Trevor1809

I know a few keen Thai fisherman in Surat Thani and for the best fishing they all go to the Andaman side. Fish at night. Don't expect too much, large anyway during the day.

The last two years I have gone by hire car but had the benefit of my son as passenger on Google maps. I navigation from Sukhumvit is just about up to it but still prefer to have somebody on the maps app. This year I am on my own and don't want to risk driving it but the park are saying a taxi return to Sukhumvit is 1000 baht!!!!!!!

I sit worth doing the taxi leg from and to Lat Krabang on the ARL?

Last year I went to the new Bungsamran and my Shimano 8000 with 40lb mono filament wasn't up to it. A few times I was down to the knot tied to the spool and eventually lost all the line. The guide loaded braid. Now I know braid wont take any kind of abrasion so I got a Shimano 12000 and put 50lb line on it for Bungsamran with the intention of using lighter mono filament on the 8000 for sea fishing.

I went out to do some sea fishing with a Thai sports fisherman who advised switching to braid. I am guessing since you would have a a mono filament leader then braid is ok with coral and rocks.

Wonder what other people use for sea fishing?

1 hour ago, HHTel said:

Comparing the prices with the UK is pointless. 

I wasn't comparing the price to the UK, I just think in pounds. The last time I was aware of house prices in Thailand it was in the 60 to 70  baht to the pound era. Now I was converting baht to pounds at 43. Just trying to ascertain whether house prices had really gone up that much or how much was down to the pound crashing.

It is a long time since I was aware of the value of houses in Thailand. Plus since then the UK pound has decreased in value upsetting the comparison base.

The house opposite where my wife is renting in Surat Thani is coming up for sale and she says it is cheap at 5 million baht. That doesn't sound cheap to me but then I am thinking of it in UK pounds. It s a large 3 or 4 bed house. Has been extended apperantly and has a double the size plot to the other houses around. What is a good ball park figure for the value?

Why is UKVI so useless. 2.5 years at my wife's FLR application they had obviously dropped the lever arch on the floor and presented me back a complete messed up pile of papers. This time at the fast track office having handed the them one full lever arch and one with quarter full they gave me back the quarter full one saying they kept all the photo copies. Now apart from all documents having to be originals I told them that I hadn't given them any copies that gave me back a thick wodge of papers less the lever arch. In the "copies" as they put it was the original limited company registration document (can never be replaced) and the original England language certificate and all the original bank statements, mortage statement, pay slips, utility bills. council tax bill, divorce certificate. They did manage to return the marriage certificate so i suppose I shouldn't complain too much.

No I find they kept my pension award notice that I now need to send to the student loan company so now my son can't get his student loan. Why are they so God damn useless. What do you think the chances are of getting a replacement pension award notice are?

" What a bitter, spiteful, small minded and inhuman place the UK is becoming.  "

I regret to say I agree with everything that you said. Can Britain actually become a worse place to live than it currently is, unless you are a foreign tax exile.

" I understand your point of view, but to be fair to both the UKVI and the Government they have succeeded in doing their bit to get your wife as far as FLR. "

If only that was true, due to their refusal to grant my wife an appointment for a visa renewal she cam very close to not getting it renewed, hence my assertion. I would use the words in spite of not because of.

I have always found it odd that the UK Government doesn't simply use the records that they have to prove the earnings that somebody has to support settlement, FLR and ILR visa.

Now we have "Part of the problem has been a requirement to provide four pieces of evidence for each year that a person has been in the country.

Windrush migrants must prove they have been in the UK continually since 1 January 1973,"

The Government is expecting immigrants that have been in the countrt since before 1973 to prove that they have been in the country when the Government themselves has all the tax and NICs data. Anybody who was here before 1973 will have to provide 184 pieces of evidense to substantiate their claim. I certianly couldn't do it.

I wonder why when it comes to immigration does the UK have to be so obtuse?

My wife is having to apply for another FLR as she can't pass the Life in the UK Test. I gather they have tightened up on Surindah Singh to the extent that you must have severed links to the UK, even sold your house, to use this route.

I again find that an opportunity to work in an EU country has come up and I am now concerned that my ability to get any sort of visa will be blown out of the water. If the rules of that country stipulate that after 6 months then I MUST become tax resident in that country but I am barred from using Sirindah Singh can I still apply for and ILR for my wife if by the time this happens I am working in an EU county and the the UK has left the EU?

All paperwork, utility bills, bank statements, pay slips will be from the EU country and the UK will not be a member of the EU so I would not be able to claim freedom of movement rules.

Is there any way around this apart from not taking the job or somehow avoiding becoming tax resident in the EU country.

I am surprised that you were allowed to book a test in Preston. I live in Watford and my wife is only allowed to book a test in Watford, Luton, Slough or Hammersmith. She is prevented from booking any test ouside of this area. Why on earth can't you take the test anywhere that you like (or can actually get a booking).

I anticipated the problem 2.5 years ago so I changed to financial year Apr to March to Jan to Dec. The accountant is preparing the accounts ending Dec 2017 now ready for the application in May. If I leave the year as Jan 2019, as you say they are the rules. From Jan 2020 to Nov 2020 I could have been doing nothing and how would they know.

I think I am going to change the year back to April to March or even July to June then go into the Nov application with more recent data.

Although I am an employee ad exceed the earnings requirement under PAYE as a Director I still have to be assessed as self employed. To that end following the FLR in Oct 2016 I changed the financial year from April - March to Jan - Dec since there woud have been no time to complete 2017/18 accounts before a May visa renewal this year. Althoughthe rules say the profit would be averaged over the last two years I can't see how they would accept earnings averages from April 2016 to March 2017 for a visa application in May 2018. March 2017 would have been the previous accepted accounts.

Now my wife can't pass the Life in the UK test I am going for another FLR and that will put the next visa on Nov 2020. That would put the average over Jan 2018 to Dec 2019 so the date would be 11 months old at the visa application. Now that is clearly within the rules but it shows how bonkers the rules are. I was thinking of changing the financial year again but how old can the profit be and still be acceptable. Is there any guidance. As I said my understaning is that is the average of the last 2 years accepted accounts but that seems daft to me if the data is nearly a year old at the time of the application. Employees clearly have to show earnings up to the month before the application. How can it be that self employed only have to show up to potentially 13 or even 14 months prior to the application.

Thanks but you didn't really answer the question that I asked. If she fails the Life in the UK then she will have to apply for and FLR. If she passes Life in the UK then she will apply for an ILR. As I said I trust neither UKVI or the Government so I must anticipate the ILR being refused on some technicality hence my question about Surinder Singh. We still have over a year as full EU members so I must assume that UK citizens have the same full rights as other EU citizens in the intervening period. If not why aren't out politicians asking serious question?

The question therefor was if the ILR is not allowed and I was looking at using EU legislation which of the two, France or Spain would be best. I have seen many posts here with people having problems in Spain which would tend to suggest that France is the better option. I do find it odd that Spanish and French companies are considering recruiting British specialist engineers against their own nationalities but as they are it might be a good idea to consider it if the ILR fails.

My wife's ILR is coming up in 2 months. Apart from needing to pass the Life in the UK (booked for Friday) there should not be any problems however I neither trust UKVI or the Conservative Government.

I was contacted about a position in France or Spain, which would be handing if I needed to go down the Surinda Singh route, however issues with Spain issuing visas and permits to Thai wives of UK citizens in Spain seem to constantly come up. 

Would I be better specifying the French location to the Spanish one?

After the FLR I actually changed the financial year as it used to run April to March. With an ILR in May I would not have got the year end accounts done between 31 March and the ILR application. I coudn't see UKVI accepting accounts over one year old but as you say that is the rules. I wasn't prepared to risk it.

It also seems odd that you could be self employed and not actually working but have previous accounts exceeding the limit but an employee made redundant but exceeded the annual limit on previous earning would fail as they wouldn't be able to provide 6 month's worth of pay slips.

" The way I understand it is if you have a limited company you are an employee of that company and not self employed but I am not an accountant. " Correct in the eyes of HMRC but not in the eyes of UKVI bizarrely.

I work as a freelance engineer through a limited company. For anybody who know what IR35 is the work is usually outside IR35. Company year ended 31 Dec 2017 and accountant is preping accounts ready for wife's ILR application in May 2018. I will have the P60s in time for the application. My last contract finished in December. Annual profits are well over the £18600 limit. My salary, wife's salary and pension take me well over the £18600 limit without the profit being taken into account.

Now looking for a new contract and I have the possibility of working for a Government agency but that will be inside IR35. That means I can't work through my own limited company and 3 months before the ILR I will have to work PAYE through the agent or an umbrella company. In essence I will change employers 3 months before the ILR application. How will this affect the application? Must I show 6 months payslips through the same employer of can they be with different employers. There is cash in the company to continue paying me a salary if I need to say that I am still with the same employer. But since I am classed as self employed by the Home Office but not by HMRC should the visa application even take wage slips into account? It seems if you are a freelancer you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Rather ironically there is another job in the pipeline with the Home Office no less.

I was a bit surprised not to see any reference to this https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/14/eu-citizens-become-british-non-eu-spouses-live-with-them-court here.

It would seem to confer more rights to a naturalised UK citizen from the EU with a non EU partner or have I missed something?

All I can do it is learn from the experience. This time I took a phtoo of every page of the application hence knowing the date offered was their mistake and not mine. I will have to drum into my wife Settlement Visa, Biometric Residense Permit and the post code and get her to memorise her permit number and hope she repeats it digit perfect. They will think of something else to ask I am sure.

"use a different question more aligned with simply verifying the applicant is exactly who they claim to be" If a UK Government issued biometric residense permit isn't enough why are they bothering to issue them. And why a few years ago was the Government keen for all of us to have id cards if they don't trust an id card when shown one. If I can get airside into Heathrow daily on the basis of photo id then surely photo id to take a taking a damn test is good enough.

6 hours ago, bobrussell said:

I may be a little dim but was she refused entry to take the test or was it a problem with booking the test?

There is no requirement to know a permit number but there is a requirement to conform exactly to the required identity rules. It must match exactly the documentation used to book the test.

I assume they provided reasons for the refusal in writing or you made a request for this.

If in doubt worth putting in a complaint. there is a link via the .gov website where you book the test.

Someone was apparently refused entry to the test for not knowing the correct name for the document used and not knowing a postcode. Might be a jobsworth or a means to get a second fee out of candidates.

There wasn't a problem with booking the test. It was because she couldn't say which visa she was applying for. I am confused about quoting the id number. The test centre said that they don't expect the applicants to know the number but she was never the less asked for it. She got confused and rattled off her Thai id number. I guess most Thais know that off by heart.

I knew that you had to wait 3 days to re-take the test and they mentioned this. But when you go on line to book you can't book a test less than 7 days ahead. We have had to re-book a test for January as my wife is off to Thailand next week and I will join her over Christmas then returning in January so we booked a test a few days after we return. So back comes confirmation today for test on the 23 December. This time I took a photo of every page at the time of booking so I know for fact that the date requested was not the 23 Dec. Is it too much to ask for test within a few days of the preferred date. The same month would be nice, but not even in the same year? So now I am trying to get them to change the test date to the date requested not one the month before. And the test is now £75, a 50% increase on the previous price.

Well despite being as prepared as possible my wife was not allowed to take the test. She was able to state why she was taking the test, ie which visa. Now I would have said ILR but upon re-booking the options were, citizenship, other and settlement. I fail to see the reason why you need to state why you are taking the test. My be to weed out people who have a fetish for enduring this kind of stress. So the visa type is settlement I take it, I thought is was ILR since Life in the UK is nor required for FLR or the initial settlement visa.

I was able to ask the reason for the failure and they went on to say that they don't expect people to know the number of the residence permit number however my wife was asked the number. Is she really expected to memorise her permit number. I doubt I could remember my driving licence number or passport number. Is this required or not. It definitely looks like if they don't get you on one reason they will get you on another.

It rather annoying to spend time going through the trial tests that bang on about the rights of residents, democracy, respecting individuals etc then the applicants are subjected to this kind of treatment. Before anybody mentions fraud, surely the ID is sufficient to weed out fraudsters taking the test on behalf of another.

Can I assume that a utility bill, council tax bill or bank statement can be in joint names or must it be in the sole name of the person taking the test. Everything is in joint names. My wife does have sole bank account but doesn't use it very much so any transactions on it will be months old. We could get an up to date endorsed statement from the branch but the transactions will be old.

If this job is offered I am going to have to run this past a solicitor. The last thing I want is to complicate the ILR application. In theory if the client pays through my existing limited company then UKVI would not have any knowledge of where I was physically doing the work. The surinder singh route will be my last option. I would hope that the ILR goes smoothly.

My wife's ILR is coming up next May. My contract job via a limited company is ending this month and one possibility is too remain with same client upgrading Schiphol airport based in the Netherlands. Do I assume that working within the EU will not impact my wife's ILR application. I don't know at this point in time whether I would be paid UK pounds into a UK bank account or Euros to a Dutch account. I do not wish to complicate the ILR application but I am assuming that the single market EU citizen stuff doesn't affect the application. There again who knows with the British Home Office.

I would not physically relocate but remain UK resident working M-F in the Netherlands.

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