4MyEgo

You missed my point. Real estate is a great investment vehicle and yes it appreciates, e.g. long term investment and that is where I made my money to be able to move here and live. Now it all boils down to which country you live in and the taxation laws. When I refer to the mortgage trap, in Sydney for example, say within a 15km radius south of Sydney you would be lucky to buy a 3 bedroom 1 bathroom house on 500 square metres of land with a 12 metre frontage for under 1.5 mil that didn't require any immediate works, although a kitchen/bathroom renovation would benefit. It would take most people a whole life to pay that mortgage off, so that means work, work and more work, add to that the rising interest rates, cost of living, no wage increases for over a decade and you are in a mortgage trap, i.e. unless you wake up and look for a better quality of life. If you think you can rent your house in Oz and move overseas, sure why not, ah....nah, not that easy, i.e. unless you want to pay 32c in every $ on the rent you make as tax, on top of the usual council/water rates/Insurance/agents fees/tenant insurance etc etc, and you cannot ride of any of it as expenses against the rent you made so as to get a lower your tax bill, and then the big carrot, once out of the country for 6 months your residency changes to a non resident, some will argue, not interested to debate this, that said, you will be up for capital gains tax from the day you purchased it, @ 42c in the $, W-T-F, yes, aha, and don't think you can leave it empty, because they will determine a market rent on it for you to tax on, and then apply the capital gains tax when you sell up. You might say, well I won't tell them anything, well guess again, Solicitors/Conveyancers are under obligation to check if there client lives overseas, or has lived overseas and then advise the taxation department and hold certain funds from the settlement when they sell up, otherwise they could end up footing the bill. I would think the USA is different with their tax laws, that said, glad to hear your property has appreciated, but if you leave it empty, that is not a good investment in my opinion. Selling up was the best thing I did, and as a non resident I invest my money and earn a tax free return, i.e. I let my money from the sale of my asset work for me while I enjoy life, no mortgage trap here, no work, no stress, no rising interest rates to effect me, bigger house, bigger land, lower cost of living, big smile on my dial ???? Each to their own, you might say but if you had heaps of $'s wouldn't you live back in your country, sure, why not, 6 months here, 6 months there, the best of both worlds, but selling up and moving here was the best decision I ever made, that is the reality, apart from marrying my wife and having kids, you see, I have as mentioned a bigger house, bigger land and money at my disposal earning money for me, no tax to pay to anyone, as opposed to having to work to pay off a place to have a roof over my head, that is what I refer to as the mortgage trap, because once you paid it off, you die.

I'm starting to get sick and tired of seeing these guys wearing their underwear on their faces. Somebody should really tell them it's ok to remove them, the country has got to start somewhere and they always look to those in uniforms for guidance.

What is there for you to joke about, not being retired says a lot to me, what are you chasing ? It all depends what your looking for in life, for me personally, moving here 12 years earlier than the standard retirement age, i.e. to receive the pension which you wouldn't be able to survive on back in farang land, has proven to me to be the right decision. Weighing up whether to work 14-16 hour days, 6/7ths of what life I had left in me under their false work slogan of (work/home/life balance) wasn't hard for me to see that I was going nowhere except to my grave early. Stress, cost of living rising, never enough time for oneself let alone family, just didn't work for me. Here 7 years, live in huge comfortable house that I couldn't afford to own in farang land unless I wanted the mortgage trap to go with it, just to show off to my friends, you know, keep up with the Smith's & Jones, not me, no thanks, came from a small 3 bedder to a big 6 bedder at 1/10th the cost to build it in farang land, not to mention the land would costs the same, so am miles ahead, and yes it's the wife's she earned it looking after me almost 2 decades on. If you want to keep working, that means you need to, or you enjoy it, but as long as you have a life and aren't caught up in the slave trade, kudos to you, that said, some of us are woke, I can hear my mates back in farang land all having said that they have had enough, their getting older, things are getting tougher and more expensive, and are now asking what is the meaning of all of this, where are we all heading, well for me, I made it on the other side, am content and have been truly enjoying my new life of the past 7 years living here, have enough to keep me going till 101, and still travel back to farang land for a couple of weeks every couple of years to enjoy some of it's beauty, but living there would mean my quality of life would drop 90% and you can't put a figure on that, as life is really short so I will keep enjoying the quality of life I enjoy here till I croak it. How can you enjoy farang land without being born with a silver spoon in your mouth, give us a break will you.

Agree, I renewed our kids passports in Phuket and they sent them back to us by EMS under protest within 2 weeks. Reason given didn't want to send them by EMS was because they didn't trust the postal service, that's when I said, I am paying for the passports, they belong to me and I trust the mail here. Seriously some pretty stupid people working in the governments lately, or has that been like that all the time

One would have to agree that Thailand has a population far larger than Australia and a lot of people here also weren't travelling or applying for their passports during Covid, but now lots are going overseas to work and some holiday, like my wife, that said, no backlog here to me means more employees to handle the workloads. In my opinion the Australia governments in office over the decades culled most of it's workforce to save money and outsourced the work or sold it to private companies, and who ends up coping it in the end, yep, you guessed it. Seriously, when you run a business and it's growing, you need to employ more people to cop with the volumes, oh that's right, no need, we are the government, let those citizens wait, we the government won't be the ones suffering, were in the business of culling employees to save money, while on the other hand throw it out the windows.

Unbelievable, wife has dual citizenships, renewed her Thai passport and it went like this, went in on a Monday, it was received in the mail by Friday, go figure. Ok, it's not Australia issuing it, but fair suck of the sav, 7 weeks and 4 days, what a joke, looks like Thailand has got it's sheet together when it comes to passport renewals.

Well if I used any other word that I was think of it would have been deleted, but you saw through it ????

Build ones especially for these ones

Band aid solution. How about banning all guns and implementing a minimum 10-15 year sentence for anyone found in the possession of a gun, no excuses, harsh, no, a suggestion that I believe is somewhat more genuine that this blokes, oh and while were at it, make it 20-30 years for the person supplying the gun to the buyer. The photos with this guy holding flowers and mask on tells me just how disconnected this person is.

It's always after a major tragedy that the drums start to beat from every sector, kids should always have priority.

If it's a one owner and they are country miles, e.g. continuous travel, not stopping and starting and the owner looks after the car, regular services, changes oil with good oils every 10-15,000 kilometre, should still be like a new car IMO. My car is 7 years old, has over 200,000 kilometres on it, has oils changed every 15,000 kilometres, filters etc and does country miles, never had an issue, if I noticed something I would take it to the dealer, get a confirmation, price and then take it to a mechanic and have them do it for less than half the price, that said, I do allow the dealership to change things every now and again to be fair, but not when their prices are over the top, that said, they are happy to accommodate me because they know to get repeat business, they need to keep it on the straight and narrow so to speak. All of the above said the car still drives like new and I am not looking to change it until it's absolutely necessary. The way I see things when purchasing a new car here is it shouldn't cost you over 1,300 baht per week to use & enjoy it, this doesn't include, insurance and maintenance costs of course, they are part and parcel of having the car and, by the time it's 8 years old, it would have paid for itself, that said, the 1,300 baht per week takes into account a resale value of 250,000 baht at year 8. Less headaches than 2nd hand (mostly) and cheaper than a rental over the long run IMO.

Heading to swamp and require a re-entry visa. I always obtain one at my "local" immigration office but don't feel like doing the 3 hour round trip, call me lazy since they got the 90 day online renewals working properly, so I only go in once a year for the extension now, yey ???? I will be staying overnight at BKK and am wondering if I can do the re-entry visa on the day I arrive instead of the following day as I depart early in the morning and prefer to be as organised as possible, not a last minute . com type of guy. So my question is, is there somewhere at the airport that I can get the re-entry visa after collecting my luggage and if so, where is it located, e.g. do I have to go back inside after coming out the doors after collecting my luggage ? Thx in advance.

The only thing with 2nd hand vehicles here is that there is no real consumer protection in my opinion. The above said, if your mechanically minded or know someone who knows a little about cars, you should be fine. I was going to buy second hand, but opted for new 7 years ago and have no regrets, what made me go new was the fact that the brother in law purchased a 2nd hand car from a (2nd hand dealer), I believe he had 3 months warranty, not sure as it was a while back as I mentioned above, anyway, blew the motor in the 4th month, didn't drive it often ust for going to the shops, looked straight and clean and had low kilometres. Another was a guy who flew to Bangkok to pick up a year old car with low kilometres from a 2nd hand dealer, said he was saving at least 100k from buying new, all he had to do was drive it back to his place, some 10 hours. He has had nothing but small problems with it since, took it to the dealership that makes them as his speedometer stopped working and when they looked at it, they said it was not the original, it had been replaced, so who knows how many kilometres it had, anyways when his registration was due, they were charging him for commercial use and he said no private, but the car is registered to a courier company sir, no, no it should be changed to my name by the dealer, so a few phone call later and a few days later he went back and changed it to his name and for private use to reduce the registration costs, I said courier, hmmm, they do a few kilometres don't they, so his 15,000 kilometre one year old car could have had 100,000 kilometres on it as far as he was concerned, that said, sometimes it's better to buy new, depending on your budget, but if you know of someone selling, has a good service history on the car, or know someone who knows about cars, take them along. Only ever had 2 new cars, one here and one abroad, the rest where 2nd hand when I lived overseas, but there we have consumer protection laws, and if you change a speedometer or flip the kilometres back, you would wish you didn't, regardless, the dealer he purchased the vehicle from said he had no idea, he bought the car like that...lol Good luck regardless.

As KannikaP said above, hope to it man !!!

LOL, just looking at that photo makes me laugh, it's obviously for the Thai's to see that the entire immigration department is onto it. No immigration women, and no finger pointing, what's going on here ????

Thai law has no enforcement because those who are supposed to enforce it, lack the education and know no other way, but to look for an easier solution, e.g. money, no paperwork involved, carry on, nothing to see here, no accountability. Just remember all of those cops, and the like, went to schools here where there is no punishment for failing, in other words, no one fails, everyone passes, whether it's through bringing the teachers a pot with a plant in it, a broom with a tray, or painting classrooms, plus we all know money changes hands as well in some schools. I am talking from personal experience, seeing this 1st hand, and hearing of what others have done to pass. There is their failure, the punishment is minimal, so it's a pass, this is engrained in the culture, and is exactly what happened with this lunatic, in other words, if you don't discipline kids from young, show them the right way and that there is punishment for failing, then they will look for the easy way out. This is really a disgrace to me to see a culture raise their kids in this way, no real guidance in my opinion, and this is why you see most of them loose it at the end of the day. No Thai bashing, it's my opinion from 1st hand experiences and from what I have heard from other farangs who have kids here, I will add, Thailand is probably not alone just to be fair and before I get a few loose canons here calling me a Thai basher

Yes some kind of amnesty, if I'm not wrong, I believe Australia did a buy back scheme and no one has guns anymore, unless via strict processes, and if caught with one, their toast for many years. Edit: Doesn't stop them, because guns get through, but it does reduce the killings by gun by far, as for knives, well.....

Actually Thai take way,,,..

Absolutely, hopefully the nail in the coffin, but doubt it as a life is worth nothing here, no doubt we will see some heads roll, and the rest will be swept under the carpet so to speak.

So he bought himself into the force through drugs, because there is no way in h-ll he would have passed the test, but then again...LOL

You summed him up beautifully, onya !

How about a psychological evaluation on the entire police and army forces, that would be a start, ooops, forgot where I was.

I would really like to know if these cops go through a psychological evaluation process before being admitted into the force. Discussing this with the wife this morning over coffee, and her reply was, are you serious darling, have you not learned anything living here in all this time, I said, what do you mean. She said you know what's his names son, the cop, I said yeh, she said, he failed all his subjects at school, how do you think he got to be a cop, I said how, she said his father bought his sons way in, i.e. he paid 300,000 baht to get him into the force. Shocked, that said, I don't doubt a word she said, because they are family members. That is the sad reality of Thailand, corrupt as it gets, and who pays the price for this, young innocent children, suffice to say, I would really like to know how this deranged devil got into the force, that should be the first and foremost thing they should look at and then if found out to be as I suspect, heads should roll, but we know that wouldn't happen, because heads would be rolling all the way from the top. Sad for the families who have to live with the loss of their little angels for the rest of their lives, why, because the system is flawed IMO.

Nothing short of deranged and possessed by his drug use. So so sad for the families, heart goes out to them and the little angels, rest in peace. Straight to hell for the <deleted>. The whole cop force needs a good looking into psychologically IMO.