BanMuangFarang

Chinese are rude, but ultimately have plenty of money is the opinion of my Thai wife. But she has changed her opinions over the past few years as both my sister-in-laws are Chinese and she loves being amongst them and learning how to cook Chinese food.

My wife still says Thai girls are more prettier than Chinese girls, which I agree.

On 12/24/2019 at 6:58 PM, rasg said:

My wife went to the IOM centre for her appointment, went straight to the Christian hospital 400 yards away and went back to the IOM to pick her certificate up. I booked a week or so in advance. All wrapped on the same day but you do need an early appointment.

Same happened with my wife; all completed including certificate issued in a day. Book online and pay the 3,000 or so baht when you attend the IOM Centre.

I've never had any issues with the Thai immigration, and I must have at least 12 tourist visa entries in my passport over the past 5 years.

All for legitimate purposes of visiting my girlfriend / wife.

17 hours ago, stevefloyd said:

We have just got a uk spouse visa, we supposed to collect the biometrics card within 30 days so we came back to UK 3 days before the vignette in her passport ran out with them threatening a possible fine of up to £1000 or a reduction time of her visa or maybe to cancel the visa if not collected by the deadline date. We went to collect it with 2 days to spare only to find out that the post office that uk visas and immigration had given us had been closed for 2 years, you couldn't make it up so despite the deadline coming and indeed going we are still waiting to find out where we have to collect it from!!

 

On completing my wife's application, I had an issue when selecting the Post Office to collect the BRP card from. When you searched the Post Offices that offer this service, it gave me a number of options within a 2 or 3 mile radius. When it came to select a post office on the application, it didn't offer me any of the Post Offices nearby, but gave me one 7 miles away?!

I just hope the permit is ready for collection when my wife arrives in the UK within the next 3 weeks.

My wife's last Visit Visa to the UK [May 2019] took about 3 weeks to process from her visit to Bangkok to her receiving her passport back with visa stamp in it.

From past experience, they require a date of travel on the application so they can use that as the start date of the 6 month visit visa. So even if you don't travel on that date or month, you shouldn't encounter any problems with immigration in the UK if you delay your travel plans.

Unfortunately it seems a known issue at the moment when trying to progress through to the appointment stage on the Vfs site. It took me several hours, plus numerous different emails and password resets until I finally made it to the appointments page - keep trying!!

18 hours ago, rasg said:

If her TB test is more than 6 months old at the time of the application, she will need another one.

TB certificate is due to expire in October, do you think there would be an issue if the visa application was submitted mid-September with only a month left?

7 hours ago, theoldgit said:

That cannot be done by the British Embassy in Thailand, it has to be done in the UK.
https://www.gov.uk/get-document-legalised

Already done the first part of sending it to the FCO to be legalized, next step is to visit the Thai Embassy in London then a visit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bangkok. 

Need to get my UK marriage legalized in Thailand to allow my wife to change her surname.

On 6/22/2019 at 1:50 PM, theoldgit said:

There's really no point in travelling to Thailand just to accompany and assist your wife with her application.

 

She needs to apply online and she can upload the supporting evidence herself, or you can do from the UK.

 

She will need to visit the Visa Application Centre to have her biometric details captured, you can't be part of that, you may get yourself in the office, but she's on her own in there. Clearly you can't be involved in the English Language and TB tests, other than escort her to the appropriate centre.

 

That said, don't let me stop you travelling to Thailand to see your good lady.

Thanks; only reason I'll be travelling back with her is for a two week holiday. Plus I also need to get our UK marriage legalized in Thailand, so already have a few jobs to sort out in Bangkok before heading home to Udon Thani. Wife already has a TB certificate, I assume a valid A1 / A2 English Language certificate taken over here in the UK will still be valid over in Thailand?

Thanks for the clarification; lesson learned to read the rules more carefully next time.

At least I have an excuse to go back to Thailand in August / September to accompany and assist my wife with the visa application. I just hope the decision doesn’t take the full 12 weeks as stated on the website. Would like to get my wife back to the UK before Xmas.

Anyone got any experience on how long the decision takes if applying from Thailand?

Hi

Looking for some advice...

My wife is currently over in the UK on a Visit Visa [6 months] and I want to apply for a Spouse Visa [FLR] whilst she is in the UK. Looking at GOV.UK, the rules seem a bit unclear whether I can apply for a Spouse Visa whilst my wife is over in the UK on a Visit Visa.

The reason I didn't apply earlier for a Spouse Visa last year was due to time and the Marriage Visa was due to end shortly after we got married in the UK.

So before I go through the visa application process and paying the £1k, is it still possible apply in the UK or do I have to apply whilst my wife is back in Thailand?

Although I used an Agent on my first application, which cost 12,000 baht. I still found it useful to understand the visa process from an expert with being a newbie. Thereafter I've done all the visa applications myself on behalf of my wife and all have been successful.

Sound advice; my wife has visited the UK for 3 weeks, 3 months, 5 months and is currently over here in the UK for at least 6 months and hopefully longer when I submit her Spouse Visa next month.

The online application form does state when you think the applicant will return home. So try and be specific, although I'm sure the odd week either side would affect any future applications.

Has your Mrs been to the UK before?

I use Finair as it's one stop from BKK via Helsinki to Manchester. Normally pay around £350 for a single trip ticket. Plus Helsinki Airport is fairly small and easy to navigate to get to the next gate.

Correct, my wife came over on a Marriage Visa last year and had to purchase 6 months medical insurance from Thailand to cover any potential medical costs whilst in the UK.

Certainly for a Standard Visitor Visa you get the option to either upload the documents online or you can bring the documents within you to the VFS office in Bangkok and they'll scan them for free.

Run... I didn't pay any sinsod to my 45 year-old wife who has two grown up children from a previous marriage to a Thai. She sometimes mentioned it over the years, but I just said I've probably paid it twice over through paying for her daughter's University fees, modernising her house and buy a car last year. My wife has never mentioned sinsod to me since.

As many of the other members mentioned, go to Thailand - see if you like it long-term then go and find that person who you can trust.

Update: After hours spent on the VFS Global wesbite trying to sign in, I finally managed to access their site to make an appointment for my wife to visit the Bangkok office for her UK visa.

Obviously their systems are very poor as I've read many reviews elsewhere with people having similar issues.

My advice; keep trying and have a few different email addresses to use as that's what seemed to work for me after using my third different email address.

I too have tried all day today to access the VFS.Global website, and keep getting the 'An error occurred while processing your request please try again.' message - anyone have any suggestions as I need to make an appointment with the Thailand office sooner as I don't want to clash with Songkran in Bangkok when sending my wife to visit the office to drop off the papers.

Rules have recently changed for Thai people to change their surname if they have married a foreigner as I've recently found.

If you married in the UK, then you'll need to send your Marriage Certificate off to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in Milton Keynes for it to be legalised, at a cost of £30.00. Then you'll need to post the legalised certificate or visit the Thai Embassy in London to get it verified by them. Then you can send the Marriage Certificate back to Thailand where your wife has to take it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bangkok where they'll provide the necessary authorisation for their ID card to be changed. Once that's completed they can then get a new passport with their new surname.

Having recently married in the UK with a Thai national, I'm skipping this option for the time being whilst I concentrate on getting her 2.5 year spouse visa sorted.