K Chan

I hope they'll be back, it's the only site I know where you can stick in a thai sentence and it'll split up the words and do the translation at the same time. I'll happily pay for that feature alone.

Yes it always seems like they list the low probability stuff. I want to know if they cover the high probability events, e.g. twist or break ankle while walking , food poisoning, if some site contains a list of stuff that's covered and not, that'll be amazing, like top 20 accidents and which insurer covers.

That link is really useful thanks.

Early 50s healthy, fit, no health issues. On retirement visa. Currently planning to stay in Thailand for 1 or 2 years, maybe more but going to play it by ear. In the past few decades in the UK not really had to visit doctors or hospitals often. So going to take a small risk and planning not to get health insurance, just going to pay as I go so to speak (if something really bad happens, will probably end up flying back to the UK). But planning just to get accident insurance only. Can anyone recommend any insurers? Is not getting health insurance and only accident insurance a good idea? What's people's thoughts.

No, all prices given are just for myself. So agent will charge double, with discount (so kind of them) for doing two. I didn't mention her initially because we wanted separate visa applications.

Haha, planning to swap her for a new local one! Joking aside, we're doing separate retirement visas, she has her money I have mine.

Was that used for opening a bank account? Did you use any other documentation, like condo lease agreement or something else?

No, both British.

Did you have a condo or did you use a temporary place, was it easy to get TM 30?

wife

60 day Tourist Visa.

So we don't need a condo address to open a bank account? And the immigration process is straight forward enough?

It is 43k baht, about 1300 usd.

Just an update on my original question, so we went to see a lawyer, they quoted 36,000 for the visa part, no bank account opening, although they will refer us to someone. We have two agents with quotes 46,000 and 43,000, and they will open bank accounts and deal with the visa part, same as the lawyers. With the agents, we don't need condo address and the process will take a few days. Both are providing different services, so for 10,000 or so more I don't need to find and rent a condo in a place where I'm not sure I want to stay long term, and also a much quicker service. I understand the agents are both doing some local magic let's say? Would I get into trouble later on, what is the risk?

They said they will accompany us to the bank to open the bank account and also to the immigration office. The process will take less than a week. We also went to a lawyer and basically they gave us the 'official' route, need to rent condo first to have address to open bank account and she also mentioned the TM30 form, we haven't decided where we're planning to stay, could be Bangkok, could be Chiang Mai or somewhere else. So basically the expensive ripoff route saves us renting condo, TM30 and any other hassle. Would that be right?

They will go with us to the bank to open bank account and we will be depositing the money ourselves via swift.

Looking for a good agent to deal with retirement visa based in bangkok, opening bank account and doing the application itself, going to immigration together etc. Went to see one agent, been quoted $1300 for the whole process, which they say will only take a few days at most. Is that cheap, average, ripoff?

We are currently in Dubai, looking to stay here for 2-3 weeks. We plan to apply for the thailand retirement visa, looked at the requirements and all checks out for our situation (age, finance etc.). We understand we need to have THB 800,000 for 2 months (60 days) in a Thai bank account before we can apply for the visa. With our british passports, we can get the 30 day visa exemption, how many times can we extend and for for how long? Is this a better option as we wait for the retirement visa process? Or should we apply for the 60 day tourist visa while we are in Dubai and extend? How many times can we extend and for how long? Is it correct that the tourist visa application process is now all online https://thaievisa.go.th/, so we can apply for it while we are in Dubai. Thanks in advance.