OJAS

I strongly suspect that HMRC would respond to any request on the OP's part for a statement by drawing his attention to the convoluted process known as the Statutory Residence Test (SRT) as already referred to in this thread - which, I think, is what his bank was driving at through his reference to an "HMRC directive". https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rdr3-statutory-residence-test-srt/guidance-note-for-statutory-residence-test-srt-rdr3 Broadly speaking, it strikes me that, in order to satisfy the requirements of this test as far as establishing UK tax residency is concerned, the OP would, first and foremost, need to spend at least 183 days in the UK during a given tax year - a prospect which would presumably be totally unacceptable to him. The fact that he is only liable to tax in the UK on his public sector occupational pension income as a result of the UK/Thailand Double Taxation Agreement (DTA) is completely irrelevant in this context. The OP might be interested in learning that, when I received a similar request from my UK bank a couple of years ago, I responded by declaring that I was a tax resident in Thailand, even though I only paid tax on my UK public sector occupational pension income to HMRC in practice as a result of the UK/Thailand DTA. This has certainly not resulted in any further correspondence from them on this matter to date - and I would have thought it likely that, if the OP's UK bank were hell-bent on closing his account with them, they would proceed on the basis of the Thai address which he has presumably registered with them in any event.

Well, @gejohesch certainly made no bones about the "welcome" he allegedly received recently, even with a "visa for 60 days" he got from the Thai embassy in the country where he is resident! So maybe @dj230 is, indeed, right in steering clear of tourist visas in future!!????

For those who, like the OP, can meet the necessary extension of stay requirements, the use of agents is IMHO only justified for the really challenging things in life - like renewing your passport if you're a Brit, or obtaining the necessary visa to enable your Thai spouse to accompany you on a trip back to your home country.

And snail mail reporting is not necessarily a smooth process for that particular office based on past experience either - although the blame in that instance lies rather more with those masters of lazy incompetence at Maptaput Post Office, who once hung on to a snail mail report of mine for 3 whole days according to EMS tracking before eventually lifting any finger sufficiently high as actually to finalise its delivery to the office! And no, these 3 days did not span a weekend or holiday period!!

So that was the face-saving explanation they gave you! The unconvincingly vague excuse they gave me a few years back (after much toing and froing) was along the lines of "blame the computer"!! Incidentally, did they insist on you completing a fresh TM47 before issuing the receipt? They certainly did in my case but not for the individual to whom I referred up-thread.

Out of curiosity which is your immigration office? The lack of any response to date in your case is probably as a result of masterly inactivity on their part. I have become aware of a recent similar instance at my local immigration office (Rayong) where the individual involved, having found his latest online report perpetually stuck in the Pending category, visited the office on the due date and presented his passport with the printed Pending confirmation which was accepted without comment. But I would not advise you to bother wasting your time in trying to elicit any explanation as to why your online report was not accepted since, as I found out when I had a similar experience a few years ago, saving face is the tip-top priority as far as culpable immigration offices are concerned.

Existing real genuine McCoy non-immigrant or tourist visas cannot be transferred from old to new passports. You have to carry both passports around with you until said visas have been fully used by their expiry dates in order to obtain appropriate permissions to stay in Thailand.

By way of comparison our American cousins receive their replacement passports 3 weeks after submitting their renewal applications according to reports on here, because the State Department prioritises applications from Americans living abroad over those living domestically. Whereas we expat Brits, on the other hand, are probably placed at the back of a lengthy queue by HMPO. And neither are our American cousins required to make a couple of physical trips to a rundown office building in Bangkok (or its Chiang Mai equivalent) at passport renewal time (or fork out an extra 5,000 THB for an agent to perform the "honours" for them). The furthest they need to travel is to their local post office in order to submit renewal docs by snail mail, with replacement passports subsequently showing up on their doorsteps in due course!

He should have been given a document receipt checklist with the magical DHL tracking number entered in manuscript at the foot of the first page (if my recent experience is typical) - see attached example. I only hope for his sake that he hasn't mislaid this checklist since VFS will not release his replacement passport to him (when it eventually turns up) without it! Document receipt checklist.pdf

Is he certain that his application docs have actually been received by HMPO in the UK? VFS should have given him an 11-digit DHL tracking code at his initial appointment, and following is a link to the DHL tracker into which he can enter this code in order to establish his docs' current whereabouts (IMHO he should definitely check this before contacting HMPO unless he has already done so):- https://www.dhl.com/th-en/home/tracking.html In my recent case, my application docs were sent on their merry way to Liverpool on Tuesday 18 October and safely received there 2 days later. So 2 working days (allowing for weekends and holidays where necessary) would, I think, appear to be be the norm - unless, of course, others' experiences differ!

Splitting hairs in a pedantic manner, I think.

I take very strong exception to the way in which you are seeking to apportion blame to me personally and exclusively for overlooking a particular aspect of modern banking, Liverpool Lou, in the typically superciliously and patronisingly arrogant tone which IMHO you have chosen to adopt in the vast majority of your posts on this forum. Did it not ever dawn on you that, by your supposed reasoning, the finger of blame should be far more appropriately directed at HMPO instead? If it is so blindingly obvious to you that cards must be valid for any proposed transaction as you suggest, then why have you also not, in the interests of 100% consistency, come to the conclusion that their advice to those completing their credit/debit authorisation form to check with their card provider that their card is valid for a transaction taken in the UK is completely superfluous, right?? ????

@Liverpool Lou has clearly overlooked the following piece of specific advice on HMPO's credit/debit card authorisation form! You must ensure that you have checked with your card provider that your card is valid, for this international transaction https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/190989/OS_Payment__Instruction_07.13.pdf

Or alternatively submit a completed enquiry form: https://eforms.homeoffice.gov.uk/outreach/Passport_Enquiries.ofml Or even adopt a belt-and-braces approach by doing both!

Unfortunately, even though I am married to a local and despite my grasp of the Thai language being minimal, it is still not possible for me to apply for Thai citizenship (much that I would like to) on the grounds that I have never worked nor paid any income tax in Thailand. So the requirements are, indeed, not preposterous as you have stated, but rather completely insurmountable - for both me and also, I strongly suspect, many others on here (whether or not we like to call ourselves non-immigrants!).

Yep, documented a whole week in advance, according to my attached topic. And only to those with Twitter accounts, it would seem. Not what I would personally call "very well documented".

Yep, the ease and grace of the Thai passport renewal process certainly stands in stark and sorry contrast to the cumbersome and awkward procedures which have been imposed on us Brits here in LOS at passport renewal time. I have had plenty of cracks on here at what British bureaucracy does completely wrong in that regard IMHO. I particularly appreciate the way in which mugshots are taken as part of the Thai passport renewal process. Whereas we Brits are left entirely to our own devices in obtaining photos complying with detailed and IMHO over-fussy requirements - which can be easier said than done locally here in the case of those of us living in the sticks.

No change based on the new passport I picked up in Bangkok last week.

@roobaa01 - in the light of DrJack54's comments, I now wonder whether your best option would be to obtain a full year's policy from Pacific Cross from March 23 to March 24, and then do a border run before your current permission to stay expires in order to gain a further year (or at least until the date your new Pacific Cross policy expires) out of your non-OA visa. Then, before a March 24 permission to stay expires, do a further border run without a re-entry permit to ditch your non-OA visa, re-entering Thailand visa-exempt with the aim of seeking a non-O conversion at your local immigration office. Please note, however, that any further foreign travel which you might be contemplating between Sept 23 and March 24 will necessitate a re-entry permit so as to preserve a March 24 permission to stay. Whereabouts in Thailand are you located? Might Ban Pakard in Cambodia be a reasonably convenient proposition in your case for border runs in March 23 and March 24 (see report below)?

Will not your existing (German?) insurer be prepared to extend your current policy until this date? I took out an insurance policy with Pacific Cross some time ago, and they first required me to undergo a hospital medical examination since I was over 65 years old.

As already said, the answer is "no". However, if yours is a Thai credit card you would be strongly advised to check with its issuer whether it will be valid for a GBP payment taken in the UK.

I strongly suspect that the big unknown in the short term at least is the possible impact of the current Civil Service strikes. To the best of my knowledge HMPO staff are not at the moment being specifically targeted in the way that their Border Force colleagues are being for instance, but that could all change in the New Year should the PCS union decide to ramp up its action - with consequential adverse implications for passport processing times.

It might be advisable for you to submit your next 90-day report in person at the same time as getting existing stamps transferred from old to new passports - just as I did in my case last week. Based on my experience, your immigration office should then issue you with a 90-day receipt of notification stating your new passport number underneath a barcode. So, provided that you ensure that your new passport number is stated in a subsequent online report, Immigration will - hopefully - be able to marry this up with the new passport number as - equally hopefully - recorded in their system. That said, the proof of the pudding will not, unfortunately, become clear in my case until next March! ????

And this coming on top of the various bureaucratic hurdles which you and your GF no doubt had to surmount in order to obtain the necessary Schengen visa for her (which appears to me to require considerably more effort being expended than that required by a Westerner in obtaining a tourist visa for Thailand). @gejohesch - so is it really the case that you and your GF have, to date, never attempted to obtain a Schengen visa to enable her to visit your home country, then?

Much the same thing can, of course, be said about the cumbersomely nonsensical British passport renewal process from Thailand by substituting "HMPO is" for "Thais are" in your post.