uptome1946

I received an MA in Linguistics from Payap University in Chiang Mai in 2012. All classes were taught in English. I was the oldest student in the program and found it challenging but enjoyable. Payap is not cheap but they helped with the visa for the 5 years that it took to get my degree. I wrote my thesis on Thai Serial Verbs and it is available online for anyone interested.

I have a teenage daughter in Thailand whose mother cannot handle money. I am also 77 years old and last year I posted a request for advice similar to yours. I got lots of advice like you are getting regarding hiring an attorney. If I cannot trust my Thai wife to hold money in trust for my daughter can I really trust an attorney? I have life and health insurance in Thailand and a simple question regarding a $200,000 trust paid out over ten years resulted in near constant high pressure sales from the insurance company. I decided not to purchase the trust since the terms were so one-sided in regard to profit for the insurance company. There are immediate trusts sold in Thailand by insurance companies. Banks are no help and offer nothing in my experience that addresses long term payouts to minors in particular. If one is under 18 one needs a guardian. This is the problem- finding a guardian who puts the interest of my daughter ahead of theirs. As much as it pains me to say it, there is no one that can be trusted to NOT spend large amounts of money in Thailand. This includes family members even in the best circumstances. I have seen many cases where money issues have split families into warring camps. Money can destroy lives just as it can improve and benefit lives. My health scare of a year ago was resolved but the problem with money and my daughter still torments me. Good Luck....

Two years ago I had all three documents for my 12 year old daughter when I arrived at the Chiang Mai Airport to board a flight to the USA. My daughter was taken into a room and I was questioned to the point where I asked the officials questioning me to call my wife. They did so and had no problems after that but it was not as easy as I had envisioned to leave Thailand as the father of a Thai child. My daughter did have a US passport as well as a Thai passport.

I appreciate the advice from everyone. I got a private message with details of a plan from StevieAus which I replied to and which I will copy below. Thanks for your reply. I appreciate the time you took to give me advice. The frustrating issue I am facing involves sending "regular scheduled international wires out of the US". The US Internal Revenue Service has made it extremely difficult to send money "automatically" to Thailand. The laws regulating this have changed in the past year it seems. I spent another 45 minutes sending a wire transfer this morning and asked again if there were a way to automate this process. Again I was told "no". So I have no problem setting up an immediate fixed sum annuity with monthly payouts to any US account. This annuity would be paid out into that account whether I am alive or dead. But the big issue is automating that payout to a Thai bank. I really have no family member that I could trust to do this. US Banks have to fill out a lengthy form asking for a reason why this money is sent out of the country. I have sent at least a hundred wire transfers over the years and the process takes at least 30 minutes to do each time. Each time they make me spell out every word even though I know they have a copy of a prior wire transfer in front of them on their computer screen. One clerk admitted this to me. One friend living in Thailand has a Chase account and can "pull" money out of his account online for deposit into his Thai joint account. When he dies he "hopes" his Thai wife can empty his US account even though her name is not on the account she knows the procedure to transfer to their Thai account. Thai insurance companies do have annuities so it looks now like an option would be to convert dollars into baht trust the Thai insurance company to pay into the wife's account. Hopefully I will be alive long enough to do this. I have two parcels of land here in the US that I can add my daughters name on a quit claim deed so that when I pass she can show a death certificate and become sole owner. That way I can avoid probate. I am planning for worst case scenario and hope the treatments that I start soon will give me time to return to Thailand and even see my daughter graduate from High School. Quote

Am 76 years old and just found out I have prostate cancer. My pensions will stop after my death but investments in the US are substantial. I have no one really that I can trust to transfer money to Thailand and have spent hours online trying to find a way to set up an immediate fixed annuity for at least 10 years. If I transferred 10 million baht to Thailand I fear it would be spent in a year. I have a 15 year old daughter attending a private school in Chiang Mai and when I last visited the school and offered to prepay her last two years of tuition I was told that there was no way I could do that. I have a BKK account and inquired there about a plan to disburse money from my account to my wife's account and was told there was no way to do that. I was told to hire a lawyer to set up a plan but I lack trust in the Thai legal system from experience in 20 years here. I am currently in the US and I naively thought I could set up such a plan here through my credit union. Sending regular international wire transfers is not possible or so I was told. Does anyone have advice from actual experience regarding a way to do this?

The Malaysian Immigration official gave me 90 days which in the past was also my experience as an American. There were two Thai women and one was crying in the hall when I entered again on 5 July. The official would only give the younger woman a 7 day stamp. They had been pleading their case for some time and the older woman was saying, "I need my friend to help me in my new restaurant". The Malaysian official was not sympathetic. I had a Thai phone with no data service but the WiFi immediately connected at the immigration office. No problems at all. I misspelled the port where the ferry connects to Langkawi. It is Kuala Perlis. I missed the last ferry on 1 July but there is another ferry leaving from another town about 40 kilometers away. I made that ferry just in time but learned the hard way that Malaysian clocks are an hour ahead of Thai clocks and that Langkawi Island gets lots of weekend visitors so best to buy ferry tickets well ahead.

I just returned from Malaysian yesterday to Chiang Mai. I crossed into Malaysia at DanNok (Sadao) on 1July with a Visa exempt which expired on 2 July. I visited a friend at a marina in Langkawi for 5 days before returning. I took a taxi from Hat Yai to the border which cost me 800baht, then got stamped out at the Thai Immigration before walking the 300 meters of so to the Malaysian Immigration building. I was the ONLY person walking and the only person that I saw entering Malaysia. I had downloaded the MySejahtera app in Hat Yai the night before but had a few problems entering data. The Malaysian official helped me complete the Travel Pass when I entered. When you exit immigration there is nothing there to do. It is a 6 kilometer trip to the next small town with no taxis waiting there and very few people about. Luckily a GRAB driver was pulled over 100 meters past the immigration building and he took me to Kuala Pergis where the ferry crosses to Langkawi. This was another adventure in itself. When I returned 5 days later, I looked for a place to get stamped out of Malaysia. I walked around for 10 minute asking where I could get an exit stamp. At least three people told me to keep walking. I even asked a POLIS officer where I could get "stamped out". He looked at my passport and said, "keep walking". So I assumed perhaps that I no longer needed to get a stamp and walked back to the Thai office. When I got there I was told to walk back and get an exit stamp. The same official that stamped me in 5 days ago in the same office finally put an exit stamp in my passport. The whole process was not EASY and nothing like past experiences of many years ago.

I just got my renewed license today. It expired in 2019 and I was sure I would have to start over but that was not the case. I have been trapped outside of Thailand for all this time. I had to show passport, certificate of residence (500 baht for one day service) and physical done as a walk in at KlaiMor Hospital next to Lotus for 200 baht. I had to make an appointment three days after my first visit to view a 45 minute safety video where one Brit, and 8 Chinese speakers and myself watched the video in English. Since I had only a 30 day entry stamp in my passport they gave me only a 2 year license this time. Go upstairs to window 27 for friendly service.

I had this happen to me several years ago and worried quite a bit about it as I had heard that this was a symptom of multiple sclerosis. Sometimes the lack of feeling in the sole of my left foot made me drag my foot while walking. The symptoms seemed intermittent and some days my foot felt normal. After almost a year of having these symptoms of numbness, sometimes a tingling feeling in the toes, these symptoms disappeared. I am 75 years old and I believe that too much concentration on the health of the body can easily destroy the health of the mind. The medical tests required to find the cause of this condition are not simple or inexpensive to do.