OJAS

It is precisely because of this particularly shining example of UK Government bungling incompetence and ineptitude as highlighted by the OP that I have only elected to pay income tax on my occupational pension through my tax code, with tax on my remaining income consisting of the State Pension and rental income on a UK property being paid to HMRC on account separately. And, even though I no longer need in theory to file tax returns following the sale of the UK property in question 18 months ago, I have opted to continue doing so since the effort involved in filing a tax return is, in my perception (although others may well disagree, depending on their personal circumstances), considerably less than that involved in calling HMRC and/or DWP each year by phone to correct a tax coding error on their part - involving, as this always seems to, being placed on hold for an eternity until some real live human being can finally be bothered to pick up my call, with my long-suffering eardrums being "serenaded" in the meantime by the entire suite of Beethoven symphonies from start to finish or whatever other irritating muzak is inflicted on them!????

And then the information presumably needs to cascade downwards through the Immigration Bureau structure at an extremely leisurely pace in all probability, until it finally reaches immigration officers working on the coalface.

A further point which you should bear in mind is that the one thing which no agent can help you out with, as far as I can tell, is in obtaining mugshots for the new passport which comply with what are IMHO HMPO's over-fussy requirements in full. The issue is not so much with photographic & facial sizes (for which a template illustrating acceptable dimensions is available), but rather with the particular shades of plain cream/light-grey background colours which are deemed acceptable by HMPO. Probably not an issue with professional photographers here in LOS if you live in or near a major urban centre, but could definitely be one if you live out in the sticks.

Just be aware, though, that there is little which agents can do to speed up the whole process when compared to doing it all yourself. All of the unexpected delays of recent times to which you refer have arisen courtesy of those masters of bungling incompetence and ineptitude known as HMPO. And if I were in your shoes I would be thinking about renewing my passport sooner rather than later, even though your existing passport still has a year to run before its expiry date. I actually applied to renew mine last October, even though it was not due to expire until this coming September.

In any event what is probably of considerably greater interest to you and your fellow Americans is the current furore over his USA visa application running in parallel: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/prince-harry-visa-america-meghan-markle-b2353629.html What particularly mystifies me is why the US Customs and Border Protection consider it necessary to seek the permission of this particular renegade to the disclosure of his visa application form.

Your old passport was almost certainly cancelled when your new one was issued, meaning that it could not, in fact, be used in lieu of the new passport if lost!

In a nutshell HM Government back in the UK is stuck in some antediluvian time warp as far as we expat Brits in LOS are concerned - not just when it comes to proving that we remain in the land of the living for State Pension purposes, but also when it comes to renewing our passports. The imposition of unnecessarily cumbersome and onerous bureaucracy on us as a result seems to be their tip-top priority bar none in either case.

In exactly the same way as the strict requirement for us Brits to complete our passport renewal forms in BLACK ink "is just more British Government B*****T", do you not agree?

@BritTim - if they were to cancel his existing passport as part of this process, though, might this lead to problems with Immigration upon his return at BKK Arrivals?

Prior to reading your excellent report I had been labouring under the impression that the Immigration Bureau's appointment booking system was, in practice, only in use in Bangkok (Chaengwattana). The above link is therefore of particular interest to me since my office (Rayong) also comes under Division 3. Unfortunately, given that, unlike Hua Hin as stated in your report, they require supporting bank docs for retirement, etc extensions to be obtained on the same day as these are applied for, I'm not sure that this system is likely to be of much practical use in my case as the big unknown, of course, is how long it would take for me to obtain the necessary supporting docs depending on how busy the bank branch I dealt with was at the time. On a very minor point, given the absence of any mention of the mandatory health insurance requirement in your report, would I be correct in inferring that your retirement extension is based on an original non-O visa?

More likely it will bring her sleepless nights with its constant croaking, I think!????

Not holding my breath, personally.....☹️

Definitely check this specifically and in advance with the airline you'll be flying back to Thailand with, if I were you.

Well the fact that "this kind of info is found at many websites" indicates to me that pigs will fly before any proof to the contrary comes to light!

Please let us know next Monday (on the basis that last Monday was a bank holiday in the UK) whether they were, in the event, as good as their word!

Maybe that has something to do with the Royal Mail strikes referred to by @youreavinalaff? And/or to last year's major hack of their website which, I gather, is also still impacting negatively on their international delivery services? And/or to a leisurely attitude taken by customs officials at either (or both of) the UK and Thai ends in clearing international mail destined for us? And/or specifically in the case of Life Certificate requests to DWP's apparent policy (judging from the postmark on the envelope containing their latest request to me) of routing these to us through some sorting office on mainland Europe, presumably with the aim of minimising their postage costs?

Or alternatively you could phone 'em!???? https://www.gov.uk/international-pension-centre Yep, those parts of The Great UK Government Machine we expats have to deal with from LOS really are at the cutting edge of advanced e-comms technologies, aren't they?????

Having got heartily sick and fed up to the teeth with having to wait around 15 minutes for my laptop to boot up following the installation of each and every Windows 10 update requiring a complete restart, I have finally taken the plunge and migrated to Windows 11. It appears to be a considerable improvement over its predecessor in that regard in my case: for example the rebooting process following the installation of the 2023-05 Cumulative Update Preview for Windows 11 Version 22H2 for x64-based systems (KB5026446) only took 2 minutes and 40 seconds in the case of my laptop, when compared to MS's estimate of 4 minutes! So definitely a case of goodbye and good riddance to Windows 10 as far as I am concerned, I think!

The following link seems to be working OK:- https://tm47.immigration.go.th/tm47/#/login

Apart, possibly, from jacking up minimum financial requirements and/or making all those seeking retirement extensions subject to the mandatory health insurance requirement regardless of which category of non-imm visa they originally (or most recently) used to enter Thailand, it strikes me that the scope of any new MFP government's room for manoeuvre would be severely constrained by the 1979 Immigration Act. The question would then arise as to what priority they would attach to "reforming" this Act (by which I mean making life as difficult for us as is humanly possible - notwithstanding the "heroic" assistance which HM Government back in the UK is already cheerfully providing in that regard as far as we Brits are concerned, for instance). In the short term at least I don't see this as being a tip-top priority for any MFP government - in the way that it hasn't been for any government here in LOS over the last 20-30 years.

Unless, of course, you are a retiree who originally entered Thailand on the basis of a non-OA visa prior to October 2019 (assuming, of course, that Phuket hasn't by now fallen into line with each and every other office in LOS by insisting on a suitable 3m THB health insurance policy as a condition of granting annual retirement extensions for such original visa holders).

Maybe this "initiative" could explain why long waits at that particular office are now commonplace as a result of officers being presumably diverted en masse from processing extension of stay applications, 90-day reports, etc to gleefully conducting witchhunts against foreigners.

An appropriate description which IMHO can also be levelled against other parts of HM Government - e.g. HMPO when it comes to passport renewals from Thailand. Makes me seriously wonder whether HM Government as a whole really is actively striving to make life just as difficult for us expat Brit retirees in LOS as is humanly possible - in accomplishing which aim it would, of course, find itself being eagerly aided and abetted by its Thai counterpart.

IMHO your unfortunate experience serves as a general reminder to us all that it would probably be better to rely on reports of a new Life Certificate exercise on here in order to spur us into taking the necessary action, in preference to awaiting the receipt of a specific request from the IPC. For example, @theoldgit first alerted us all to the latest exercise on 31 January in the pinned Pensions thread - and his posting certainly got the alarm bells ringing in my case!

Every couple of years or so.