Mike Teavee

Did you use the Same Day service for your new passport? Only when I got my last one (Liverpool) they handed my old passport back to me with the new one. Am planning on doing the same next year but if I need to hang around in the UK for the old passport to be returned then I’ll get it done in Thailand instead.

Thanks, I understood the removal of “No fault evictions” meant I could only evict the tenants if they did something wrong so it’s reassuring to know that I can still ask them to leave if I want to sell Selling to another landlord is unlikely as the income yield is approx 2.5% (before expenses) given my tenants pay 25-30% below market rate as I’ve only raise the rent once in 6 years. As I mentioned, The house was bought for us to live in not as an investment & I do appreciate that these are peoples homes we’re talking about but the government is progressively making it harder to be a (single house) landlord & Im at the point where I’d rather use the cash to buy a decent condo in Thailand & stop being a renter here. In an ideal world the tenants would buy the house & everybody would be happy, am hoping this turns out to be the case & they’ll certainly be given 1st refusal to buy.

I rent out my (ex) home so consider myself as an accidental landlord but think I’m a decent landlord as any issues are dealt with immediately (Agent is pre-approved to carry out repairs up to £500) & I’ve only put the rent up once (last year) in the past 6 years. However these new regulations concern me as although I’d never move back into the house, I might want to sell it & have always understood that I could do that anytime with 2 months notice (though I’d never do it mid-contract). My tenants lease is up at the end of May & we’ve agreed another year (at the same rate) but after this news if it was due 2-3 months from now I’d probably be saying no & putting the place on the market (which I’ll do next Jan).

It does feel like they're looking to copy the Philippines model of locals/long term residents paying & leaving the tourists / Non-IMM's alone, so if it does get implemented lets hope that you can pay at the same time as you purchase your tickets. That wasn't the case when I used to travel to the Philippines (mainly SIA SIN-DVO) with my ex-GF but I haven't been (or booked a flight for her) since 2018 (wow 5 years has flown by!).

Bit of a morbid question but who pays for the damage to the bike if an uninsured/unlicensed tourist is killed in an accident? Does the mandatory 3rd Party insurance cover it (In which case the government could look to changing it so it doesn't apply to rental bikes if the rider is not fully licensed/insured etc...) or does the rental company cover it (in which case you would think it would be in their best interest to ensure full license etc...)

So if I book a flight for me & the GF, she has to pay the tax & I don't... How's that going to work when booking online & if for some reason the tax doesn't get paid who cops the penalty? Me (I'm a Non-Imm so not liable for the tax), her (But she's not making the booking or paying for it) or the online site (for failing to collect it). The only way it could work is if it was paid at the airport (as happens in Philippines), which just adds to the already far too long it takes people to get through Immigration. Another ill-thought out scheme that will never be implemented but tarnishes Thailand's tourism reputation anyway.

If you need to send > 50,000b then you will need an account with one of... Bangkok Bank Public Company Kasikorn Bank Siam Commercial Bank https://wise.com/help/articles/2932335/guide-to-thb-transfers OP Can you register an account in Thailand? I just remember when I needed to move my account from Singapore to Thailand or UK I ended up moving it to the UK for some reason (Could have been that I have a lot more proof of address there as all my UK bank/credit card correspondence goes to my parents address). No problem using a Thai mobile number with Wise though as other's have recommended, you're much better off using the mobile app.

What a wonderful quote...

I get SMS messages for every outgoing transaction (including withdrawals) from my BKB account no matter how small... Obvious questions but have you changed your mobile number recently & are you able to receive SMS from other sources (could be a problem with your phone/carrier rather than the Bank).

Are you able to use card less withdrawals at other banks ATMs? My nearest Bangkok Bank ATM is 10-15mins away but have Krungsri & TTB ATMs a couple of minutes away so would be nice to be able to use those cardlessly

Have never heard of them but a couple of friends have used https://onwardticket.com/ with no problems & have recommended the service to others.

Am guessing he's turned right at the Corner of the new Space Hotel (Naklua 20 Alley) & instead of going all the way across the oncoming lanes to the correct lanes, has tried to "Filter" into it ploughing into the 2 German gents on the way. Terrible driving as there didn't seem to be anything stopping him from driving all the way across to the correct lanes, just impatient & a complete lack of awareness of anything else on the road.

It won't put off long haul travelers (an extra < 1% isn't going to stop me from visiting family) but it might put off people travelling from Malaysia / Singapore etc... where it could be an extra 10-20% on top of however much flight prices have gone up already (My UK flights were 46% more expensive than the ones I bought pre-Covid). A departure Tax of 750B is already included in the flight prices so I am guessing they will increase this to 1,750B. But if they really want to shoot themselves in the foot they could make it a pay-2-exit & make the proposed 300B a pay-2-enter and watch the airport grind to a halt (as if it doesn't at times anyway).

Have you watched the Video? You can see clearly that the car is on the wrong side of the middle lines when it hits them. The driver pulled over to the correct side of the road after the accident.

That road has 2 lanes on either side & to me it looks like the driver is in the outside lane of the oncoming traffic so is on the wrong side of the road.

I wouldn’t say the Germans were extremely careful but they stopped (in the middle of the road) whilst crossing so the driver should have seen them. They certainly didn’t step out in front of the driver from behind a parked car or anything.

RIP Joe & thanks again for guiding me (& many others) through the Thailand Non-Imm O minefield. Condolences to his family, I hope they find some comfort in the fact that he was well loved amongst his fellows here on AN & will be sorely missed by everybody that he's helped over many years. Legend of ThaiVisa/AseanNow will never be forgotten...

Lol, Flicking through new Netflix movies & “Barbie Spy Movie” came up so I asked the GF if she knew what Barbie was… Didn’t have a clue. Maybe knowledge about the rest of the world is overrated at times ????

It's the latter of when you move overseas OR receive your 1st Pension, so if (Like me) you're not yet at State Pension age but have declared yourself as living in Thailand then your pension will continue to increase until you're eligible to receive it at which point (assuming still living in Thailand) it will be frozen. Fun fact, yesterday I cancelled my monthly AVC subscription as by my calculations I've paid the full amount (40 years, I was "Contracted Out" for most of it) that their State Pension calculators site says I need to pay. Am visiting UK from 15th May so will call them to make sure.

As I've posted previously it was Barclays that moved me overseas & I became Non-Resident for Tax when I moved to work for Barclays Singapore PTE so they know full well that I'm not in the UK but there are no problems trading online or over the phone, however as non-UK Resident for Tax you cannot invest any new monies into ISAs. I do approx. 6 trades per year which is made up of manual re-investing of dividend income twice per year + I keep a "Punt Fund" for shares that I think have been oversold which I Buy & then sell when they hit my target gain (which is usually 10%). Again, no problems in trading & my accountant doesn't ask me for any CGT information when completing my return as I've been non-UK Resident (For Tax) for 15 years

I can only say that prior to becoming Non-UK Resident for Tax (in 2008) when I had an income that put me in the Higher Rate Earnings bracket I had to pay additional tax on my UK Dividends & since then I haven't BUT since then I also haven't been earning a UK Salary so my UK passive income has been around the 25-30K per year mark. As I used to own my own LTD company (One man band IT Consultancy) the Tax firm that used to file my company accounts files my personal returns so have to confess I don't 100% understand the dividend income rules since they introduced the "Dividend Allowance" & researching online brings mixed opinions about whether Non-UK residents (for Tax) are liable for more tax or not so I might be wrong & might find myself with an unexpected Tax Bill this year as Dividends have been very good ????

Nope, no crosswalk there…

Yep, GF buys all hers online for 80b & apparently the guy doesn't take any commission from winnings. Of course when I want her to buy me a ticket it's 100b - "Business is Business"

As well as the increase in fares I've noticed a lot more drivers cancelling (or not responding to) the booking, had 5 in a row when I wanted to go into town the other day & 2 drivers cancelled on route to pick us up from Makro (One was 1 minute away when he cancelled). Oh & a Taxi (booked via Bolt) kicked us out yesterday when he found out that we wanted to go from Wongamat to view some houses at Patta Element (approx 30 min drive) fortunately we managed to book an "Economy" car which turned up 2 minutes later & the driver was a really nice guy who waited 40 minutes for us & brought us back so we gave him 500b (IIRC the fare was listed as 161b one-way). All in all I still love the service (I don't have my own transport so wouldn't live out in Wongamat without it) but I am starting to look at Grab more when we can't get a Bolt. Airport runs I always use Nam or Cherry's taxi.

Spent 3 years at Ideo Verve On Nut (Not luxury) which is right opposite On Nut BTS Station & on Sukhumvit Road but because we had a Unit at the rear corner there was no noise from Traffic from the road. We were on floor 12A (floor 13 really but apparently they're superstitious there so the floors went 10, 11, 12, 12A, 14, 15 etc...) so not really a high floor.