CRUNCHER

The lack of big buses on the streets of Pattaya has made a big difference to traffic - for the better.

If anyone in City Hall had half a brain they would use the hiatus (I guess it is nothing more) to introduce regulations (and enforce them) to keep big buses permanently off Pattaya streets, especially narrow sois.

In South Pattaya was out for most of last Saturday, but is now OK

The original question was what other offices do not issue residency certificates.  Anyone know what the current situation is at Jomtien?

12 minutes ago, Jiu-Jitsu said:

 

Not the same administration, so not unexpected. But didn't Park Plaza sell their holding to Red Sea Group? Smoke and mirrors.

http://www.iii.co.uk/stockmarketwire/67778/pphe-hotel-group-sells-interest-pattaya-bay-thailand-20m

Don't know if Red Sea has paid yet, but looking at the article the thing is controlled by one man.  I might be wrong.  These shenanigans are above my pay scale.

10 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

So what you're saying is that virtually all black Americans are on welfare?  Because according to polls, Trump is getting virtually none of their votes.  Racist much?

I don't know where you got "virtually all" from in my post, but for sure a great many are on welfare.

Whether Trump will stop or reduce handouts I do not know, but by improving American he will do more, in real terms, for blacks and other minorities than Clinton ever will.  The only minority to benefit under Clinton will be Wall Street.

I understand that Tulip Group have been fired and that Park Plaza Hotels have put in their own management.

I have seen a recent letter from the new management saying that they have agreed to demolish the top 5 floors in an effort to compromise.  They have, at the insistence of City Hall, asked all buyers to sign an agreement, which will become part of the sales contract, to say that they agree to the automated car parking.

City Hall are obviously worried that Waterfronts car park will work whilst theirs does not.  Oh the embarrassment!!!

One wonders what somersaults City Hall will turn next to provide further delays.

What have blacks got to lose?  Welfare payments.  It is the only reason democrats get the "black vote" and it is the only reason Clinton is going to win.

Today 4 people died in bomb explosions in Thailand. Tragic. I fell sorry for their relatives as well as their  friends.  Also the 20 or so injured.

Many posters have referred to risks on the road. Depending on the source, if today is an average day, between 65 and 80 people will die on the roads of Thailand (I haven't bothered to go into numbers of injured on the roads).  Yet the roads of Thailand are packed whereas the streets of Hua Hin are deserted.

Of course location is a factor, but we do not need to bring panic to the streets of Pattaya (yet).  A sense of perspective needs to be maintained.

Be alert, but get on with life.

Nowhere in the world is safe from the nut cases who set off bombs.  There is just different degrees of risk.

I recon that Pattaya's risk has just increased, but probably not by very much.  If bombings move to Bangkok or further north then our risk will go up more.

At the end of the day life must go on. You should be more alert, but no need to press the panic button.

What is recorded when you buy is not an issue.

If you understate the amount when you re-sell you will only be able to remit out the amount of your re-sale recorded at the lands office.  Basically you only pay tax etc on the recorded value and you can only remit out what you have paid tax on.

Marvelous! Before the vote the experts of "Project Fear" were telling us there would definitely be a recession after a "No" vote.  Now the vote is in we are down to 50%.  What will it be when we invoke Article 50?  25%? 10%?

All the experts (IMF, World Bank, Bank of England et al) said if we didn't join ERM there would be a disaster.  Well we joined and there was a disaster.  We had a recession  The expert said if we didn't join the Euro there would be a disaster. Well we didn't join and it was the Euro that had the disaster. They said if we didn't join Shengen there would be a disaster. Well we didn't join and look at the recent trouble for those who did join.

What do "experts" know?  Very little it seems.

Don't know about visa runs, but you will have trouble opening a bank account without a visa or work permit.  As I had an HSBC premier account elsewhere I eventually managed to get an account with HSBC MY.

7 minutes ago, Seizetheday said:

Melvin at Pensit and Laws only deals with property transactions.

Magna Carta on Pattaya Tai, you won't go wrong.

Agreed. Magna Carta is as good as it gets in Pattaya.

Check out MAS. They have promotion at the moment. Business 58,000Baht; Economy 21,000 Baht return. One month validity. Used them often (Business) Good seats, good food, good service.

City Hall have sunk to new depths of pettiness and stupidity (if that is possible).

They have asked the developer to contact all buyers and get them to say they agree to an automated car parking system. What is the point? The automated car parking is contained in the contract the buyers signed. How can they do anything other than agree?

Some people in City Hall should be held accountable for this farce. These petty delays are a disgrace.

The majority of Thais are Buddhists. They have a right to trust that the senior leaders of their religion are honest, clean and not corrupt and that those who do not meet that criteria are dealt with severely.

On that basis alone the authorities must act decisively.

The authorities seem to be trying, but are up against centuries of culture - Buddhist monks are untouchable.

I bought a new Mac Book Air (mistake). I installed Office 2016.

Firstly, I found that I could not open all my saved E-mails in Outlook format. I solved this by downloading MSG Viewer, but I should not have needed to. Secondly I cannot save E-mails from Outlook without a lot of hassle. Thirdly, there is no "Outlook Today" which I found useful.

My question is, do these problems exist when Office 2016 is installed on Windows 10?

Thanks for answers

Does anyone know if Jomtien Immigration is open on Monday 2nd May or is it a substitute holiday for Labour Day?

Thanks

What a coincidence

That 700million baht brand-freaking-new state-of-art boat parking marina project gets damaged with the first storm hits the area!.

Wasn't a study done before spending 700million,whether or not it would withstand a storm?

What a coincidence

State-of-art car parking only attracts a handful amount of people!

Wasn't a study done before spending 700million whether or not it is needed?

What a coincidence

Adjacent to these both projects, a 2billion baht 50floor construction project plans get approved around the same time by the same government office and permitted to go up and up and up and up and.....was stopped after the top-off to be investigated!...

The tiger asks the camel: " why is your neck crooked and twisted?"

The camel sighs and responds in sadness: " what part of me isn't !!!"

That provides food for thought.

An up market condo and hotel in the middle of what was supposed to be an up market regeneration, but turned into an up market raging disaster could prove embarrassing to City Hall.

Perhaps that is the reason why City Hall keeps kicking the can down the road instead of doing what they will have to do in the end – issue a new construction permit.

The amazing thing about the whole saga is that, even by Thailand standards, it is taking a ridiculously long time to resolve.

If even half of the alleged faults with Waterfront were true then the project could and should have been stopped long ago. Indeed City Hall would have all the justification necessary and in many ways this would be the easy option for them. That this has not happened tells a story.

Huge discrepancies in floor area should have been detected when the original construction permit was issued, when the first EIA approval was given and when the second EIA approval was given, not to mention the many site visits that were made. This alone would justify the cancelling the project because it could not reasonably be rectified. This tells another story.

It seems that City Hall are scratching around for reasons to delay giving the go ahead. Why they are doing this I don’t know. Could it be loss of face because they have already unnecessarily delayed this project already? Could they be worried about possible legal action? Whatever, it is time this was sorted out one way or the other.

The couple of buyers that I know put the blame fully on City Hall. One of them is, however, hacked off with the developer for not issuing a promised update a month after the last letter. With the possibility of legal action the developer has to careful what he says, but something could be put out.

We owned 5000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust, which we sold in January 2010. That was worth something like £30,000. I paid income tax on the dividends.

But ...

Was there a capital gain for which tax would have been required?

There may also be a question as to how the units were originally acquired. If they were a gift or purchased at below market value, there would be taxable income.

In the TV interview he said that the profit was below the threshold for CGT. If I remember correctly (?) at that time the first 10,000 pounds of capital gain was free of tax. He would have been lucky to have made a 10,000 pounds profit on a 30,000 pound sale. And at the time he was not prime minister.

Note: I don’t like Cameron, but I don’t like witch hunts either.

We owned 5000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust, which we sold in January 2010. That was worth something like £30,000. I paid income tax on the dividends.

But ...

Was there a capital gain for which tax would have been required?

There may also be a question as to how the units were originally acquired. If they were a gift or purchased at below market value, there would be taxable income.

In the TV interview he said that the amount of profit on the sale was below the threshold for CGT. If I remember correctly (?) at that time the first 10,000 pound of capital gain was tax free. On a 30,000 pound sale he would have been lucky to have had a 10,000 pound profit.

Note: I do not like Cameron, but I do not like witch hunts either.

Another moral to this is never to discard any official documents you receive from any government agency. Ever.

Sage advice there from Jeff. Nice to see some excellent advice amidst the bile.

We have folders of documents from the past ten or so years with everything from my immigration/Min of Labour documents, to wedding stuff, births, making the kids British, her UK visa stuff, her ongoing UK citizenship stuff, moving house, changing address etc, kids school stuff, medical stuff. everything. It took up three shelves and 11 folders and bless my secretary for coming over once every few months to go through everything, date it and file it appropriately and showing Nut how to do it all.

Did we need to keep it all? Every now and again we did need the odd thing but given public official's love of wanting every single shred of documentary evidence it was reassuring to know it was all there and easy to find.

I thought OP said he lost his passport.

Yup, Magna Carta