Arkady

On 9/5/2022 at 7:14 PM, qualtrough said:

Preparing for an upcoming overseas trip, I was going through my passport and didn't see any indication that my visa had been cancelled. I did go down to immigration and cancel it once I obtained citizenship and they assured me that they had cancelled it in their system. Is that the normal process? I have left the country with my Thai passport one time, going to Lao, and didn't have any issues. I just want to be absolutely sure before I go on my next trip from Suwannaphum.

I agree with Yankee.  If you have already completed a round trip successfully with your Thai passport, you can relax. The chance of any hassle is close to zero. in the remote event there should be a problem, you have followed best practice and cancelled the visa.  Many people in this thread reported that did not bother to cancel their visas and had no trouble with multiple trips under their belt. I think you can argue that visas just expire anyway, if not cancelled.  The only time this has ever caused problems is when people who already had Thai nationality arrived with a foreign passport and left on a brand new Thai one but there are no cases that I know of recorded in AN or elsewhere where newly naturalised Thais have had this problem. Of course, there is always a first time, I know.

Maybe someone else can tell you, if they should have stamped something in your passport to cancel the visa.  In my case I I had PR and thought it necessary to cancel it, as retaining PR, which, unlike, visas doesn't expire, could imply the retention of a foreign identity in Thailand. Also there is a clear process for surrendering PR at CW which only takes a few minutes with no queue and it can be done on the way to the passport office nearby. For my WP I took the view there was no point in going to the trouble of cancelling it and just it expire.

The government's plan to charge the tourism fee to all incoming foreigners without except based on the nationality shown on their ticket raises an interesting question about dual nationals.  Presumably they will be charged, if they buy a ticket under their foreign nationalities and perhaps that will show up somewhere undesirable. 

I have just bought a ticket to go overseas and back from a large foreign online travel agency and I am not aware of having been asked to submit nationality to register an account or buy the ticket. Of course Thai airlines demand to know your nationality.  Perhaps foreign ticket sellers will just charge everyone.  It is not yet clear how this is going to work.  Thai regulators may be unaware that nationality is not always demanded by overseas sellers of tickets to Thailand, since they are famous for shooting from the hip without doing any research. 

4 hours ago, qualtrough said:

Just curious. Has anyone here who obtained their Thai citizenship run into a government or private organization that failed to recognize your new citizenship? So far things have been smooth for me. Knock on wood.

1. The head of registrations at a Land Office refused to register land in my name without the original of the naturalisation certificate which I didn't have with me and I was a plane ride away from my home. Eventually she agreed, if I signed an essay scrawled by her certifying that I was indeed a Thai citizen and had not yet had my Thai citizenship revoked.  A real PITA wasting an hour arguing with her and signing unnecessary docs. I told her to just take my ID card to the district office next door and put it in the smart card reader, if she didn't one, or call SB or the MoI but she refused to consider any of that.

2. BTS. A sales clerk refused to let me buy a 50% discount senior card (not sure if they are still issued) on presentation of my ID card. She said it was for Thais but not this kind of a Thai. I had to get her to call her supervisor who went red in the when he saw what his girl was doing and the huge angry queue behind me and told her to issue the pink card double quick.

3.  At a sports club that practised dual pricing in membership prices.  Same thing as BTS - not for this type of a Thai.  I refused to pay more than the Thai fee and she said would take it up with her boss and, if he confirmed that white Thais had to pay the foreigner price, I could either pay the differential or get my money back.  When I came back to pick up the card, nothing more was said about the white Thai rate.

4. At a tourist "attraction" in Hua Hin. I was told the Thai rate was only for Thai citizens born in Thailand which is obviously an absurd assertion, as there is no place of birth on ID cards.  Ethnic Thais could easily be born overseas and white Thais could easily be born in Thailand. What they meant was that they didn't feel like giving the discount to white Thais.  I asked her, if she was aware who had ountersigned my citizenship application and threatened a 112 prosecution but cut no ice. So my family just left and they made no money out of us at all but had the satisfaction of discriminating against a Thai on grounds of racial origin. As we were leaving, we heard them explaining to a Thai family what all the fuss was about - the farang tried to get the Thai price but we couldn't have that.

Perhaps I have been unlucky. I have had other incidences, such as at the hospital where my son was born where I just could not get the message through that I was Thai after showing my ID card and tabien baan.  The girl would not stop asking for my passport and WP for the birth certificate, until I got rather irritated and asked my wife to go and explain to her and the missus had a hard time getting it into her brain too.  This wasn't an attempt at discrimination, just utter incomprehension that a white guy could be a Thai citizen. The Revenue Department also called the other day to ask me to bring my passport to check I had been in Thailand 180 days in the tax year to qualify for a tax rebate but didn't insist when I explained. 

I remember reading in other threads about farang fathers taking their Thai citizen look krung children to tourist attractions such as Safari World and being refused the Thai price for kids which is tricky, if they are not old enough to have ID cards and the mother is not with them to remonstrate.  In this case, it is probably recommended to bring copies of their birth certificates or tabien baan, although that is not picture ID.  Farang look krung kids may also be effectively discriminated against at places where they use a measuring stick to charge kids taller than 90cm.  Look krung kids, especially boys, are likely to hit 90cm much younger than most Thai kids but nothing can be done about this.

5 hours ago, Purdey said:

Thanks. Got the usufruct the same time as buying the house at the Land Department. An usufruct is not a separation of land and house. I have the right to use the whole property. The Land Department officer was not happy “giving Thai land to a foreigner” and asked my wife if she wanted to limit it to 30 years. My wife said no, All life.

An usufruct cannot be canceled as it is an official document issued by government and a contract between the owner and myself.

(Edit)

just want to add that anyone considering an usufruct should contact a lawyer for their peace of mind.

You're lucky you got the usufruct. Some land offices, particularly upcountry, will simply refuse to do it and the director of registrations has the discretion to do whatever he likes where foreigners are involved. How easy it would be enforce a usufruct against a hostile Thai wife or ex or her heirs, if she is deceased particularly if the property is in their village, would depend on individual cases. And yes you should do it before you are married, if possible, because the Civil & Commercial Code provides for annulment of a contract between husband and wife, if one of them can convince the judge they were taken advantage of by the other.

Some can still get away with using Thai companies but this has been made much harder since the Interior Minister issued new instructions to land offices to try to prevent foreigners from using a corporate ownership structure. Basically the land officers were ordered to reject any transfers to companies that any overt or suspected foreign involvement.  Thai nominees can be quizzed as to what is the business plan of the company and why do they want to invest their entire paid up capital in a resort villa with infinity pool.

32 minutes ago, Inter Student Thailand said:

Might be a bit late on this but you have to take it there and take a photo of you with the letter at the British Embassy building. They will not accept the letter, they will not provide you a receipt, you cannot take photos of embassy staff. Just take a selfie with the letter next to the sign and send it to your case officer. 

They have thought up some quite comical procedures in recent years.

2 hours ago, scorecard said:

Different point: I got PR 24+ yrs ago, my knowledge on some points / some of the regulations etc., is now a bit fuzzy.

 

I have a buddy who has done a lot of research etc., and is pretty much ready to submit at the next submission window, but he's just asked me some very specific quetions which I can't answer, as follows:

 

- It seems that to apply the foreigner must have held a WP for at least the three preceding years without break and with the same employer?    IS THIS FULLY CORRECT NOWDAYS?

 

- And the WP must still be current on the date of lodging the PR application.  IS THIS STILL CORRECT NOWDAYS?

- But can the foreigner lodge the PR application then stop work and return the WP?    ???

 

- Or can the foreigner now change jobs but with the new WP issued quickly for the new job?   ???

 

- Or does the PR applicant need to continue the same WP and still hold the same WP on the date of issue of the Certificate of Residence book etc., if the PR application is approved?  ???

 

 

My buddie is concerned that he might submit with all of his documents in order, fairly confident re the interview etc., but might fall foul of the processing of his application continuing because he 'breaks' a regulation re the scenarios just above.

 

Any advice much welcome, but please folks not interested in what the regulations 'should be' etc. Only interested in fact.

 

Thanks. Appreciated.

- It seems that to apply the foreigner must have held a WP for at least the three preceding years without break and with the same employer? 

Last I heard from someone who applied a few years ago was that you needed to be with the same employer for a year before applying. They may have extended this to 3 years.

- And the WP must still be current on the date of lodging the PR application. 

Definitely true

- But can the foreigner lodge the PR application then stop work and return the WP?

Technically correct. You can give up work after applying but I would recommend trying to hang on till after the formal interview, if possible. If they find out you are no longer in employment, they might say you are no longer qualified. I would guess that technically the timing for all your information being correct is the date that Immigration accepts your application but someone might interpret this as the date of your formal interview.

- Or can the foreigner now change jobs but with the new WP issued quickly for the new job? 

I don't see any problem with changing jobs after applying. However, again I would avoid drawing attention to that, if it happens before the formal interview.

- Or does the PR applicant need to continue the same WP and still hold the same WP on the date of issue of the Certificate of Residence book etc., if the PR application is approved? 

No. There have been a lot of cases where the applicant had ceased employment or changed jobs by the time they went to collect their PR books, particularly during the period before the 2014 coup when PR applications were taking up to 7 years.

As always, the best thing is to visit the Police Senior Sergeant Majors on the PR desk with queries. Some of the requirements are not set in stone and are subject to change when new management comes into Immigration or the Ministry of the Interior.

13 minutes ago, scorecard said:

I guess worth sharing, recently I was talking to another long-term PR holder (10 years), he mentioned his 'wish list' of benefits he would like to see coming with PR approval:

 

1. - No need for work permit but list of occupations reserved for Thai continues.

 

2. - PR holders allowed to join the Thai SS 30Baht health scheme on receiving PR, personal payment every month (about 470Baht a month) direct to SS office. (Same as quite a few other farang; on leaving employment able to privately continue the 30Baht health scheme, personal payment every month). 

 

Any thoughts? 

1. Re WP. A good idea but a huge stretch.  Government thinking is not that PR effectively is close to citizenship without voting rights, as in many other countries.  The Thai view of PR is simply foreigners who have been granted a visa of permanent validity, albeit subject to endorsements for travel. In every other respect they are still 100% alien.

2. You mean the Universal Healthcare Scheme not the SS (Social Security) scheme which is open to foreigners in employment. They stopped collecting the 30 baht under the Sarayudh government in 2006 because the administrative cost of collecting it was found be more than 30 baht.  This scheme actually started off being open to anyone on a tabien baan (not sure if yellow books were accepted or not) including foreigners with PR.  I was sent the original gold card and you should have received one too, since you have been a PR for over 24 years. A few years later they cancelled the right of foreigners to join the scheme but those already in were grandfathered.  Later they obliged foreign workers from neighbouring countries to join the scheme because they realised that excluding them and leaving them untreated for infectious diseases was a health hazard to Thais. So you can see the thinking.  Foreigners with PR are regarded as having enough money to pay for their own healthcare and are not a threat to Thais.  So the government will never let them back into the scheme, having already made a calculated decision to kick them out. 

As luck would have it the provision already exists in the Land Code - Section 96 bis, as amended in 1999, allows an alien who invests THB 40 million in certain approved investments is permitted with permission of the minister to own 1 rai of land for residential purposes in certain zones. So it could easily be updated by just a few changes of wording here and there.

But wait a minute. The 1999 provision was effectively sabotaged by the failure to publish the enabling ministerial regulations for several years, the expiry of qualifying real estate investment mutual funds before the regulations were issued and the consequent failure to make any new authorised investments available.  Thus, as far as I know, no foreigner has ever been able to purchase land under the current Section 96 bis, although many tried. 

Let's hope they have better luck next time, if they do update the amendment. But it seemed that the initial proposal as part of the new visa offerings to wealthy foreigners had been dropped for fear of a local backlash.  Perhaps someone is talking out of turn by trying to revive this proposal. I expect realtors would support it but virtually no Thais who are not in the real estate sector.

3 hours ago, scorecard said:

Well proven before the roadblock to granting Thai citizenship to many similar folks (regardless of football teams etc.), is simply the arrogant local officials who automatically see these people as inferior, not nice people* and therefore cannot be given Thai citizenship. plus the local officials on an ego trip to show their perceived power. 

 

Like so many things no national controls in place to ensure regulations and entitlements are strictly followed. 

 

• * Lao and Cambodina people seen as inferior and even more so the Burmese, seen as bad people because they won wars two hundred years ago.  

Many of the minorities who have lived in Thailand for generations were initially left out in the cold because they were nomadic slash and burn agriculturalists who, through ill fortune, were not in their main village when Thai officials arrived unannounced to conduct the first consensus of 1956.  Those who were unable to get this fixed by 1972 were officially made stateless along with their unborn descendants by Revolutionary Decree 337 which ended the automatic right to citizenship to all born within the Kingdom and restricted it to children born to a Thai father or to two permanent resident parents who were officially married or a Thai mother officially married to a permanent resident.  The decree also revoked citizenship from those who had become Thai through birth in the Kingdom to alien parents who were not both PRs and even to children of Thai mothers with foreign fathers.  There was a transitional provision that allowed them to re-register as citizens at the discretion of the minister, which was usually granted, but, of course, people out in the sticks were unaware of this or lacked the wherewithal to make the application and were stripped of their Thai citizenship, often without being aware of it until they applied for a new ID card.

,

The above injustices were fixed for those born to Thai mothers and foreign fathers, who were often left stateless by the 1972 decree, despite birth in Thailand, through the 1992 amendment to the Nationality Act that allowed citizenship to pass through the matralineal line.  There have been many cabinet resolutions and legal amendments aimed at somewhat redressing the balance for minorities.  However, as Scorecard correctly points out implementation is left to local officials without much effort to ensure consistent implementation.

On 7/6/2022 at 11:39 PM, Bubbha said:

On the back of the pink card are term and conditions for the user (photo attached of the back side of my pink card).

Under Number 3 it states that PRs are allowed to travel outside of the card issuing administrative area.

Not all pink cards include this language on the back. A friend who completed PR at the same time as I, did not have Number 3 on the back of his card. (He subsequently went and changed that.)

I use this card routinely for flights and hotels. I once was checking into a Thai Airways flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and the staff person asked for my letter of permission to travel. I told her I didn’t need one and referred her to the back of the card. Problem solved…

 

Since Note 3 says you need to have an alien book or a letter of permission to travel outside the issuing district, they are entitled to ask for your alien book which, of course no self respecting Thai airline, hotel or bank will accept as proof of identity and will fall to pieces, if carried around with you. Potentially a Catch 22.

I guess many district offices can't be bothered to order the blank cards with that wording or maybe they just pick up the first one that comes to hand. The whole system is ridiculous giving PRs a card that was designed for stateless minorities without PR and later used for foreign migrant workers after they signed the MOUs with neighboring countries. It wouldn't cost much more to print some blanks that say "Permanent Resident of Thailand" but then, of course, PRs fall between two stools and between the police and DOPA, as they are still under the 1927 regulations that require them to carry their alien books around everywhere.  The police are legally required to issue the alien books which PRs are legally obliged to have and DOPA is legally required to issue the pink cards, but only if requested and the Note 2 that says the pink cards should always be carried is not actually a legal requirement for PRs.  Overlapping regulations but the police have a senior claim with the alien books, which probably explains why nothing is done to rationalise the system and issue a new smart card to PRs and scrap the 100 year old alien books.  

19 minutes ago, Michael Hare said:

Agree with you there Arkady. Fees will go up soon. I lived in Thailand from 1974-1980. I got married in 1979 and my wife and I returned to NZ at the end of 1980. She automatically got PR by being married to me, a Kiwi. I think that there may have been a short interview at one point. After 14 years in NZ we decided to return to Ubon in 1994 with our 6 year son (he already had dual nationality). We weren't sure how long we would start. When it appeared that we would be here for years, I decided it would be best to get PR. I thought it would be like NZ, a simple straight forward process. I had no idea of the amount of paper work that would be involved. I just took it one step at a time and I got my PR. 

Until 1981 foreign wives of Brits (but not husbands) could just take their marriage certificate to the embassy and get a British passport immediately. A friend did this for his Thai wife.  Now it is quite hard for Brits to take Thai wives to the UK even as tourists, let alone get them PR and citizenship but at least they are not deported to Rwanda.

When I arrived in Thailand in the late 80s the old hands liked to tell me I had missed the boat because it had been wonderful in the 60s and early 70s but had since gone down the drain.  I bet you were told that you should have got here in the 50s.

4 hours ago, Michael Hare said:

When I applied some of my documents were not quite in order. They needed signatures on all the tax forms and photos of me standing in front of our house with my son and daughter. They rang me up from Soi Suan Plu and told me what additional documents they needed. Maybe they were kind to me having to all the way down from Ubon. 

 

In the late 90s they still accepted self-certified documents for everything except company documents but, as I was the company signatory, I had to sign those too. Documents in English didn't have to be translated.  No need for home country police record and nothing from embassy.  Not knowing what was to come, I thought it was a huge burden.  I remember going into the office at the weekend to sign all the documents my secretary had prepared and it seemed like the pile was nearly a metre high.

Considering that Immigration seems to increase fees about once in a generation, now that it is 20 years since the last increase, there may well be another one around the corner. Not only the fees for all types of visas, including PR, went up the last time but the financial hurdles for retirement and retirement extensions got massive hikes too.  I seem to remember the retirement extension lump sum in the bank requirement, which is now THB 800,000 and 1.6 million for a couple was only about 200,000 for a single and a couple before the increase. A hike in retirement and marriage extension hurdles would cause a lot of grief and departures.  Another good reason to make the effort to get PR.

5 hours ago, scorecard said:

Sure, some agents are good, some are rogues. I couldn't fault the agent who helped me with PR, sincere, friendly, focused and never once mentioned extra fees / tea money. 

 

On the other hand I'm aware there's a Visa agent in Chiang Mai who has been telling people he helps (helps with new and renewal of various Visas) that if farang hold one of the many typical Thai visas for a block period of 10 years they are automatically entitled to PR. No extra official paper work neded, but very very big official fees. Agent also tells people that they must use the same agent for the 10 years, and they must never personally go to the Imm. office, that would automatically invalidate their PR entitlement. 

 

All BS of course.

That scam sounds so unconvincing that it's amazing anyone would fall for it but there's one born every minute like the Thai lady who CFO of  Essilor Thailand and fell for a Nigerian operated romance scam. She transferred 6 billion baht of Essilor's money to the scamsters over a couple of years and never met the fantasy American Chinese man she fell in love with. 

I didn't use an agent for my PR but I couldn't have done it without a very efficient secretary. You certainly need some help of some sort, if you very busy at work.  I did use an agent, who came highly recommended by a friend who had used her for PR,  for citizenship for a short while though.  That was because in the pre-coup period it was taking me an inordinate amount of time without even getting to the interview stage and I got nothing from regularly calling the police or the ministry.  She did earn her money which was I think 70k by going to the ministry and finding out that the police had made a stupid mistake in my application that could have got me rejected, if it had been spotted only at the interview stage. So I was able to have the file sent back to the police to be corrected which took six months, rather than be rejected. After that the agent started saying that she needed at least 500k to pay bribes and dropped me as a client after a very insulting row with Mrs Arkady when I refused. After I got the application corrected by the police and resubmitted to the ministry the application actually went quite smoothly and fast. So I was glad I didn't pay her and suspected that she would have kept the lot but claimed credit for success and I would have been none the wiser. Someone who used her after me more recently against my advice later complained he got nothing for the several hundred thousand in VIP fees he had paid her.

Those were my experiences but things change and I don't doubt what Misty and others are saying.  As Jayboy commented, if you choose to pay someone it is hard to know whether they have the right connections to make a difference. You have no recourse because there will nothing in writing saying it was anything more than a normal fee.

2 hours ago, Michael Hare said:

It seems very difficult to get PR these days. Back in 2002 when I first applied, I did everything myself. I was applying under the cheapest category available to me, which was based on being married to a Thai and with a dependent child. I live in Ubon Ratchathani and I flew down to Bangkok and went to Soi Suan Plu four times. The first to apply, the second for my wife to be interviewed, the third for the Thai language tests and the fourth and last time to get my PR and pay the money. The whole process was straight forward and took two and half years. My wife only went once, the second time.

Actually it had just got harder and longer when you applied, as Thaksin's xenophobic interior minister, Purachai, with property in NZ and  PR and children at school there made things harder. Previously Immigration more or less guaranteed those fully qualified would get their PR before window opened again the following year.  I did get mine in 1997 in just under a year a few days before they re-opened the window but there were two earlier batches that got theirs around June and September.  Six months was not considered unusual then. Purachai also introduced the language test and the required documentation got progressively harder.  Then things got even worse in the mid to late 2000s and they started making people wait 5-7 years which was the situation when the 2014 coup happened and straightened things out. A number of people were rejected out of hand in that period without being given a reason.  A Swiss guy sued the Purachai in the Administrative Court for rejecting  him without cause.  The case took about three years going through the courts and the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the rejection on the grounds that the Immigration Act gives the minister complete discretion to decide whatever he pleases.  The Swiss guy would have done better to save his money and quietly reapply after Purachai was dumped by Thaksin for becoming too popular and thereby a threat to him. 

Looking briefly through the history of Thai cannabis legislation I see there was a Cannibis Act of 1934 that was repealed on the promulgation of the Narcotics Act 1979 which included all parts of cannabis and hemp plants and their extracts for total prohibition in Category 5.

Under the Canabis Act 1934 it was considered a medicinal herb and the law was all about licensing for sellers.  Plus ça change.  After 43 years of prohibition which apparently achieved nothing Thailand is now reverting to the status quo of 88 years ago. 

I have only started looking into the legal aspects of cannabis in Thailand in the last few days out of curiosity.

I have a question for those who know more about it.  Is hashish considered an extract over 0.2%?  I believe it is made of pressed cannabis resin.  Therefore it is not strictly speaking an extract like cannabis oil.  However, it hasn't appeared on any of the dispensary price lists I have seen which leads me to think it might be considered an extract.  The resin in Thailand may just be left with the buds to increase their potency. 

The Cannabis and Hemp Bill seems to fill in a lot of the details of licensing, registration for home growers & etc.  Also the ban on sale to under 20s, pregnant and lactating women (how to know if they are in the early stages of pregnancy or lactating?).

I read in one report that import of a small quantity for personal use carried on the person will be allowed.  It will be interesting to see if that makes it through parliament into the final version.

It is quite common in Thai legislation for a law to be promulgated or amended with enabling legislation to follow.  That happens with every constitution with organic laws filling in the details later.  It has also happened with amendments to the Land Code, Working of Aliens Act and many other laws.  Sometimes this laws cannot be put into effect at all without the enabling legislation, e.g. the constitution.  In other cases they can.  The Working of Aliens Act stipulated that the list of reserved professions would be amended by a ministerial decree within 12 months but that amendment was never issued and the law was revoked and replaced by a Royal Decree without any revision to the list of reserved professions. 

In this case one could argue it was inappropriate to amend the Narcotics Act by deleting cannabis except extracts over 0.2% from Category 5 without the enabling legislation. However, I think we can assume this was a case of political expediency.  Anutin had the power the amend the Narcotics Act with approval from the Narcotics Committee simply by issuing a one page ministerial order. The Cannabis and Hemp Bill had to be drafted at length, reviewed by the Juridicial Council and go through three House readings (it is has just passed the first reading).  With the government coming to the end of its term and with the risk of early elections, there was and still is no guarantee the Cannabis and Hemp Bill would be passed before the next elections.  Waiting for this Anutin would have risked going to the polls with his key election pledge unfulfilled. 

Cannabis legalization must have been the main attraction of the MoPH to Anutin.   Who would have guessed back in 2019 he was going to have to deal with a pandemic? With the pandemic and vaccines starting to recede in the rear view mirror, at least for now, Anutin is coming through as a man who, for better or wore, delivers his promises which could put him in a good position to become a future PM.

1 hour ago, scorecard said:

When you get your PR approval letter you must go, promptly, to an appropriate police station and get a RED Police Registration Book, and your current residential address is written in the RED book. The RED book must be updated every 5 years, very simple mechanical process. 

 

I've come across several PR holders who:

 

- Didn't understand the 5 year update requirement and have never done the 5 year update.

Plus ...

- Changed their address but have never gone to the police station where they received their RED book to inform that police station they have changed their address. In fact it's a fineable offence to not do both actions above*. (I wonder if some folks get the RED book and the Tabien Baan book purpose and requirements confused).

 

But not doing the above updates is not likely to cause your actual PR to be cancelled.

I was fined many years ago for failing to update my address and change my red book from my old police precint to the new one within 30 days.  I think it was only 100 baht but may have gone up since then.  Changing red book address is the same process as for tabien baan.  You have to check out of the first district and then into the new one. In those days the police sent a large package containing the red book and god knows what else to the new police station which somehow took three weeks to go 14 km across Bangkok. It is probably still the same antiquated process with the police but changing address of tabien baan is now highly automated. I did it for my new born son from the hospital district and didn't have to fill in any forms or provide document copies, as in the past. They just scanned the documents they wanted into the computer.

16 hours ago, Damrongsak said:

Yes, some shoot the SWC in a semi-auto pistol.  I just discovered that some years back, Smith & Wesson made the Model 52 semi-auto target pistol which was chambered in 38 Special and used full wadcutter bullets.  Colt made a M1911 Gold Cup National Match .38 Special Mid-Range pistol.  Both of these are rather rare and $$$.

I am glad you mentioned these two vintage .38 Special Mid-Range pistols because I had never heard of them and they are quite interesting. They were designed for bulls eye match shooting and It seems the S&W 52 was made in the S&W Performance Center unit in the days when that meant rigorous fitting and testing of each model (nowadays Performance Center at S&W just means a small shop at the factory where they fix defective PC models made on the regular assembly line that have been returned for repair under warranty - a fat lot of use if you bought one overseas).  I am sure it was the same case with the Colt but neither S&W or Colt employ any of those old world gunsmiths capable of this type of work any more. Making a pistol shoot rimmed revolver wadcutters is entirely feasible, if it is specifically designed for that round and is painstaking fitted and tested at the factory.  Of course it can only take that WC ammo and cannot shoot round nosed .38s.

As far as pistols shooting revolver ammo are concerned, Coonan makes a semi-auto pistol in .357 magnum.  Of course it can only shoot that and can't use .38 Special. I have seen one in a Bangkok gunshop for around 230,000 baht. And the Desert Eagle .44 magnum is also available for, I guess, over 200k. I have fired the Desert Eagle and it is so heavy that there is little felt recoil.  But these pistols that can only shoot expensive revolver ammo are not for me. However I would love to have a S&W Model 52.  People who have them in good condition say they can still shoot an under 2" group at 50 yards and the ammo is readily available at any range in Thailand and relatively inexpensive. If you see one for sale here legally, let me know.