Arkady

1 hour ago, BuckBee said:

What bit like they did with taxi mafia and over charging for lottery tickets ?

Don’t forget the cleansing of mafia elements from Koh Tao.

12 hours ago, TunnelRat69 said:

I have the Big Yellow Card with my name in it in Thai, I also have The Blue Book with the previous owners and her children name in it - they are not listed any longer but I have been told to keep the Blue Book as it is still an official document concerning the Condo, useless, but evidently important.  

Since you have it, you may as well keep it to pass on to the buyers, if you ever sell.  As mentioned, I was not given the blue book for my house with the previous owners' family in it.  I just went to the district office to apply for a blue book as a PR.  They sent me off with a list of documents they needed, including permission to stay in the house from the owner and asked me to get a transfer document from my previous district office. When I returned with the required documents they issued a blue book on the spot without ever asking for the previous blue book for the house.  So I conclude it is not necessary and anyway it clearly does not denote either ownership or permission to stay at that address.

Over the years Thailand has shifted from selling virtually everything OTC to being quite restrictive.  When I first came here even slimming pills containing amphetamines were available OTC, as were tranquilizers and all type of codeine based preparations.  Paracetamol with codeine is now restricted and there is no longer any cold medicine such as pseudoephedrine available, except in hospitals.  In the pain killing department, Tramadol was available in pharmacies without restriction until recently.  You might want to ask a pharmacist, if you are interested because I seem to recall they only limited the sales to small quantities OTC rather than completely banning it.  Whichever way, a partial restriction would inevitably lead to a complete ban eentually.

I have heard of an office of nationality verification at CW for returning Thais who have a claim to Thai nationality that is not entirely straightforward but I am not in a position to verify its existence. Otherwise the process is exactly as described by Joe above. CW have a process for cancelling visas of permanent residents who obtain Thai nationality which works smoothly.  Those who acquire Thai nationality by naturalisation without having PR first may also apply to CW to cancel their visas but the process is muddled and time confusing. Those who are Thai from birth but enter on a foreign passport have no way to cancel the visa in their foreign passport at CW, if they wish to leave on a Thai passport.  Leave and re-enter by air, as Joe suggests, or just wing it by leaving by air using the e-gates and hope they don't make an electronic match and send you to a manned counter where you could be fined for overstaying, if you have overstayed.  Don't try to leave and re-enter via a land border because it is not possible change passports on land crossings.  For some reason they will always look for the exit stamp from the country you have just left and won't let you in using a different passport.  That means that if you leave Thailand for Malaysia on the foreign passport, you will have to enter Malaysia on the foreign passport too which commits you to returning to Thailand on the foreign passport again, if you re-enter by land.

If you don't want a retirement extension, you could buy an Elite Card or invest B10m in a condo and get an investment visa. The retirement extension seems the least financially burdensome option and would allow you to spend as much time in country as you like.  Annual extension is a bit of a hassle but seems better than risking being denied entry.

The disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines flight revealed that Thailand allowed two Iranians to leave the country on passports reported stolen from Europeans in Phuket and they used those passports to board the disappearing plane.  Thai Immigration couldn't even detect passports reported stolen in Thailand and it was reported at that time that they hadn't invested in the infrastructure to connect with Interpol's database of stolen passports. You can understand why criminals and others find it a soft country to travel to with fake or stolen passports, as said by the Immigration officer in the video.

The blue book the developer hands you when you buy a condo could be useful, if you want apply for a yellow book. But, if you don’t have one, you can apply anyway with the title deed in you name or a form signed by the owner confirming you have permission to stay there. The same applies for a house that you rent as a foreigner. I got a blue book as “householder” for a house with PR but without Thai nationality.

There is a BORA regulation requiring district offices to issue ID cards to people residing in their districts in the same way as they are required to issue yellow books. The only card they have available is the pink card designed for stateless persons which says on the back that you are not allowed to travel out of your district without permission. It is also issued to documented migrant laborers but police now demand to see their passports and visas as well which probably applies to farangs too, as police can’t see from the pink card in f you still have a valid visa. I am told that banks accept the pink card as ID and it can be used on domestic flights and in some pother circumstances. I never got one because a friend told me our district office was refusing to issue them other than to migrant laborers. Then I got the blue one which I like better.

I think condo developers give their customers a blue book in case the actually want to register themselves at that address but it is completely pointless and a waste of paper, since anyone who is entitled to a blue book can go and register at the district office, whether they have the blank blue book or not. I got one given a blank blue book when I bought a condo but I didn't want to register at that address and promptly lost the blue book without any consequences.  I got a blue book at another address without having a blank book beforehand when I got my permanent residence.  District offices are only allowed to register Thai citizens and permanent residents in blue books.  Yellow books are for temporary foreign residents and used to be hard to get depending on the district office.  But in 2008 an amendment to the Civil Registration Act made it compulsory for district offices to register all foreigners living in their districts, excluding tourists.  To sum up the blue book you get from condo developers is completely meaningless and useless unless you are Thai or a permanent resident or have Thai family who want to register at that address. In most cases you can just throw it in the bin.

Many years ago my father was on holiday with his second wife in the Canary Islands.  Since she loved it so much, he decided to slip into an estate agent and looked around while she was on the beach.  He bought a small flat to surprise her with and eventually they retired there and bought a house from a German developer he had befriended and had no problems with either purchase.  I know there have been references here to problems in Spain where many Brits got conned into buying houses that were built in no build zones and later pulled down. However, the majority of foreigners have a relatively trouble experience buying property there and there is no restriction on foreigners owning land.  The chances of someone  buying property on an impulse in Thailand like that and not having serious problems at some point are much less than in Europe.  One of the problems is that people enjoying their holidays out here may have a sense of euphoria that makes them drop their guard when they contemplate a serious purchase.  Even after decades in Thailand one is still always hearing of new scams and trickery and foreigners are perceived as fair game by the authorities.  Someone whose only in country experience is a couple of short holidays is and has no close Thai friends or connections is obviously at a serious disadvantage in buying property.

2 hours ago, James2020 said:

Sheryl is correct, although presbyopia is the problem with accommodation that happens to everyone at about age 45, whereas farsightedness (hyperopia) can occur at any age. Myopia and astigmatism are the other conditions people can have.  The link has very good information.  I had monovision lasik also, in 2001, and only recently started to wear reading glasses for some things.  I wore contact lenses before that, so I had first hand experience about monovision.  Any type of surgery is not to be taken lightly though, and there are reasons why some countries have not approved some types of presbyopia surgery yet.  

My brother had his eyes set up like that with lasik (one for reading and the other for distance) 20 years ago and he is still happy with it.  If your eyes are both exactly the same and equally good, it is an option worth exploring.  If your eyes are not exactly the same, it is not likely to be a good solution. I had one eye far sighted about +175 with astigmatism and the other needed no correction for distance or astigmatism.  After cataract surgery they are both now similar but the one that had good distance vision is a strongly dominant eye.  Despite the cataract surgery I know I could not rely on my non-dominant eye either for distance or reading.  I need to have my dominant eye available for both with the other one helping. 

1 hour ago, hotchilli said:

Police are looking for a fourth person – alleged getaway motorcycle rider Weerasak Boonpeng, 19 – whose relatives contacted them by telephone, promising to bring him in soon, Sompong said.

 

Instead of doing their job and going to find him themselves!

He may have fled upcountry and police don't have the budget to travel upcountry unless the victim's family pays or they get a rocket from on high which motivates them to find the budget.  There seems to be little coordination between police forces in different areas. I would guess that Mr Weerasak is at the address that is on his tabien baan trying to get a good story together, or at least a better one than is currently in the media.

CG1 Blue was only asking about sub-letting a leased house for the months in the year he would not be using it. So a simple commercial lease would do without involving the land office.

These murderous young thugs are well armed now with Glocks, as opposed to the home made .22 single shot pen guns of the past. No comment from police on the provenance of the Glock which looks like a genuine one.

A lot of imported firearms now leak out from the Interior Ministry’s massive welfare firearms procurement scheme for civil servants. Even village community security volunteers qualify for these discounted weapons with the village headman’s approval. As well as all state enterprise employees. Many are reported lost and find their way into the black market. The loser can simply buy another one.

10 hours ago, tracy3eyes said:

Tread Water - but that would be at hightide and not at the time of the incident in which case the Tourist Police basically lied did they not. Are the Embassy even aware of the height of the tide at the time of the incident.

 

The UK officials will be sat there knowing full well that the Tourist Police are lying. Sad! Poor girl!

 

If she was raped, it must have been by a strong swimmer to tread water for 300 meters to get there. That would eliminate most Thai suspects.

I think we discussed the type of companies like AIS and DTAC that have  real businesses and use well lawyered structures with hi-so Thai nominees who clearly have the ability to invest their own money  early on the thread. All agreed that this type of structure was in compliance with the FBA and should not have problems, even if they owned land, barring of course an attack from a Thai owned competitor. Having agreed on that, we moved to focus more on less well structured situations where foreigners have set up “man of straw companies” with a minimum of expense and less than expert advice, simply to own land without any operating business. That is the type of situation that is of more interest to TV members. Very few of them are controlling shareholders of large companies of the AIS and DTAC type. So there is no need to reiterate that they are OK because we all agree on that.

7 minutes ago, Horace said:

 

The agent would have to be appointed (CCC Section 797), and since this transaction concerns land, the appointment would need to be in writing (CCC Section 798).   In other words, applying the CCC, the Thai shareholder would need to sign a document saying that he or she has authority to act on behalf of the foreigner, and is buying shares on behalf of a foreigner.  I can't imagine any sensible Thai lawyer drafting or any sensible person signing such a document. 

 

This is one of the reason I think the prohibition on foreign acquisition of land under Thai law is unworkable.  If this is a criminal offense, the law has to be construed strictly in accordance with its terms.  I don't see how a Thai shareholder holding shares with diminished economic and voting rights is an "agent" of a foreigner.  If the Thai shareholder is an agent, he would, for example, need to be obligated to follow the instructions of the foreigner.  A Thai holding shares with reduced voting rights does not have to follow the instructions of the foreigner.  He can what he wants.  He can vote against the foreigner.  In other words, the Thai is not an agent.

Thank you for that. You may be right but here we have a very important law, in fact a "code" which puts it on a par with the Criminal Code and the Civil and Commercial Code, that has been on the books since 1954.  You are saying in essence that Section 113 of the Land Code is effectively unenforceable because the CCC definition of "agent" must take precedence in the absence of any specific definition of the word in the Land Code. That means that those who facilitate the establishment of a shell company with Thai shareholders who are shareholders in name only purely to facilitate the purchase of land by the foreigner cannot be held criminally responsible, unless they have signed a specific agency agreement which binds them to do the foreigner's bidding in all related matters, which, as you point out, no one would ever do.  The Land Code has been amended many times since 1954.  It seems odd that none of the Interior Ministry's legal eagles ever thought of amending this section to make it enforceable.  Did several generations of bureaucrats and politicians deliberately leave it like that intentionally, while allowing the Thai public to take the law at face value and believe that foreign ownership of land was illegal with criminal penalties.

Or could it be the Interior Ministry, perhaps wrongly, believes the law is enforceable and that there has never been any need to amend it?  It would interesting to ask them that question, as well as to to confirm through extensive research that there has never been a conviction under this law since 1954.

22 minutes ago, Horace said:

 

If the law does not expressly state something is criminal, it is not criminal.  In other words, we should not have to rely on the law to tell us what we can do.  We rely on the law to tell us what we cannot do.  This is particularly true when the law imposes criminal penalties.  That is how I look at things.

 

 

This law expressly states that acting as an agent to buy land on behalf of a foreigner is a criminal offense. So what does that mean? What actions in relation to the purchase of land for a foreigner would constitute a criminal offense under this section?

2 hours ago, Horace said:

 

No familiarity with what happens on Koh Samui. 

 

I know that in Bangkok, in the years after the financial crisis when Thailand had not yet recovered, if foreigners held 49% of the shares or less in a company and Thais held more than 50% of the shares, that company could easily buy property.  No questions asked.  These sales were openly promoted at seminars where senior Land Department officials spoke at foreign chamber of commerce meetings.  The focus was purely on restoring value to the Thai property sector.  No one looked at voting or economic rights.  The Land Department only cared about the nationality of the shareholders.  Not only that, Thai banks - yes, Thai banks - would provide mortgages to finance land purchases by these companies after the Thai bank's own lawyers reviewed the company structure.   

 

I appreciate that practices can change, and almost certainly have changed since the financial crisis.  That's fine.

 

But I find it alarming that structures that were considered legal and accepted by the Land Department (when they were absolutely familiar with the structure of the companies) to buy land, are now considered "illegal" and at risk of expropriation by the government.  Yes, you can change the policies going forward.  But you cannot fairly force foreigners to divest themselves of these holdings based on allegedly illegal nominee structures when the authorities themselves - when Thailand was having serious financial problems - came out confirmed that the structures and transactions were perfectly legitimate.   

 

If they can expropriate property when this occurs, then the rule of law in Thailand is meaningless and they can expropriate foreign investments whenever it suits their interests.  Will big investors notice?  Yes, they will.  Why? Because  the country managers of some of Thailand's largest foreign investors bought property using these very structures.   The rule of law matters if you hope to attract foreign investment.

Officials politely turning a blind eye at foreigner chambers of commerce meetings over 20 years ago wouldn't amount to a legal precedent, even if they were important in Thailand's legal system.  At any rate there is no official document stating that Land Dept officials considered the structures legal at the time.

If rule of law matters so much to foreign investors they should adhere strictly to the law and not look for loopholes to circumnavigate it or not be unhappy if Thailand decides to enforce its laws properly.

Shipito must have been suffering from competition from PE for airmail economy stuff.  After hiking their rates aggressively across the board they seem to have lowered their rates for airmail economy to be similar or even slightly cheaper than PE.  But PE is still much cheaper for priority mail and and everything apart from airmail econ.  The main advantage of Shipito these days seems to be its Oregon warehouse because there is no sales tax in that state.  Amazon has to charge sales tax on stuff it sells itself to shipping addresses in any state where it has a physical presence, which includes California and Nevada.  PE can't get around this with its single presence in California where sales tax is 10%.  So for higher price items that Amazon is selling itself it's worth shipping to Shipito's Oregon  warehouse. However, you can often find another seller on Amazon that doesn't have to charge sales tax to California but won't get the benefit of Amazon Prime, if you are member. 

22 hours ago, TCA said:

 

It's a ridiculous scenario. You have my sympathies. If my wife gets ILR and citizenship, we'll have the situation that if she wishes a UK passport in her married name (mine), she'll have to change her name in Thailand too, as everything so far (passport and settlement visas) are in her Thai name. 

 

Out of interest, given you had to make the trip to Thailand anyway because of this stupid rule, could you have achieved the same result by "getting married" at an amphur then doing the i.d card and other required changes to get the new passport?

 

Thereby cutting out the legalisation by the UK government, subsequent translation and sending to the Thai embassy and saving 3 weeks? 

   

If you get married in Thailand, you cut out the business of getting an apostile in the UK which then has to be legalised by the Thai embassy, translated and then legalised by the MoFA.  And the district office will always try to take the original of apostile and your British marriage certificate off you.  It is a ridiculous notion that they would expect you to spend the rest of your life without your original marriage certificate but the same thing happened to a friend of mine.  You do need a certification of freedom to marry from the British Embassy and I think you now need a certified translation of your passport.  Anyway, it is no extra trouble to get your passport legalised by the embassy and translated and notarised at the same time as you do the freedom to marry paper. I have known people who were married overseas and then registered their marriages in Thailand, as if a first time marriage, without any problem (it is not bigamy if it is the same person). This seems to work better than marrying in the UK and then registering your British marriage in Thailand because you avoid the tedious apostile procedure.  But the easiest thing is probably registering your marriage in Thailand and then registering a certified translation of the certificate with the GRO in the UK, if you think a certified translation of the Thai certificate will not be enough.  That means you will have a GRO document for use in the UK.  I have used a certified translation of my Thai marriage certificate in the UK without problem but I don't live there. If I did, I would probably have registered it with the GRO.  

17 hours ago, MUSTYJACK said:

Exactly, it is a criminal offence to deceive the authorities, and in this age of terrorism, money laundering and identity theft the penalties if convicted can be severe. It is not worth the risk, and that is why we chose to go the legal route.

 

Deep in the bowels of their filing section the home office must surely have details of every dual national with a UK passport and it is only a matter of time before the next passport renewal application possibly  uncovers those who have made false declarations. 

Definitely not something you would want to get caught doing. But I doubt, if they have a database of dual nationals.  They should have one of naturalised Brits but they wouldn't know whether they had renounced their original nationality and some people have more than two nationalities. They also wouldn't know, in most cases, when Brits have naturalised as something else. But perhaps they are starting to do a big brother thing on dual nationals, since they seem to see them as some kind of a threat.

18 hours ago, MUSTYJACK said:

Ones nationality is a very personal attribute, it is part of ones identity, ones personality, and to be forced to give it up by the authorities of another country would go against every grain of ones being.

 

To ask someone to give that up is a very big ask, and I'm sure if it went to law it would justifiably and sensibly  be found to be in breach of ones human rights. 

 

I have anecdotal evidence that another Thai lady married to a westerner in the UK came up against this "same surname in both passport"  nonsense. Her husband applied online to renew her passport and it was sent back with a refusal.  His wife then applied by post, but didnt tick the box saying that she had dual nationality. The passport was renewed without any query.

 

When we approached our MP with this problem, he at first thought we had misunderstood the regulations. He couldn't believe that a British citizen could be made to undertake a journey of 14000 miles merely in order to renew the passport that she already possessed and was legally entitled to.

They seem to have decided that they just don't care about these considerations at all.  That is the Theresa May inspired Home Office for you.  I have a friend in Bangkok who is a Brit but a naturalised Thai who got Thai nationality at the time that they still forced you to take a Thai name.  I warned him about this thing when he told me he needed to renew his British passport.  He did the same thing as the Thai woman you refer to by not ticking the box to say he had another nationality.  Amazingly his new British passport came with no problem.  I say amazingly because the staff at the outsourced passport office are supposed to check that the passport has a Thai visa in it and, if not, ask to see the passport the holder entered Thailand on.  For those living in the UK it is of course easier to hide their other nationality and many naturalised Brits may have to or choose to renounce their original nationality.  So they might not query it, if a naturalised Brit says they don't have another nationality.  On the other hand you are providing false information to obtain a passport which might have some repercussions, if you are caught.  The passport office might also decide to query it and ask the certificate of renunciation of the former nationality. 

2 hours ago, MUSTYJACK said:

We have just returned from an unplanned and expensive trip to Thailand from the UK in order for my wife to change her surname to her married name so that she can renew her UK passport.

 

We were married in the UK over 20 years ago and my wife obtained British nationality along with a british passport shortly after that. As the marriage was never registered in Thailand she never changed the name on her Tabien Baan, ID card or bank accounts.

 

This autumn her UK passport is up for renewal and we encountered this recent regulation that for those holding dual nationality, surnames must be aligned in both passports. Despite meetings with out MP, who petitioned the Home Office on our behalf, and many phone calls to the Passport Office itself, they would not make an exception. Only if the Thai Embassy in London would issue a letter saying that it was impossible for the surname to be changed would they make an exception and renew my wifes passport.

 

 The Thai Embassy would not issue that letter, the letter they did issue said that before changing a name on a Thai passport, the name must be changed on the Tabien Baan and the ID card, and the Embassy could not do that. That had to be done in Thailand.

 

With a British passport of less than 6 months validity, it can be difficult to guarantee check in at an airport, and so we checked the airlines and found one that would accept a booking with a UK passport with less than 6 months validity at the time of the return flight (Emirates)

 

The paperwork requirements for the name change are rather onerous and time consuming, there are agencies in the UK that will do all this for you, but they are expensive and it is not difficult to do yourself.

 

The original marriage certificate must be legalised, this entails sending it to the UK government legalisation office where it will be checked before being stamped and signed (apostilled) and then returned. (£30 or £40 per document) It can be arranged online,

 

 https://www.gov.uk/get-document-legalised

 

Once returned, it must be translated by a translation service (around £60) approved by the Thai Embassy in London and then sent off to the Thai Embassy where it will be stamped and signed again, (around £20 or £25) this stamp confirming that the UK government apostille is "kosher".

 

All this took about 3 weeks.

 

Eventually, these documents are returned and can be taken to Thailand.

 

Once in Thailand, these signed documents must be taken to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs out at the Kremlin in Chaeng Wattana so that they can be stamped and signed yet again by the Thais. ( a few hundred Baht) This time verifying that the signature of the officer in the Thai Embassy in London is correct.

 

My British passport also had to be copied and the copy certified as a true copy by the British Embassy in Bangkok. An appointment needs to be made for this service, and it costs around 1100b. This true copy also has to be stamped at Chaeng Wattana.

 

The procedures at Chaeng Wattana take a couple of days, and the queue to present documents is around 3 hours. They are helpful, flexible and efficient, and there are translation services ( to translate the British passport copy)  and coffee shops and canteens on site. I found Thai bureaucracy much easier to deal with than the UK systems of obstructive and faceless contact. You are always face to face with the person you are dealing with in Thailand.

 

Once the documents have been stamped at Chaeng Wattana, it is then a lengthy but relatively simple process of taking them all along to the amphur office, in our case it was Khlong Toei in Bangkok, and going through the name change procedure. I had to give my wife permission to take my name by signing a witnessed affidavit and then after 3 hours of signing, stamping, witnessing, photocopying and confirming, my wife was presented with an elaborate certificate confirming the change of surname. At all times the staff were polite, friendly and flexible, no money was asked for, and no difficulties or problems found.

 

After the name change was complete, my wife moved to the next desk and 5 minutes later had a new ID card.

 

The next day she took the ID card to the passport office downstairs at the Khlong Toei MRT station, and 2 days after that her new passport arrived by post.

 

It was all done within 9 working days.

 

I find it shameful that the UK home office, who know exactly who has dual nationality, did not think fit to inform them of this rule change. That would have saved us and possible many others the expense and inconvenience of a 14000 mile trip to satisfy the bureaucratic requirements of some deslbound civil servant in Westminster.

 

When I spoke to the Home Office about this, I asked what would happen to people who could not make the trip, either they were too old, too poor, had kids to look after, or jobs to go to.

 

Their answer was simple. if there are no exceptions to the rule, ( other than threat of imprisonment, persecution etc) if someone cannot or will not change their name, then they must give up one of their nationalities.

I agree that the way it has been executed is shameful and think the whole thing is rather pointless anyway.  The least they could have done, knowing this would cause a great deal of inconvenience, would have been to have given a grace period with plenty of publicity that the change was going to happen.

At least someone in your wife's position who was unable to make the trip to Thailand to change her name would be able to renounce her Thai nationality at the Thai embassy.  However, I suspect it is a rather lengthy process as the embassy has to send the application to the Interior Ministry in Bangkok for processing.  I believe it should also be possible to change the surname back to the maiden name in the UK by deed poll which could be the cheapest and easiest option for someone living in the UK, if they don't mind reverting to a foreign surname.