OJAS

Whereas a Thai who, in your eyes, has the nerve to work illegally in your home country should, of course, have the book thrown at them without mercy or fear, right?

And if unsuccessful......??

So does this mean that I need a work permit to give food and water to our rabbit and hose down her litter tray, as I do each day?

And probably way more accurate to boot!

Hats off to the OP's home country for letting him have a new passport within 60 days!???? Would never have happened had he been a Brit☹️

As I recall, CW were certainly gleefully fining people left, right and centre (including, I believe, @lopburi3) for the non-submission of completed TM30's when they abruptly inflicted this requirement on their punters with zero advance notice a few years ago, after ages of not bothering about it. So they definitely have a rogue track record IMHO when it comes to the TM30 form.

Would that still be possible if you were being pushed in a wheelchair which you had booked at the airport (as opposed to walking), though? How amenable would the BKK wheelchair pushers be to doing this?

A cautionary word for those who, like me, are aged 70+ and/or disabled, though: the priority lanes which we are entitled to use only seem to take us to Zones 1 or 3 and not to Zone 2 where, as already said, the re-entry permit office is located. That's certainly how it appeared to me when I flew out from BKK to Europe on 16 June (having fortunately already obtained a re-entry permit at my local immigration office).

What is definitely the major overriding concern for us Brits in renewing our passports from Thailand as far as I am concerned is the bloody rigmarole we're subjected to in achieving this end. To the best of my knowledge no other Western nation requires its Thai expats to make not 1 but 2 potentially difficult physical journeys to a rundown office building with an extremely silly name tucked down some obscure sidestreet somewhere or other in deepest, darkest Bangkok or to its Chiang Mai equivalent, or forces them to shell out an extra 5,000 THB for an agent to spare them these enforced route marches!

It is important for your daughter to check specifically that she is staying at a hotel which has provided the local immigration office at which she will be seeking the 30-day extension with the notification needed to comply with TM30 requirements. Without such a notification her chances of obtaining such an extension at that particular office will probably be zero.

You chaps certainly seem to believe in the "moaning minnie" approach to expressing your gratitude to @Red Phoenix for his efforts, don't you?????????☹️Is asking him by PM to send you his note really that much of a big deal? Even if he were to post his note on the open forum it would probably soon get lost in all the subsequent noise on here! And heaven help anyone relying on the Search function to try and track it down!????

So presumably there are other offices which require maps to be provided for retirement extensions, although I can't recall any reports of them on here. Certainly I've never been asked for one by Rayong (although I do always include a map in my "just in case" bundle of supporting docs).

More to the point as regards this particular thread, how are Phuket when it comes to issuing residency certificates? Do they issue them free of charge and without the need for any "special requirements" to be met, as they are supposed to?

As I have already intimated, I believe that their main focus as far as we expat Brits are concerned is, in fact, on making our lives here in LOS just as difficult and miserable as they humanly can be, regardless of our sexual orientation!

It has always been a mystery to me as to why CW insist on the provision of any sort of map for retirement (as opposed to marriage) extension applications. Do they actually make use of any of them for home visits? If not then this strikes me as pure roguery for pure roguery's sake (and IMHO on a par with Jomtien's requirement for those using the 800k method for retirement extensions to return after 3 months with evidence that the balance hasn't dipped a single satang below 800k in the meantime).

Out of curiosity did the Aussie Embassy provide this service at one time? If so, did they publicise its withdrawal to you and your compatriots in the way that their British counterparts most certainly did not in the case of us Brits? Makes me wonder whether we might here be talking about a deal struck between the Immigration Bureau and our embassies similar to the recent one regarding the need no longer for embassies to issue letters authenticating new passports.

Might there be immigration offices who are flatly refusing to issue residency certificates? Certainly mine (Rayong) did for a while, although I gather that they have now started issuing them again. But I agree wholeheartedly with your comments about the British Embassy. IMHO we expat Brits can be forgiven for believing that their principal role as far as we are concerned is in liaising enthusiastically between relevant parts of the UK government (in particular FCDO, HMRC, DWP and HMPO) and its Thai counterpart (in particular MOFA, MOPH and the Immigration Bureau) in developing a strategy which has the sole and avowed aim of making our lives in LOS just as miserable and difficult as they humanly can be. And non-Brits might reasonably be able to draw similar conclusions in the case of their home country embassies.

The Pogues' "Fairy Tale Of New York" was certainly an odd choice of tune to cavort freneticly to. Wonder how this renegade pair of "Come Dancing" aspirants coped with the long slow intro to this particular song?????

This all happened just up the road and barely 1 km from where I'm staying with my sister at the moment. We heard a loud thud inside her flat around 6:50pm local time followed by wailing sirens which seemed to continue from emergency vehicles rushing to the scene for an eternity. When we eventually ventured outside we found ourselves inside a police cordon and were told that, if we crossed it, we wouldn't be let back in.

But a referendum was, of course, held in 2016, when the majority voted for the UK to have nothing more to do with that 20th Century dinosaur relic called the EU. So can I take it that, consistent with your belief in democracy, you are applauding the fact that the UK is no longer being forced to write blank cheques to enable the autocratic elites who are responsible for running that shambolic organisation with minimal regard to democratic principles to live extravagant lifestyles in gilded palaces located in Brussels and Strasbourg?

Yep, let's shower our love on Pitchfork, Bellfield and their ilk by awarding them peerages, knighthoods, etc, right?

Indeed it says absolutely nothing about what is IMHO the most vital piece of personal information relating to its holder: namely the date when their current permission to stay in Thailand is due to expire.

Most certainly when compared to its British counterpart (His Majesty's Passport Office), as most Brits who have had to endure the agonies of renewing their passports from Thailand (myself included) will probably readily attest to!

And what I found particularly galling was that, in common with their counterparts worldwide, they were more than happy to sit idly by while ol' Boris was, gleefully and with much fanfare, cheerfully giving away vaccine doses deemed surplus to UK requirements, to find their way into the arms of any Tom, Dick and Harry across this great planet of ours who wasn't a British citizen!

Mostly of little relevance to the routine needs of local expat retirees, I think. They have completely thrown in the towel on (e.g.) providing an income confirmation service and witnessing State Pension life certificates - in other words genuinely useful services to the local expat retiree community.