mark131v

It's easy to transfer out if you show the bank your Thai work permit.

I do not have a Thai work permit and it is not a condition of opening a Foreign Currency Deposit Account so I dont understand how you would need one to transfer funds out

longballlarry

I have been getting my wages paid into a Sterling Foreign Currency Deposit account with Krungsri for the last year or so, I have not had any issues at all and it is easy to transfer over to the current account at a very good exchange rate and you also get the ability to leave funds in the FCD account until your exchange rates are favourable. I have not had to move money out of Thailand but I have moved money into the FCD from my UK Bank using Swift so I would not imagine there will be an issue with doing that the other way. Probably a good idea to try and find a member of staff who actually knows what they are talking about.....good luck!!

Just remembered something else that may be pertinent, you need to leave at least GBP350 or USD500 in the account at all times otherwise I think your account is billed or closed

longballlarry

I have been getting my wages paid into a Sterling Foreign Currency Deposit account with Krungsri for the last year or so, I have not had any issues at all and it is easy to transfer over to the current account at a very good exchange rate and you also get the ability to leave funds in the FCD account until your exchange rates are favourable. I have not had to move money out of Thailand but I have moved money into the FCD from my UK Bank using Swift so I would not imagine there will be an issue with doing that the other way. Probably a good idea to try and find a member of staff who actually knows what they are talking about.....good luck!!

I have used BUPA for 13 years, continuously. I am now 70 years old and I have recently received my renewal notice for my policy which expires at the end of this month. When I joined BUPA, I was told that, because I was joining at 57 years old, I could renew this insurance for life.

However, my renewal notice shows an endorsement that states (BUPA's English, not mine) "Please kindly be informed that this is your last eligible renewal year due to the age at the next renewal year (sic) will fall into one of the following criteria :

1. The maximum age for renewal
   
2. The maximum age for Medical Evacuation & Repatriation benefit
   

So much for BUPA's initial assurance.

I will check this out tomorrow at the local BUPA office.

Did you check your policy??

Thanks guys a lot of really good food for thought there

LennyW and LivinLOS your thinking is pretty much the same as mine I know I cant own and if things do go "tits up" I would still want my family sorted no matter what but putting something in place to calm things down cant be a bad thing, putting it in my Daughters name might be an idea but I would need to have a long talk about that though I reckon the wife would have no problem with that, I already accept that all of this is to sort out my family and to try and ensure the best for all of us in the future, Delight and changmaibruce thanks for the links I will check them out!

Mark. I think I understand what you are asking and I have wondered this myself.

1. It might well be possible but what would be the process? The owner would want full settlement of contract at the time he/she signed the usufruct paper .... how then to compel him/her to come back to the Land Dept the next day to sign the transfer papers?

2. A wife can enter into a usufruct agreement with her husband but the main perceived danger is that clause in the Civil and Commercial Code stating that one spouse can subsequently rescind agreements earlier entered into with the other. I assume this possible weak link is what you are hoping to avoid. And I say "possible" as according to some legal people it is probably unlikely that a court would overturn a usufruct in this manner without having some more compelling reason to do so.

3. Additionally, in both cases though there is what the law states and what will be accepted by the particular Land dept office you are dealing with

Hi Changmaibruce,

yep you have pretty much got what I was alluding to, we have been paying the house over a few months and are on good terms with the sellers and they have been straight with us all along, I dont think the logistics of doing this will be that difficult but it is the legal aspect that I was concerned about

I had not realised that a husband and wife could enter a usefruct between them and if that was the case and it was possible then that would be the route I think we would take, as I said before I trust we will never need to put this to the test but it would be a nice insurance type policy and if nothing else it would force us to think calmly about things...cant be a bad thing to take a deep breath and have a chat!

We are down in NaJomtien so I suppose it would be Pattaya land office but to be honest I have not looked into it in any depth yet....

Some explanation please:

is it possible for me to get the usefruct from the present owner

Q is the house currently subject to a usufruct agreement ?

Q. What is your motive for a future usufruct arrangement? Can I assume that it is linked to a Thai person having to explain the source of their house buying money?

In answer to your questions

We are about to finish paying for the house soon and no it is not under usefruct yet , I am trying to work out if this is a workable option or not

My motive for a future usefruct is it could be a useful way to be able to relax right from the outset without thinking about issues and fall outs in the future, you would be right to assume my wife is Thai though I am not really worried about the money aspect as we have lived abroad for the last few years with a joint account so if push came to shove according to the UK bank it is her money as much as mine

Really what I am after trying to sort out is if this is a workable option or not, If in the future we had a problem I would walk away and no matter what I want my wife and daughter to be sorted out for the long term. If taking out the usefruct with the owner now and then getting her to sign it to my wife is a "legal" option then it is worth thinking about as I understand that once married my wife cannot directly sign an agreement with me as her husband

Hi Guys,

as above we are in the process of buying an house and I was wondering if it is possible for me to get the usefruct from the present owner and then once that is done get the usefruct passed on to the wife from the person who initially sold it to me so that she is in essence now the owner. I understand that you cannot do this as husband and wife but would this way be a legal way of doing this..any advice gratefully received cheers Mark

Check you out! You give it all the large about going toe to toe with Bootnecks then backtrack a sentence later lol! Where's your courage in your own convictions man? You saw a couple of fannies on youtube getting scammed a couple of years back (their response was still correct however). And you reckon they are sh1thouses? 3 Commando Brigade is alot bigger than a Ginger fanny and his handful of sensible mates. They are from the same ilk who are bayoneting lunatics in Afghanistan. You ain't got the minerals sunshine, go and have a lie down.

Posted with Thaivisa App http://apps.thaivisa.com

Alright Lukey how you doing fella!

I do love these internet hardmen dont you, very very brave they are.......

I pass through every 5 weeks or so and it certainly seems to be getting worse, the last 3 times have been about an hour. There seems little or no organisation and what is worse is they are so shortsighted that they dont seem to care, I use fastrack to leave but from now on I will be using it to enter as well it is a small price to pay if it avoids being treated like cattle by those humourless immigration people, will be nice to enter in a good mood rather than already wound up by them

That could be exactly what they want you to do. The more people that are forced to use the fast - tracking system, the more income for somebody.

You could be right but to be honest I don't care if someone is making off it so long as I minimise the time being messed around by the immigration chimps, for me it is a small price to pay...if you want to stay in the queue to make a statement good for you but I wont be joining you there

If I had Ford XLT exterior and Mazda interior it would be a perfect looking truck. I think the Ford console is ugly, stereo, fake carbon fiber on WT and Wildtrak flaming orange accents are terrible. The Mazda inside has none of these style flaws inside. The Ford outside is the best looking truck on the road and the Mazda is not. The nose of the Mazda from the inside allows for better driving views and is not as rounded as the pictures look. The tailgate on the mazda.... what where they thinking but I am not going to be looking at my own tail end! But like I said, I am going to go with what looks good on the inside, and 185,000 baht difference. I think all the extra crap on 3.2 Wildtrak is ugly, example the sports bar, roof rails, bed rails, orange leather accents, carbon fire plastic panels, grey colored mirrors and bumper color. Sitting inside the Madza looking out it feels, looks and drives like 2,000,000 baht sports coupe.

I totally agree...

I don't..... they say opinions are like a certain part of the anatomy in that everyone has got one!

Looked at the Mazda a couple of days ago and for me it is bloody ugly, the interior looked and felt a bit cheap to me, the glove box felt loose, there was very little storage space in the doors, the wheels looked too small.... overall we were not really that impressed then again each to there own!

Ordered a chilli orange 3.2 WT and it really bothers me not a bit that some people don't like it!!

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Nattachai59

I really hope you whwere not involved at the Animal quarantine department when we brought our dog in last March 2011, if you where I would really like to know why our dog was sent to the Freight Terminal where it was put into a bare concrete cell with the light left on and no water after a 12 hour flight even though we had done all the correct paperwork and been issued an import permit from your department

My dog was left in this cell while we haggled a price down with some maggot who was working from the freight depot buldings, We managed to get the price down from 35000baht to 14000 and the bandit responsible even came and got papers from your office where my wife spoke to the woman in the office. She basically said that we were lying and they had never issued the papers (I still have an email from your department confirming everything before we left the UK)

The whole system stinks and I would be ashamed to be a part of it, my wife even had to go back airside with the thief and that was easily done by the guard being bribed in plain sight of all his colleagues, all this was done while I stood there with my 18 month old daughter who was tired and crying by this stage

We got the dog home and she is doing really well but I travel a lot and I would really like to bump into the thieving scumbags responsible. To anyone out there planning to do this and bring your pet in it can be done but be prepared because the system has a lot of really big flaws and these people know that a foreigner after a long flight and all that entails can be a bit of a soft touch, by the way that has been the only experience of anything like that in over ten years

Try going through immigration in Paris at CDG. Worst I've ever seen. I'd say book flights that either get in during the morning or the night. I've never spent more than an hour in immigration in BKK and by far the longest was when I came in on a mid day flight like you did. Avoid 11am - 7/8pm and you'll be much better off. Early morning or night arrivals I've spent like 20-30 min, maybe one other flight was there at the same time as mine.

That is brilliant!!! avoid getting in during the day or evening......classic thanks for that!~!

I pass through every 5 weeks or so and it certainly seems to be getting worse, the last 3 times have been about an hour. There seems little or no organisation and what is worse is they are so shortsighted that they dont seem to care, I use fastrack to leave but from now on I will be using it to enter as well it is a small price to pay if it avoids being treated like cattle by those humourless immigration people, will be nice to enter in a good mood rather than already wound up by them

I live in Huai Yai too but not on an estate, my house has got a perimeter wall but we dont have bars on the windows or anything like that, we have absolutely no problems at all, the area is quiet with a mix of Thai and a few Fallang and we have not heard of any breakins at all in our area. For me the biggest burgular deterant of all is a couple of big dogs we have 2 Rotties and have no security worries, if you where to spend your life in a constant state of fear or nervousness what is the point in moving here?

after my first break in case in my home in hua yai, during a time of absence,

I started with a better protection.

http://i47.photobuck...1104_170858.jpg

http://i47.photobuck...1104_171153.jpg

an alarm system, that gives you sms notice, if you spend some time on koh chang,

http://www.ebay.com....=item3f063acd35

at the Häfele Shop Sukumvit. I found something, like this, for one of my outside doors

http://www.ebay.de/i...=item19c4c03fa2

I do agree with you that there is always something more that you can do but if you knew somebody was in your house when you are away then for me I cannot really see the benefit, if I lived in an area where the Police where honest and reliable and would respond then that may lead me to think differently but unfortunatly I dont

I do not bury my head in the sand (hence the dogs) but I am realistic enough to realise that if someone is determined to get into your property and unlike most breakins it is not just an oppertunistic event then they will probably get in, as far as your metalwork around the aircon units all you need to take it off is a carjack and it takes seconds to do and why force a door when you can break a window....you see where I am going with this

There are scumbags everywhere but I still feel very safe where I live and certainly more so than I ever did in the Uk and I really dont lose any sleep over the what ifs

I live in Huai Yai too but not on an estate, my house has got a perimeter wall but we dont have bars on the windows or anything like that, we have absolutely no problems at all, the area is quiet with a mix of Thai and a few Fallang and we have not heard of any breakins at all in our area. For me the biggest burgular deterant of all is a couple of big dogs we have 2 Rotties and have no security worries, if you where to spend your life in a constant state of fear or nervousness what is the point in moving here?

I went to the Ford dealer in Pattaya 3 times in december. The information they gave me is crap. They do not seem to know anything about the New Ranger and when it comes to the showroom. I asked how much the registration tax is for the Wildtrack 2.2 l. Answer: 8'000 Baht. - I do not think this is correct. Asked how much the exise tax is. Answer; 69'000 Baht. I do not think this is correct. - I asked if I could get a reverse sensor. Answer: Not possible. - I asked what I would get as freebie. Answer: nothing, not even the insurance. Not interested anymore and left. Sent an e-mail to Ford headquarter five days ago, but did not get any reaction.

I would suggest them just to sell their cars through the internet, and close the dealership. Imagine, you have to bring your car for regularly services to these people, and it will surely be the same quality of customer service. Better avoid.

We bought from the Pattaya dealer and they where bloody useless, luckily we are happy with the truck and the price but I would not use them again, my main gripe was I made it a condition that we wanted the white plates within a month which they promised would be the case and then didn't deliver on their side of the bargain until we rang the Ford HQ in BKK. Some of the BS and excuses they were coming out with was quite funny now in hindsight but it is a shame that they cannot train their staff to a bit higher standard than the present, that said all the other companies we went to where crap as well which is frustrating as we are not exactly talking rocket science here

Cheers Bangalay and Craig job sorted and my confidence in local tradesmen is restored

many thanks

Mark

I"ve just had some work done by one and he did a first class job ...fast/clean and seems to know his trade....and reasonable with his pricing ... he speaks very little English so you'll need a Thai interpretor.....PM me if you want his phone number

Cheers Mate

PM sent

Hi guys,

Can anybody recommend a good electrician in the Jomtien/South Pattaya area who actually knows what he is doing, I am not having any luck with Thai tradesmen and I am beginning to believe decent electricians don't exist, if you can prove me wrong I would be very grateful

cheers

Mark

Hi guys,

Can anybody recommend a good electrician in the Jomtien/South Pattaya area who actually knows what he is doing, I am not having any luck with Thai tradesmen and I am beginning to believe decent electricians don't exist, if you can prove me wrong I would be very grateful

cheers

Mark

Th

hi fella, wew are planning the same as you, if you get any recomendations of good shipping companys could you please pass them on to me. cheers micky.

Hey micky we are moving from n.ireland and we are using a company called magimpsey and co. Google them. they also deal with great britain.

We used a company called Remnev International last March, we had spent a lot of time and effort sorting through various companies and found lots of lies and misinformation but these guys where honest and upfront and I would highly recomend them, they are based in the London area and we dealt with a lady called Sadh they turned up when they said they would, did a good clean good and arranged all the Thai side as well and was still a lot cheaper than most of the quotes we had

Mark

you maybe better off using your nationwide flex card as before at 2% plus one pound .

i think nationwide actually charge 25 pounds for a swift transfer so that's 2.5 % on 1000 pounds.

advantage of using a card here is you can choose a good time to use it , the rate has been going up and down 1 % recently.

are you in a hurry to send the money ?

you could try santander zero or halifax clarity and post the card to thailand.

you could try moneycorp or HiFX but their rates wont be as good as the TT in a thai bank but you'll save on the fees, you can get a live rate with HiFX if you register.

does the person your sending money to live in ciang mai by any chance ?

No not Chaing Mia. My wife lives with me here in England but the account is in kumpawapi Udon Thani. I can only draw £300 a day on the nationwide card and there is 150 baht fee + £1 foriegn withdrawl fee. The Nationwide exchange rate is very good at visa +1/2 percent . £1000 = 4 withdrawels =600baht +£4 foriegn withdrawel fees + exchage rate loss =£5 this adds up to £21 but avoids Thai paying in fee if handed over the counter

Nationwide is £25 to send by tranfer £25 + 1/2% exchange rate (sterling)=£5 + pay in fee of 500 baht this adds up to £40

uk forex is £7fees +2% exchange= £20 + pay in fee £10 this adds up to £37

Halifax if you can send Sterling £9.50 fees + thai pay in £10+ 1/2% thai exchange rate=£5 this adds up to £23.50

I don't really want our friend going to the atm 4 times for Nationwide and then paying in so Halifax is a clear leader.

nb If I was in Thailand I would produce my 3 Nationwide cards over the counter draw out free and pay in to SCB

Passpato,

you have lost me a bit with your sums but if you send all the money online to your Thai account then there is no withdrawal fee at all if you are using a Thai Bank card for that bank to withdraw, we have bought a house using this method and other than the 9.50 gbp there was no other fees if you are withdrawing from that bank. It is also really useful if you are not in UK and want to move money internationally as with a lot of other banks this is not an option to do online

The exchange rate that Halifax use is really not an issue as it is sent in gbp so it is whatever your Thai Bank charges, I have no experience with SCB but with Bank Of Ayudha (the yellow bank) the exchange rate was the normal daily rate everyone gets. If this is not a one off and you are moving large amounts could be worth you setting up a Foreign Currency Deposit account. This allows you to keep the money in sterling and swap as much as you want as and when depending on the exchange rate

Halifax Online is GBP 9.50

But will they let you send Sterling at that price ?or are they clipping the Exchange rate?

2. Exchange rates

2.1 If you ask us to send the payment in a currency other than sterling we’ll use our standard exchange rate on the day of the payment and we’ll tell you or display online the exchange rate that will apply. To establish the current exchange rate before sending your international payment via our branch or telephone channel call us on 08457 20 30 40 or visit us in branch.

If the payment is in a currency which differs from the currency of the recipient’s account, we cannot control any exchange rate applied by the recipient’s bank or any agent bank.

Like cardholder said Halifax is the best option for most people and has the added advantage that once set up with your Thai account you can then do your transfers online. You also can earn GBP5 per month by simply getting GBP1000 paid in per month and if you twin it with an Halifax Clarity credit card you are getting the best deals available at the moment.... don't take my word for it check out Martin Lewis on his monetsaving expert website

bkk_mike, bangkokney,

I agree with 99% of what you both say, In a perfect world I agree all cases should be taken on their own merits irrespective of all other factors but truth is most UK depts are so scared of being seen as out of step that common sense sometimes gets forgotten, this is far from a perfect world and if it was we would not be having this chat

I think the rule was meant with good intention but as you say heavy handed and badly thought out and hence why it was overturned, that said I still believe that this and all other rules should be there to protect the vulnerable even if it can also be inconvenient to other people and is not perfect but that is just my opinion

MAJIC I dont really understand you but no worries life would be dull if we were all the same

have a good one Mark