his specialties.

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    SURVEY: Health Insurance -- Are requirements fair?

    in Thailand News Headlines

    Posted

    The requirements don't make any sense.  Suppose you're on a retirement visa and you're forced to get 400,000 baht worth of coverage.  You're already required to have 800,000 in the bank, which is double the mandated coverage.  So what's the sense of the policy?

     

    Currently, the insurance coverage for an OA visa costs 69,000 a year for someone over 65.  That means your policy payments over six years would be almost equal to your coverage.  Any payments after that and you're just losing money.

     

    One of the big reasons people have come here to retire is the low cost of health care.  You could cover your health-costs with your savings and income rather than having to buy prohibitively expensive insurance policies.  But layer an insurance policy on top of more stringent income requirements and annoying paperwork and Thailand's attaction as a retirement destination is bound to plummet.

     

    It's difficult not to see this as a scam promoted by the insurance companies who will be able to get extra income for almost no risk.  Just soak the foreigner.  No doubt some special thai insurance polcy will be set up that will low, restricted coverage that is only meant to meet the new requirement. A viable, reasonably priced policy would be welcome but I don't see that happening. 

     

    I guess retiree aren't a priority anymore unless they're in the elite program.  Still, if you discourage most Western foreigners from settling here, I wonder who's going to rent all of these high-priced condos that have gone up in the last 10 years.

     

     

     

     

    • Like 4

    Making A Will

    in Jobs, Economy, Banking, Business, Investments

    Posted

    Hi,

    I'm a U.S. citizen and I need to make a will in a hurry that will cover my U.S. assets. It is possible to do this in Thailand? If I have a will made here and notarized at the U.S. embassy, can that then be used to pass on assets to a Thai national?

    Also, do I have to appoint someone in the U.S. as executor or could I name her as executor? Would she be able to handle the probate from Thailand or would it be too expensive? Moreover, if I don't have a state residency, how does probate work anyway?

    And what about transfer on death registrations? Can I list a Thai national for a U.S. account? It seems it would have to be a U..S. citizen?

    Can anyone recommend a good lawyer who can sort out these issues. Any advice appreciated!

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