Mike Teavee

I hate queuing to the point where I’m happy to spend money to avoid it (e.g. Fast Track at airports) so maybe need a decent appointment booking system to go with clear/consistently applied requirements. And I would still probably pay somebody to do it for me if the price was right. I’m sure most guys would get an agent to do it for them if it were free/cost a couple of hundred Baht… Just as I’m sure very few guys would use one it if it costs 100,000b. You do remind me of my 2 friends who have a go at me for paying an agent to do it, it’s ok for them they work here & their companies do it all for them. I just sit back & smile and think wait until you have to go to the madness that is CW and get sent away because you’ve used a form that changed this week as almost happened to me on my 1st Extension, fortunately the IO got a form for me to sign, not sure they would have if I wasn’t there with my Agent. Always find it funny when people tell me I’m wasting my money when they spend > 10x as much on cigarettes (that’s my 2 mates btw not people on this thread ???? )

There are a lot of Honest Retirees that use Agents to do their Extensions simply for the convenience & knowledge that it will get done without fuss. Maybe if I had more confidence that the IO on the day would strictly adhere to the printed requirements/rules I'd do it myself but until then I'll continue to pay my agent 6,100b on top of the 1,900b immigration fee to complete all my paperwork, check my banking documents are in order (they caught amalgamated entries that I missed one year & took me to the bank to get the statements I needed) & make sure that any photographs, maps to condo etc... meet the requirements. Others choose to spend the < 17b it costs per day on other things... Too each his own...

Presumably if they up the deposit to 1.2Million, they’ll up the 65K to 100K pm Thats a significant income to have to have each month, especially as it needs to be Nett of all taxes & any expenses in your home country (approx. £31,500 pa before tax or £2,308b pm after tax).

If it does go to 3Million then I can only hope that the silver lining is we get the 10 (2x5) year visa that go along with the Non-IMM OX... I would guess that the increase will be to either 1Million (has a nice round number feel about it) or 1.2Million (50% increase) either of which are a hell of a bump but not too big as to generate Headlines of "Thailand Doubles/Triples Requirements for Retirement Visas" Maybe somewhere in the middle? E.g. 1.5 - 2Million in the Bank for a 5 year Visa?

I seem to remember at the time this was all kicking off, Barclays cited Brexit as the reason that they were unable to service Spanish customers as they no longer have a license to provide Banking Services in Spain & so started closing accounts for any customers who live in a country where they are not able to provide Banking services (One of which is obviously Thailand) - Their T&Cs do say that you need to be UK Resident to have an account with them. For my UK Banks, Virgin (Now Natwest) who I have my mortgage with asked me to provide a TIN (Tax Identification number) for Thailand so they could report the interest they pay me, I told them to p155 off as it would be too much hassle for the sake of the £2 pa (I keep a small credit on my mortgage) interest I get... They've left me alone but last month wrote to my mate to tell him they'll be closing his account in September (He'd paid off his mortgage but kept the current account open) so maybe not heard the end of it. Barclays knows that I no longer live in the UK as they moved me to Singapore 15 years ago (My current account is still listed as a "Staff" account despite me not working for them for 9 years), but I'm still concerned that they'll come back & close my accounts, especially as my Brokerage/ISA accounts are with them but hopefully if that happens I'll be able to move over to using one of their IOM/Channel Island Offshore accounts... IIRC it's approx. £40 pm but don't really have a choice as all my income comes from the UK nowadays.

Yep... The only Retirees impacted by the requirement to keep a minimum of 400K all year round were the ones who kept 800K in there in the 1st place. It had no impact on the people who don't keep the 800K & use an Agent to "Assist with Finances" for their extension who were presumably the target of the new rules. I don't even think Agents fee went up as a result of it. Whatever changes they make I hope they will "Grandfather In" Retirees who have been here for many years, IIRC last time they increased the Finances they did this for Retirees who have had their (unbroken) Non-IMM O for 4 years.

Not a problem, you could have gone to Singapore or Macau for a night, neither of them stamp your passport in or out nowadays Singapore you could have entered via bus/car at Johor Bahru so no flight records either.

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Just wow... ... So we have Elite... Then we have PIB's I'm more elite than you... Words fail me (even the bad ones)...

Sorry, but again... "Retiree" is not the same as "Pensioner"... Simple Question... when you were 1-2 years below your "Pension" age & retired (if you weren't retired then why not!) would you have met the Income requirements of the LTR (i.e. without your pension?).

"Retiree" is not the same as "Pensioner" & clearly the "Wealthy Pensioner" LTR is geared more towards guys with a steady income coming from something like a Pension than those of us Retirees who are too young to receive our pensions so live on income from Rent, Dividends etc... & make up any short fall from savings. That aside, I'm pretty sure that there are vastly (>10x) more Retirees/Pensioners (especially guys who already have 80% of it sat in the bank already) who could pay 1Million for an Elite membership but don't have the >$80,000 pa income & if they do have an income of $40,000, are not able/willing to invest $250,000 So no, most guys who could pay for a 1Million Elite Visa would not qualify for a "Wealthy Pensioner" LTR.... I include myself in this camp & my monthly budget is > 250K pm which would seem to be more than enough to meet the $80K pa requirement if it was based on cash you have available to spend... So YES in my view, the LTR Visa for Retirees is flawed.

I'm in exactly the same position and would be interested in hearing what your considerations are. The way I look it, the obvious downside is the 1Million outlay but as I keep 800K in the bank all year round, this would "Only" be 200K which would soon recouped by:- I pay an agent 8K per year to do my extension, this includes the 1,900B immigration fee so 6,100K x 20 years = 122,000 - This assumes I don't leave the country in any one calendar year which, Covid type scenarios aside, is not going to happen At the same time as doing my extension I pay my Agent 4K to get me a multi-reentry permit, 4,000 x 20 = 80,000 - So that's my 200K recouped I either travel business class (80K extra for a UK Trip) OR purchase Fast Track access (1,200b each way) when transiting BKK so assume paying for fast track, 3 trips a year = 6 x 1,200 x 20 = 144,000 Since I've lost my Prestige Credit card I now need to pay to use the lounges, assume 3 x 1,000 x 20 - 60,000 Obviously the 800K is real money that I've spent so when the 20 years is up I won't have it to support future extensions BUT I'll be 77 then & will have been receiving my private pensions for 17 years, State Pension for 10 so have no doubt that I can put away more than enough money to meet any future "Retirement" extension financial requirements..

The way to think of MC/Visa is purely as Networks where they do not keep any data about you, just the transaction that you've made which wouldn't have things like your Address, Age, DOB, SS number etc... so it would be impossible for them to match any of your transactions on 1 card with transactions on another card. All "Real" data is held by the bank that issues the card. AFAIK The only financial information Thailand shares with the US is the FACTA related stuff (I'm British so they share none of our financial information with the UK) so there is no credit score type information shared. The only time I could see information being shared would be if you applied for a new card in the US & your US Card Company wanted to have a broader understanding of your financial position but if this was the case then it has nothing to do with cards being Visa or Mastercard it's just your bank doing a deeper dive into your wider finances. I can only say that this didn't happen to me when I got my (Singapore) Citibank credit cards, the only thing they were interested in was my income in Singapore... And in fact when I quit my job there to retire, they cancelled both cards despite me having 5 times the credit limit on deposit with them & offering to secure the cards with a "Secure Bond". Edit: I am not 100% sure but I would bet that there isn't a central Credit Score system in Thailand, if there is then they're doing a pretty sh1tty job as they allowed my GF to have 9 cards and "Borrow" (Spend!) 135,000b on her 15,000 pm salary.

I thought I read some time back that it was something to do with the size of the access road (e.g. if you had a small condo with 20 units you can get away with a much smaller access road than one with 580 units) & they have had to use part of the BTS land to meet the requirements. If was the case then I'm guessing the "Remediation" could be to reduce the number of units to a number that allows them to have an access road without using the BTS land.

Visa & Mastercard are just the "Networks" that banks/merchants use to carry out transactions & as such don't have any of your Personal/Address details and the US/Thai Banks would not exchange personal/address details unless for some reason you asked them to. So having a Thai credit card would have no impact on your US cards (If it ever did, then chances are a lot of people would be screwed anyway as Bangkok Bank uses Mastercard Debit cards).

Next... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435705/

If you fancy a very nice holiday you could go Penang to Langkawi then enter Thailand via the boat over to Koh Lipe… Warning you might never look at Phuket the same way again after visiting either Langkawi or Koh Lipe ????

Correct... I re-entered 31st May & had a bit of a scare when the online system sent me a reminder saying my next return was 3rd July, but soon realised they were using my last reporting date & not my last date of entry so my correct date is 28th August. Your next reporting date should be due 21st August.

I paid my GF’s 100K loan off when I found out that she had paid 8K pm for 1 year & still owed 96K. Worked out well as she paid me the 8K pm & gave up Birthday/Xmas presents to clear the debt in 9 months. Since then she’s cut up all but 1 of her credit cards (had about 9 of them maxed out which was why she needed the loan) which she keeps in case of an emergency.

Depends on which Immigration Office you use but I found Jomtien & (IIRC) Bangkok require a TM30 for anything you need to do with them so at worse on your next visit to Immigration you'll be fined (Can't remember how much - 1,500b rings a bell). If you plan on travelling outside of the country anytime soon then just ignore it & do a TM30 when you get back, if not then probably best to visit your immigration office to file a new one/pay the fine. FWIW I'm moving Condo next month & asked the agent (Not really, it was the Condo Management Office who found the unit for me) about doing my TM30 as my last one did it automatically for me every time I returned to Thailand (even though I didn't need to file a new one).. She said cannot do but knows a lady that will do it for me for 500b... Turns out the Owner is registered for the TM30 online service so will do it for free.

One of my favourite CT sketches…

Agreed, figures of 15-25K are very high, it's normally around 12,500B if you don't have the 800K in the bank so an extra 10,600B on top of the 1900B immigration fee. If you do have the money in the bank it's 8000B so an extra 6,100B on top of the 1,900B immigration fee - Worth it to me, others don't see the value & do it themselves - To each his own.

As I said, the majority of Retirees on here do not meet the financial requirements of the LTR so it might as well not exist for them but you are right, the potential point about UK inheritance Tax aside then it really is not worth the hassle of going for it at 70. But then again, if I was 70 I'd just buy the 1 Million THB 20 year Visa & be done with it (am sorely tempted to do this now at 57, if I was 70 it would have been done 3-4 years ago).

Apologies if this is a stupid question (have never considered getting married so have never considered it before) but if I were to marry my long term (4.5 years) Thai girlfriend could I apply for PR without ever having worked here ?

I'd guesstimate < 5% of Retirees here have an income of > $80,000 or have an income > $40,000 & are willing to invest $250,000... in fact I'd guess that there are more Retirees that can't/don't want to invest the $25,000/800,000b for their annual extension than that. That aside the LTR is still a Non-Immigrant Visa whereas Permanent Residency is (as the name suggests) more permanent & can lead to Thai Citizenship with all the benefits (land ownership etc...) that comes with it. All things being equal I think most people would choose PR over LTR.