WorkingTourist

And there is your problem...As suggested your using a debit card, when a there is a transaction on the card...the money is "removed" from the account and that's why you have to get a refund...

Credit Card authorization doesn't work in the same way...the amount is "blocked" on the card but not credited to the vendor, the other poster as he stated is using a BB Visa credit card not a debit card, big difference

From my wikipedia link:

“A debit card works slightly differently. Like in the previous example, if one has a balance of $100 in the bank and used a debit card to make a purchase at a retail store for $30, the available balance will immediately decrease to $70, as a hold on the $30 is enacted because the merchant has obtained an authorization from the bank by swiping the card through the credit card terminal. However, the actual balance with the bank is still $100, because the merchant has not actually collected the funds in question.”

As said, my foreign (visa) cards are also debit cards. The issue seems to be specific to Thai debit cards (possibly not Thai credit cards based on the comments here).

And I seek some authoritative source that has this limitation in writing so that I can send it to the customer representative, which claims that my 2 extra charges are just authorization holds that my bank will clear.

If they're actually charging the card, it's possible it's just a smaller hotels operating procedures or they aren't able to do it for some reason, including don't know what to do.

It was a small hotel that charged my card, though they gave me the visa slip and clearly operated under the assumption that it was just a hold.

It was at a Hilton hotel that the check-in staff asked if I had a foreign visa card (when I gave them my Thai visa debit card) and when I asked why, they told me that for Thai cards, they would need to charge me the deposit because these did not support authorization holds.

Its a Krungthai visa debit card.

But my foreign (visa) cards are also only debit cards and according to wikipedia debit cards also use authorization hold: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_hold

jphasia: Is your debit card also a visa card? If so, sounds like there is definitely something to it.

As for Thai visa credit cards, is there a visual difference between those and Thai visa debit cards?

Do Thai visa cards support authorization hold?

I ask because I was told by one hotel that they could not use my Thai visa card for deposit because it does not support authorization hold, so they would effectively charge me the amount and would then later need to do a refund.

This matches a previous experience where a hotel kept the deposit after I had checked out, and only after a few complaints did they write the bank to issue a refund (I was cc’ed on this message). So it seemed very much like they wanted to have done an authorization hold but instead charged me.

And now I am dealing with an Apple support representative after they charged my card 3 times for the same service. They claim that two of the charges are just authorization holds, but it has been more than a month and the funds are still withdrawn/locked.

So if anyone knows for sure whether authorization holds are supported or not by Thai visa cards I would be grateful for some authoritative information, preferably something I can send to this service representative.

If they are supported, anyone know how long it can take before the funds are no longer locked?

The last time I got a SETV they gave me the paper shown below, basically saying that SETV is no guarantee of being allowed into Thailand and they could demand to see both money and return flight ticket.

I have heard that some land crossings require people to have a visa (although the only episode I am familiar with, they said “next time”), so here a SETV may be required, but from the note I got, it sounds like if for some reason they do not want to grant you entrance, it doesn’t really matter if you have a visa or not.

She is the Administrator of my Will –not the Executor.

Administrator, executor, from Administration Inheritance Law:

Section 1728: “The administrator of an estate must begin making an inventory of the estate within 15 days […] from the date of his acceptance […]”

Section 1729: “The administrator of an estate must have the inventory of the estate finished within one month […]”

Section 1732: “The administrator of an estate shall perform his duties and complete […] distribution within 1 year […]”

And then from Thai Condo Act:

Section 19/7: “unqualified foreigners […] who acquires an apartment by inheritance as statutory heir or legatee or otherwise, as such case may be, shall notify in writing the Competent Official within a period of sixty days from the date of acquisition of ownership of apartment, and shall dispose of such apartment within a period of not exceeding one year from the date of acquisition of ownership of apartment”

So I have a hard time understanding what sort of legal vehicle you can use to keep the condo in foreign name for more than two years without transferring it to a new qualified foreigner.

I have a condo myself where I have not thought through succession, so I would be eager to learn the details of your planned setup.

Who owns the condo in this transitional period?

My estate (I guess)

The condo will always be in foreign name . Its up to the new foreign buyer to satisfy the Condo .Act

When the administrator (i,e my widow) signs the transfer and gets the proceeds from the sale-then the whole process ends.

That has the potential to be decades from the time of my death i.e decades in this transitional period.

So sounds like you will name your wife single heir of your estate and executrix.

As executrix she will keep the estate open and thus delay selling your condo.

Sounds to me like your wife could just as well “forget” to report your death until she is ready to sell, because ten years after your death, she might have a hard time explaining to the Land Office why your estate has not been settled

Regardless of what you do, keep in mind that the lawyer gets paid for drafting and registering the will regardless of whether their “model” works. Take the example of the “secured leases” in Phuket where buyers had a piece of paper from a lawyer securing them a 90 year lease, but that was ruled void by the Phuket Civil Court. So I would caution against too creative setups.

Was looking over the Thai Condominium Act and noticed the following about the right to own:

Section 19 (5): “Aliens or juristic persons regarded by law as aliens who have brought in foreign currency into the Kingdom or withdraw money from Thai baht account of the person who have residence outside the Kingdom or withdraw money from a foreign currency account.”

Section 19/3: “[…] shall present the following evidence to the Competent Official […] evidence of withdrawal of money from Thai Baht account of the person who have residence outside the Kingdom […]”

So to me it sounds like if you have residence in Thailand, you must either bring in foreign currency (FET-form) or withdraw from a foreign currency account (basically the same).

But if you have residence outside Thailand, you only need to show that the money was withdraw from a Thai Baht account (i.e. Thai bank account), no need to also prove the money was brought in from abroad. Of course you would also need to prove your residency outside Thailand.

Maybe the Land Office does not support this interpretation of the law, but in the English version, it seems clear.

I have a similar arrangement with my UK property. That could go on 20 years after my death. I have given my long term tenant the right to stay there beyond my death(conditions apply)

People sharing a condo with different heirs do something similar to avoid the heirs of the deceased making claims about their half of the condo.

However, in both this and the UK case, the one occupying the condo does not inherit it, the condo goes to someone else, they just keep the right to live in it (e.g. until they die).

But it sounds like you also say that technically your wife never inherits the condo. Though this brings up the question, who does? And on your death, would the land office not require this person to comply with the “foreign name” requirements (i.e. bringing in money)? Even though your wife would keep occupying the condo (possibly rent free).

I guess according to the will, your wife would not need to transfer ownership on your death, but as you say, the land office does not care about the will, they need to follow the Thai condo act.

[…] if you leave on the actual 'admitted until' date stamped in your passport, unless you fly after midnight when legally they could.

I often fly after midnight, so the date of my flight is normally the day after my visa expires. I go through immigration before midnight, and never had an issue.

I will be questioning the one year period after death to retain the foreign name, as our J.P. is under the impression that there is no limit, we have a case where the foreigner died about 5 years ago and left the unit left to his Thai son, the unit is now being offered for sale in a foreign name, as I said, I will check this with the J.P. and land office re the one year limit, as it will effect our 49% quota that is up to the limit.

As long as the foreign quota is not full, there is no problem selling a Thai owned condo to a foreigner, as long as the foreigner fulfills the legal requirements (bringing money from abroad).

No £100,000 i.e Pounds Sterling. An appraised value of the condo at 5 million Baht means that 5 million Baht has to be brought into Thailand inorder for the new owner to have his/her name on the Condominium Title Deed. Those are the rules. At current exchange rates 5million Baht is £100,000.

Wow, this is news to me! For anyone unfamiliar with this, the issue is that: “[…] the right of foreign freehold ownership ends at death of the foreigner who qualified for ownership under the Condominium Act. Foreign freehold ownership of a condominium is not automatically transferable by inheritance to another foreigner […]”. (source)

Coincidentally the 2% transfer fee (of ฿5M) is ฿100,000, hence why I thought the pound sign was a typo. In practice though there would also be stamp duty and withholding tax when transferring ownership.

[…] condo purchased off-plan […] I went to the land office […] and left with a chanote unit title deed, and house registration blue book (tabian bahn).

Isn’t blue book for Thai nationals?

I have my title deed but no “house registration”.

With a foreigned condo my heir will have to find £100,000 in order to transfer to his name legally. That would impossible!

The company owned condo has no such limitations.

With the company they will inherit yearly accounting and auditing fees. Probably doesn’t take long for these to amount to 100,000 baht (I assume you meant baht above).

Asking to see a ticket or reservation seems to be quite standard, not just for Thailand, and I’ve always had to provide them with a copy of mine (and it’s also stated under required documents).

However, a few times it has been a one-way ticket, and once it was just an unpaid reservation. This did not cause any issues.

There were a good few others who were asking questions regarding quite serious over stays and never to be heard from again. Perhaps that are sharing some state provided accommodation in Bangkok without Internet access?

It’s quite common that people ask questions and never follow up with what they ended up doing, so I wouldn’t put too much into it.

If you have specific members in mind, you can see when they were last active on their profile page.

There seem to be a whole lot of people on this forum, and other forums, that always refer to biometrics and that it should be a dead giveaway when people talk about changing their name by deed poll.

But all the biometrics does is to compare your picture stored in the chip with the picture taken when going through the immigration.

I think you misunderstand what is implied.

If immigration have a list of banned people, and for these banned people, they have picture, retina scan, and/or fingerprint, then when you enter Thailand, they can check your biometrics (either obtained at the spot or read from your passport’s chip) against their database, and even if you changed your name, they would still be able to find your previous record.

That said, it would be a lot easier if they could look up your current passport number and get a list of any previous passport numbers associated with it. I assume that countries generally keep a log of what passports they have issued to each person which is either keyed on an identification number or “given name” (rather than current name), so it would be trivial to make such information available.

Of course I might be naive in thinking that such data is actually available to the Thai immigration authorities, so they are left with name, date of birth, and nationality as their database key, but could still attempt a facial/retinal/fingerprint recognition against their blacklist for everyone entering Thailand.

Seems there are a two unknowns here:

1. Is there a database where it would be possible to lookup a passport number and see any previous passport numbers issued to this identity (and/or is this history already in the biometric chip)?

2. Does the Thai immigration system use passport number as database key?

The answer to the first one is unclear, but I do see a few people (on the internet) indicate that history is indeed available for some passports.

The answer to the last one seems to be no. The database key seems to be name + date of birth. This would make sense if the system was designed before globally interconnected computers.

Given the latter, a name change would seem to give you a new immigration history.

They have photo recognition technology these days , you would have to change your face as well as your name

Isn’t it more likely that the new passport number is linked to the old one?

Changing your name does not break the link, so when they enter your new passport number, they’ll get a list of any old passport numbers issued for this person, and there they’ll see that one of them has been banned.

To the OP, the main (but not only) "catch" I've seen is that it is only guarenteed for a short period. After that, its up to the market, but you've probably overpaid since the builder had to charge more to cover the risk of giving a guaranteed return.

Doing the math, let’s say the condo is worth 2,000,000 baht and it can be rented out for 6,500 baht/month.

The developer sell it at 2,500,000 baht and gives you a two year 10% ROI guarantee.

So rent for the first two years is 500,000 baht, i.e. what you overpaid, but say the developer rents it out for 6,500 baht/month, their cost is only 343,992, and they’ll probably also charge you a 10-20% “management fee”, limiting their cost to about 250,000 baht. I.e. they made an extra 250,000 baht on this condo by giving you this subsidised rental guarantee.

Furthermore, once the two years are up, you have a renter that paid 6,500 baht because of developer subsidies, so good luck telling them they must now pay 21,000 baht/month for the same unit, especially if the developer is still subsidising other units (those sold later than when you bought).

So you are stuck charging 6,500 baht/month which is rental income of 3.1%, but then you have management costs, wear & tear, etc.

Some of your questions depend on where you incorporate.

For example you could setup a company in Belize.

Your Thai partner will invoice this company for the cost of running the operation in Thailand.

You will invoice this company for the time you spend on “marketing”. This will be an expense for the company, so the company does not pay tax on this amount, but you will pay U.K. tax on it since it’s basically your salary.

Your customers will pay this company for accommodation, and the sales tax they are charged depend on the rules of Belize. For example inside the European Union, if you sell “services” to other member states, you have to charge the VAT rate of the customer’s member state, whereas customers outside the union are not charged VAT at all.

Though with the above setup, as you are the owner of the company in Belize, you likely have to declare this, and that might have some tax implications (since I doubt there is any tax treaty between the two countries). Of course people who use such setup normally “forget” to declare that they own the company

Disclaimer: I do not have any company in Belize, nor am I a U.K. citizen or accountant, so above is just a rough idea about how such setup would work.

For you, it sounds like if you’re mostly based in the U.K., you should setup a U.K. company to make it 100% legal following both the letter and spirit of the law.

Over the many years I've been in Thailand I've seen little improvement in the overall population's desire or need to learn English as a second language, regardless of the govt's propaganda saying they are pushing the learning of English. And I guess the lack of desire to truly learn a second language is," Why should I?..I'm Thai and will be living and working in Thailand all my life."

Without exposure it is very hard to learn a second language, you have the same problem in the larger European countries because they dub movies, translate literature, have their own music scene, etc., and these countries use languages that are not that far from English, though move away from the larger cities or people with higher education, and they struggle to communicate in English.

For a Thai to learn English they have to be extremely dedicated because they have little to no exposure to the language, a language that is very differently structured and with multiple versions of each word (tenses and pluralization).

And even for a Thai that is dedicated and have learned English, e.g. by spending a year in Australia, there might still be big holes in their vocabulary. After my first year in Thailand, I had no problems small talking with my barber, but when I went to the bank, a lot of words were used that I had never encountered before.

This could also be the OP’s problem, i.e. using terms that the clerks are just not familiar with, for example a thread from a few days ago talked about “securing outside funding […] for debt equity”. If you call your bank and talk like that, nobody is going to understand you

Searched the BP website and can find nothing on Thai Elite Visa +owning land

Article title is “Thailand Elite Card plans premium service upgrade”. Wonder of forum rules prohibit a Google Feeling Lucky link?

Excerpt from Bangkok Post article: “TPC expected this idea to be approved by the government after it allowed members to buy property in Thailand”.

That’s all it says, and not sure if this idea refers to the previous paragraph which is an idea about teaming up with suppliers of “super cars”, nor if property would be arbitrary land plots.

The new perks should be made available at the end of this year, so I guess we’ll soon find out.

Personally I think it sounds like they are desperate (for attracting customers) and just tossing around ideas without having the proper authority to actually implement them, nor any customer data that shows that they would work.

[…] Thais that do not speak English well their options say push a number to speak English so if your saying Thai's don't speak English its rather pointless to have this option on their mobile menu correct??

Most likely this is a standard menu used by all branches. When you press 5 for English, it will show on their screen, and they’ll look around to see who is around and pass the call to the one they think is best at speaking English.

“I am curious how many of TV members call banks etc. and it states they speak English”

Are you really? Or are you just starting yet another pointless thread complaining that Thais do not speak English?

For the records, I have Krungthai and called their main office a handful of times. Never had any communication problems.