John Drake

Transferred from the US to Thailand on 3 May and only received it on 7 May.

Prayuth was better

I wish Prayuth was back.

Self deleted my reply as apparently this is a banned subject.

For God's sake, go, and stop polluting this forum.

It's the looming interpretation of this line from the main topic on this subject yesterday that is causing the unease. I do hope there is some quick elaboration on exactly what this means:

Probably should cc this to the Pattaya forum.

That's why I always go prepared for the eventuality, along with two sets of photocopies for the material supporting the extension, extra photos, copies of my lease with the landlord's ID, two copies of bank book activity over the past year. I remember when I was surprised with the latter requirement one year when up to that time I had only been required to include the page from the bank book showing that day's activity.

Seemingly. But if their intent is to streamline everything for retirement into an underlying O, that leaves some question as to whether the conditions for both would be the same.

So far, I've not needed a statement from Chaenwattana, but I usually take one along from Bangkok Bank just in case. In the past, that meant ordering one at the branch office, getting a receipt, and having the statement emailed to me. The above poster did say that this is similar. It takes 1-2 days to receive a pdf from the bank. I don't know how immigration would receive this elsewhere obviously. Just hope I never actually need it at Chaengwattana.

Thanks very much for that. I just looked and found it. Very helpful. Now, if they'll just not disable my bank app because the sim is in my wife's name

My extension for purposes of retirement has a Non-Imm B as the underlying visa. So where will that stand in all these changes?

My Twitter/X feed is full of links to their Youtube videos, where after setting up shop for a couple of weeks they are now broadcasting to the world how they know how it's all done here.

You get what you pay for. 720 baht for what is going for around 950 to 1000 should have warned the buyer.

No. At that stage you can choose whether to go with a retirement visa/extension or a marriage visa.

It was actually worth it for your interpretation of "cop coon car."

Well, good answer. But I have always wondered why the retirement/visa's eligibility age seemed so relatively young, at 50, when the Thai government retirement age itself is 60. I've always thought they might tighten things up to bring the retirement visa in alignment with their own concept of retirement age.

"Final years" sounds like people on death's doorstep. I wonder if this could indicate they are increasing the age of eligibility for the retirement visa/extension? Remember all the commotion over the biker gangs on retirement? Maybe they want a more sedate class of "elderly."

Just a thought, but maybe you should slow down just a bit and draw up a list of everything you need to do to get the retirement visa/extension. Maybe get some practical experience working with the bureaucracy. Check out the immigration office where you will be living and any quirks it may have. You've done well to start with this message. And it's good you're finding out about the bank accounts. But unless you have severe deadlines, I would just spend some time browsing AN topics and going in person to see what requirements you're going to need from your residence's owner, 90 day notification, notice of address change, bank, sending money into a Thai bank from abroad, and finally immigration and your passport validity.

That at least would be workable. I really don't like the idea of them increasing the money in the bank past what Thai banks guarantee. What I believe is that this is yet another half baked set of reforms which nobody has bothered to test for their consequences. I'm still hoping that they do "grandfather" any money in the bank changes like they did before in the early 2000s. Back dating it like they did, then, would be fair. It would also provide a bit of a reward to those of us who stuck it out in Thailand throughout Covid.

Not a priority for me but certainly so for some. The big thing is the changes to retirement extensions that was just announced yesterday. We don't know what those are. But I've yet to see a change that made things easier for us. All these people "confused" or "laughing" at my preference for Prayuth should remember that he was a status quo politician. For those of us dealing with immigration, he was a godsend. If getting an extension suddenly becomes much more expensive or impossible (can't get health insurance), how many will still be laughing or confused?

Oh, I do wish we had Prayuth back. *No income taxes on foreign sourced income for expatriates *No changes to conditions for retirement extensions, which now appears in the works *Subsidies for electricity bills *Gave us a fully operational online 90 day notification system that works *Was able to thread the needle in foreign policy between China and the USA *No mass shutting down of banking apps on phones *Control of Covid when it counted most

Wonder if he will now be diagnosed with Long Covid. Might not appear before a court then for a long, long time.

Didn't they back date four or six years the last time they "grandfathered" retirement extensions? That is, people who had maintained their extensions for four (or six, can't remember which) years prior to the rules changes were allowed to keep the existing conditions for retirement extensions. If so, that would mean people who have maintained retirement extensions uninterruptedly since 2020 (or 2018) would keep their current requirements. If they just wipe out everybody, I wonder if that will include those people who were grandfathered with the 200K earlier? Some are still around.

Yeah, the Russian was a sleaze. Seems everybody there was a sleaze.