Awk

11 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

What extension did you apply for.

No TM30 requirement can be hit and miss

Just a 30-day extension. 

On 7/28/2022 at 9:43 AM, Awk said:

 

Thanks for the report, that's great.

 

Anyone done it in Bangkok recently?  Planing on going on monday, and wondering if I need to waste money for a hotel booking on Sunday and get the printout before I go. 

Did it today.  No TM-30 registration was required and while the address field had to be filled out, no checks on whether the address was TM-30 registered were done as far as I could tell, neither for me nor other people.

29 minutes ago, Jetsam said:

reporting back: because I was staying with relatives in a rural area in the south, I was concerned about the tm-30. I ended up taking a short trip to Hua Hin and doing my extension there. The immigration office is in the basement of the Bluport shopping mall. Took 5 minutes total including waiting. 2-3 other people there at 3:30pm on a Friday.. No photocopies or passport photos - they do that for you at no charge. No TM-30, just the complete address of your hotel in Hua Hin and your Thai mobile telephone number. This was the single greatest experience I have ever had with any government entity in any country!  It didn’t seem real.  5 stars. 

Thanks for the report, that's great.

Anyone done it in Bangkok recently?  Planing on going on monday, and wondering if I need to waste money for a hotel booking on Sunday and get the printout before I go. 

On 7/16/2022 at 10:32 AM, skatewash said:

 You need to have a TM-30 done on your behalf.  It is the legal obligation of the landlord or manager of the place you are staying.  Go to them and ask if they have registered you as staying overnight at their address with Phuket Immigration.  They can do this online.  If they have done it ask them for a screenshot of the screen showing that you have been registered with immigration.

The alternative if you landlord/manager will not cooperate you have two choices.  You can register yourself but this requires cooperation from your landlord which is unlikely given their attitude toward their existing legal obligations.  They would have to give you things like a copy of their Thai ID and Blue House Registration book.  Again, this is probably a waste of time because your landlord is a scofflaw.  In the event you get no help from your landlord, my recommendation is to check into the absolutely cheapest hotel/hostel you can find and make sure they register your address with immigration (that is, file a TM-30 online for you).  You don't have to stay there, just get a screenshot of your address registration.  Take that with you to immigration to prove your address.
 

Can others confirm their experience with this please?  Staying with a friend who probably cannot fill this based on the apartment she  renting, so I will try the hotel/hostel route.  It seems the TM-30 form has a checkout date to fill in too however, so will this still work if the checkout date has already passed by the time you turn up at immigration for a 30 day extension?

And if anyone can recommend a reliable agency around Sukhimvit Asoke/Phrom Phong to make the trip to immigration on my behalf,  that would be a welcome too.

On 8/13/2019 at 6:27 AM, CelticTam said:

I live and work in Laos and like yourself have a ME Non-O based on Marriage, and for the previous ten years (so maybe approximately 150 entries) and I have never had an issue. On the last two occasions in June and July I was through Thai Immigration at Suvarnabhumpi in less than 5 minutes and the IOs were too busy talking to their co-worker to take notice of me. As others have stated, you have a valid visa so there should not be a problem

 Until there is a problem.

On 8/7/2019 at 10:35 AM, Nevalern said:

I have spoken to a couple of Thai lawyers and I have received more and better information on here than they could give me. Just because they're certified doesn't mean much in this country, look at all the certified English teachers in this country certified by Thai government as is on work permit. But I hear you and am narrowing it down to a couple.

Wise choice.  I was in your boots some years ago, and got the same idiot-responses: "don't ask here, ask a qualified lawyer".

What all the people spouting that nonsense don't understand is that you need to know a fair amount about these things before you can competently evaluate any lawyer.  Many lawyers will be just as clueless as the members spouting "ask a lawyer" here, and you don't want to discover your mistake in choosing an incompetent lawyer when standing in court.

Fortunately, at least if you search this forum for older posts, you will find some very useful information from other members who have "been there, done that".  

I don't see how they can get divorced in Thailand unless they first register their marriage here.  After that I guess they can divorce, and subsequently register the divorce in Australia. 

If divorcing in Australia is too expensive, perhaps a cheaper option is to register the Australian marriage in Thailand, and then also divorcing in Thailand.  Then register the divorce, perhaps at some later time, if/when needed,  in Australia too.

33 minutes ago, borderlesss said:

Objectively speaking, what risks am I even taking by attempting to enter via land? Isn't worst case scenario I get denied and walk it off? Why you guys have your panties in such a knot?

Why?  Becuase TITV - This Is ThaiVisa.   For every one person offering helpful advice, there will be 9 clueless idiots doing the opposite.

7 hours ago, BritManToo said:

I was told that by a Flip bar girl, although I never gave more than 2k.

There's also the 2-2-2.

15 hours ago, Pilotman said:

You are not correct. a child adopted in one country is not necessary accepted by the child's duel nationality country. This is the case for a Thai child who is adopted by a Brit parent in the UK adoption system.  That child is not accepted as adopted  by that parent in Thailand unless that parent then adopts here. A British Adoption Certificate is not accepted in Thailand.  

Why are you bringing adopted children into this, and why do you think the special rules related to adopted children and their new parents are the same as for children and their biological parents?

If the child is Thai and domiciled in Thai, as is the case here, Thailand is where the case will be decided and the country of his other nationality will stay out of it.  

This is unfortunately a very difficult and sad situation.  I would start with reading old posts made in this forum by a poster with the name MikeyIdea.  They contain a wealth of information about cases like this from someone who really knows what he is talking about.  

I will add that if your wife is now set on keeping the child fatherless and there is no chance of reconciliation, you will need to apply for divorce to have any chance of getting legal help in seeing your child.  As long as you remain married, no help is possible.  And of course, figure out what to do about your visa situation too now that your to-be ex-wife will not assist you with that.

10 hours ago, Rod the Sod said:

Dr Jack. It is not so much about good and bad companies although of course there are bandits to steer clear of. It is about getting the cover you really need and making a call on the cost. Most feel that they will cut a corner or two and some, like this young lady, live to regret it. Everyone hates insurance when paying their premium, and they hate them even more when they make a claim and get nothing. Then there are the people who cry with happiness when they talk about their insurance company because, like a friend of mine right now, they pay out, without any dispute US$2mio for her cancer treatment (over 6 year period). You pays your money and you takes yer choice.

And how do you know in advance if an insurance company is worth to "pays your money" too, or if someone is "cutting a corner or two?"  Is it simply "the more expensive it is, the better it must be?"

This woman seems to have, as one should, purchased a travel insurance to get the cover she needed.  

Claiming her diving into a swimmingpool was reckless and use that as grounds to not pay out insurance, if that is what 

"Insure and Go" have done, seems a tad unfounded to me and I will be sure to stay clear of this "Insure and Go" company myself.   If the story is more or less as told I sure hope the UK ombudsman comes down on them too.

5 hours ago, dickjones2018 said:

 

that would be a nice plan, thanks for the info, but the wife has got all the documents locked in her office (at work) , not home to be sure I have no access to that...

 

I don't think police or lawyer will be any help to go get the papers I am entitled to, right...

 

 

Right.  But sometimes people lose their marriage certificate.  You can report it lost at the police station, and then get issued a new certificate from the local amphur office.  Not sure if the same applies to the birth certificate, but I would guess so.

4 hours ago, dickjones2018 said:

Guess thai elite going to have a new customer as the wife wants a divorce

 

and the cheapest way, in her mind, to get everything for nothing

 

is just not to go for an extention of visa for family support which is due in a few months... smart girl, right...

 

if you love nothing but yourself, than it is indeed very easy to walk away...

 

Check the visa-specific subforum here.  You will have to go in and out every 90 days, but there may be nearby embassies that will give you a one-year multi-entry visa if you show the required documents (marriage certificate, best apply for the visa before divorce, just in case, or child's birthcertificate with your name on it, plus some other things).  Not as convenient as the Thai Elite visa, but cheaper in the short term at least.

After divorce, provided you get at least shared custody, you can hopefully extend inside Thailand based on being a father with shared custody.

On 11/23/2018 at 3:10 AM, JackThompson said:

 

Please ignore those who will post blaming you - as it is clear you violated no laws, and did not deserve what happened.  In that context, it is not necessary to have an exit-ticket to show when entering with a Tourist Visa - only when entering Visa-Exempt.  As well, a "boarding pass" is generally used "for boarding" (long since completed), so that request was just another "gotcha," used to create a false-rationale for initiating your rejected-entry.

 

While I have not had any problems with immigration so far, last month, and I think a few times before that too, I I was also asked for my boarding pass.  I presented just my passport initially, but was then asked for my boarding pass too.  Don't know why they want to see it, but now I hold on to it till I've passed immigration at least.  Actually I can even remember some airport security guy asking me for my boarding pass when going down to take the airport train.  Think that only happened once though.  (I had already thrown it away by then of course, and told him as much in an annoying "w t f" tone.  No idea what that was about either.)

1 hour ago, sanemax said:

She has quite probably told the same kind of things to your son and also turned him against you .

   I do understand that you want him back , but , if you did get him back, what then ?

He is probably settled in his own life now , in school , family and friends .

School friends , family , cousins and his mother .

  We are at a disadvantage here ,because we have no families here , no grandmothers, brothers or sisters to be part of the kids family .

   Finding a new woman to be the kids mother and everyone living happily ever after is possible , but a difficult thing to do .

   You may want your kid back , but would he want you back ? (Sorry to sound unpleasant, but I'm just stating the reality )

  Its a hard thing to deal with , when you are sitting with your son and hes upset and crying because he wants his mummy back 

If you read the rather short post by the op, he's not asking for help to take his son "back".  He's asking for help to see/visit/get access to his son, which apparently the mother has denied him for over a year, contrary to agreed custody and visitation rights.

I also thought benalibina's reply to you was  bit rude, but now I'm starting to thinking her reply to you was correct, as your post makes no sense in the current context.  

On 11/21/2018 at 1:16 AM, Martin Woolhouse said:

Thanks. After a year, I 'm beginning to understand that unless I write a novel explaining all the details, it's hard for people to understand that I've tried all the "usual methods".

There was a very knowledgable farang who was a prolific poster on this forum, though I've not seen him post much here for a while.   His name is MikeyIdea and I suggest you go through his older posts on this forum to learn what you can. 

Unfortunately TV suffers a lot from people who speak a lot but know little, so most of what they say end up being wrong,

but this guy knows what he is talking about better than any random lawyer you may happen to contact.

After you have learned what you can from his posts, you will know you need to contact a good lawyer.  Not an average lawyer.  A good lawyer.  A good lawyer is hard to find, but I know one and if you are interested in his contact details, send me a message.  He speaks Thai only, but since you have worked as a teacher for many years, hopefully you speak Thai too.

Oh, and for what it's worth, I'd also try to contact the person mentioned in the embassy posting you quote.  I would not expect anything, but there is no harm in trying that too.,

With kind regards. 

25 minutes ago, suzannegoh said:

To take advantage of that he’d still need to be able to make the case that his wife’s behavior is atypical for Thai women.  While farangs might take it for granted that Thai women are clinically insane and are unfit parents, good luck convincing a Thai court of that. 

No, there is no need for that.  Repeated (and that it is "repeated" is important) violent behaviour is one of the grounds of divorce.   Whether or not other women on the same block have a habit of attacking their husbands with a knife, and everyone else there consider that behaviour to be perfectly normal, is irrelevant to the court where the OP files for divorce.  Judges don't expect their Thai spouse to violently attack them, especially not in front of their children, and neither will they think the OP should expect his Thai spouse to attack him.

Quote

How certain are the people in this thread, who recommend draconian steps up to and including kidnapping of their child, that his wife is substantially different than Thai women and that he is a saint?
 

Always difficult to know, but TV is unfortunately full of wanna-be John Waynes typing away on their keyboard without the slightest clue of what the legal consequences would be.

3 hours ago, connda said:

Unlike the West, grounds for divorce in Thailand need to be a little more substantive than 'toxic and abusive'.  
You best choice is to split amicably, divide the assets, figure out child custody that is best for the child (in other words, don't use your child as a weapon), and they file at the Amphur level for a dissolution of marriage. 
If you want to go the other route via court - to the best of my knowledge no Thai court is going to accept your arguments as valid grounds for divorce.  That 'mental and physical cruelty' that seems to work so well in the US doesn't cut it here.  Get a lawyer, but you'll be disappointed at your options. 

Fortunately you are wrong.  Violence, physical or mental, is one of the grounds for divorce.

More information can be found here:  https://www.siam-legal.com/legal_services/grounds-divorce.php

Unfortunately I think what you are being told in UK is right, though I would be vary of any lawyer who took "a quick look" and proclaimed the Thai papers to be worthless in the UK, unless said lawyer is an expert and knows from memory which countries papers would be honoured in the UK and which would not.

My understanding is that child custody issues are governed by the Hauge convention of 1996, and that the countries that have signed the Hague convention of 1996 (https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/status-table/?cid=70) honour decisions made by other countres that have also signed this convention.  Thailand has for some reason not signed the Hague convention of 1996, which means other Hague 1996 countries will not honour decisions regarding child custody in Thailand.  Thailand has however signed the Hague convention of 1980, which would make it a crime for the mother, both in the UK and Thailand, to abduct your son away from his "habitual residence" (which is now the UK obviously).

I'm not sure if the UK has a form one parent can sign where the parent voluntarily gives full custody to the other parent or not.  I know other European countries do have this, and if the UK has too, you may try to get the mother to sign it and then register it in the UK?  If not, perhaps there is no other choice than to start custody proceedings in the UK, though I'd be wary of starting that without knowing more about what it would entail.  In child custody issues time usually works in favour of the parent who the child is staying with, so it may or may not be best to let this dog continue sleeping as long as possible.

4 minutes ago, elviajero said:

No I’m not staying that. I am saying that a document on its own proves nothing and that they only way for the income to be verified is by the embassy contacting the issuer. Something some (so far) embassies are refusing to do. 

To quote yourself: "They don't check or verify (same thing) anything, they never have."

That is wrong.   Were you to submit a home-made Mickey Mouse tax statement not even looking vaguely like the official one to the embassy, it would no doubt be rejected as an obvious forgery and possibly you would face criminal charges too.  They, the Danish embassy, do check and verify to the extent they deem necessary.  Even if you were to know exactly how the Danish embassy verifies these papers, your opinion on whether the verification is thorough enough or not is irrelevant.

3 minutes ago, elviajero said:

Utter nonsense. Every document is forgable and the ONLY way it can be verified is to contact the issuer!!

So what?  

Already the embassy is doing the verification every time a Danish citizen provides a financial guarantee for a Thai citizen that wants to visit Denmark.  This verification is as said based on the same papers as those previously provided for the income verification letter. 

It is your statement that the embassy cannot verify these papers that is nonsense I'm sorry to say, as the embassy already has whatever means it deems necessary in order to do the verification, and will undoubtedly continue having to perform this verification for other purposes anyway (e.g., processing visa applications for Thai citizens sponsored by Danish citizens).

I visited a handful of lawyers in Chiang Mai, and thought I'd chosen a good one, but midway through my family case I, with the help of a more knowledgeable and experienced farang, understood my lawyer was really just "ok". Better than many other I suspect, and honest too, but just "ok". I give him a half-hearted recommendation as he was the best I found in Chiang Mai and he speaks English well enough too. His website is here: "http://www.chiangmai-legalbusiness.com/team.php" I visited or talked to most other lawyers I found recommended here, but mistakenly or not, did not feel confident in them.


Midway through my case I changed lawyer to one in Korat, and paid for him and his expensive interpreter (I can't speak Thai unfortunately) to fly up to Chiang Mai as many times as it required. The case was very very important to me, far too important to worry about air fare, hotel, and his very expensive (but good) interpreter. I did worry a lot about taking the risk of changing from a lawyer I now knew as "ok", to a lawyer I had only "interviewed" two times, but fortunately he ended up being even better than hoped. No website for him unfortunately, only a phone number, and you'll need to speak Thai if you want to call him (though you can call his independent interpreter too).