gallowayscot

Well some may remember me from an earlier thread about benefits for those returning to the UK - lost my job just as we arrived back. I've got a differently-shaped problem now. As I couldn't find work in my rural area my wife and I decided to sink our remaining savings into opening a Thai restaurant. Won't bore you with the details, but it's going really well and we are starting to find that she can't cope with the cooking alone. As far as I know there are no Thai people living in my area, so I'm not that hopeful of recruiting an experienced cook locally. My wife would dearly like to bring over a family member who she could trust, and who's cooking skills are already known. From what I can read online, the barriers to entry for this type of thing seem very high - especially the minimum income requirement. Does anyone have any practical experience of bringing family in for work purposes?

Thanks for the helpful advice 7by7. It seems quite clear that I can claim housing benefit without any ILR risks. In order to cover myself for NI contributions towards my pension it looks like I will also need to register for Jobseeker's Allowance or Income Support (I'm not sure which one). I have read some online information about this and the general advice seems to be that it can be done when one has a partner subject to immigration control, but that "care must be taken not to breach Home Office guidlines". I cannot find any specific reference to how this can be achieved however. Has anyone gone through the process? What I don't want to do is blunder into something which ends in my wife being deported.

Hello All, some advice from those in the know please.

I've lived in Thailand with my wife and our boys the last six years as an ex-pat worker. As such I was non-resident in the UK for tax purposes. Last year I was transferred to the UK, and my wife entered on a settlement visa. However before the move to the UK had been completed (but after her settlement visa had been granted) the company went bust.

Thus we arrived in the UK in October with me unemployed, and since then we've been living off savings and hoping that I could find a new job. I'm reaching the end of the road with this now, and there's not a sniff of work in the rural area I come from. I'm going to need to claim something from the state - if I can - soon. Please no flames about scroungers - I've never had a penny from benefits in my 50 years.

What can a returnee who has been away for a long time claim without jeopardising the future ILR application? In particular I'm looking at housing benefit - we rented a place big enough for the family, but only just big enough. As myself and the boys (British Citizens) would need a place of the same size even if my wife was not living with us, does this mean that a housing benefit claim would not entail HER recourse to public funds?

Thanks for any experiences or advice.

Don't take this the wrong way, but are you sure you completed the application correctly and supplied all the necessary documents?

How to apply from Thailand (First time applications)

Up to 1 in 8 passport applications received by the Regional Passport Processing Centre in Hong Kong are incorrectly filled out. Don't let yours be one of them..........Failure to complete the application form correctly or to send the correct supporting documents and payment may cause considerable delay in your application being processed.

Contact Us:

If you cannot find the information you need on the website, you could contact the Careline Passport Information Line at +44 208 082 4744 (Credit Card Line - calls will be charged at £0.72 per minute plus VAT) 19:00 Sunday UK time - 01:30 Saturday UK time (24 hour service). Please be aware that you will be charged for this call.

For customers with hearing difficulties, a Text phone service is available by contacting +44 1750 725368.

Please do not contact us before the expected delivery time as detailed above. We will not be able to give further information and you will be charged for this call.

I submitted the application via the Chiang Mai consulate. They checked it over and said that it was in order, so I'm just hoping that things are a bit slower because of the change of procedures and not anything more sinister.

Thought on average they were turning them around in 2-3 weeks, I would give them a call and find out

Any idea whether I should try the Bangkok Embassy, or the HK office or the UK passport service?

I applied for a passport for my son in September - i.e. after the change to passports being printed and sent out from the UK as opposed to Hong Kong. At the time of application I was told to expect the passport in 4 to 6 weeks. Been waiting six weeks now. Has anyone experienced a longer wait since the change?

Waiting on applications submitted on 15 September 2011.

So that would be three weeks as of today. Would you expect to wait much longer at the present time?

Wondering if now is a good time to apply.....

Does the fact that this thread seems to have gone dead indicate that now is low season at the Embassy?

The agony of waiting. Our application seems to be at the top end of the range for processing time. Travel date is still three weeks away - is this why we are waiting longer whilst others with perhaps closer travel dates have got the result more quickly? The paranoid side of my character is trying to tell me that we've been thrown to the bottom of the pile awaiting a rejection letter. Someone give me some hope.....

Mrs Scot has had an application with the British Embassy for 14 working days now, which seems a long time relative to other posters' recent experiences. Is this perhaps because summer is coming in the UK? Is a longer wait for a decision indicative of a good or bad result? Any opinions?

Just a quick thank you to everyone for all the helpful replies.

Long time lurker makes first post. Please be gentle Chiang Mai regulars.

My wife and I are in the planning stages of a permanent move to Chiang Mai. With two kids approaching school age, choice of school is obviously a major factor for us. We have researched all of the international schools online, but would very much welcome some local knowledge from those already there.

It seems that Prem is the best school in CM? Their fees are roughly double those of the other schools. Is this price differential explained by Prem providing a much higher standard of education? Putting our kids in Prem would stretch our budget considerably, but it is do-able. Although we want to give our kids the best we can, we also want to be sure that the value for money equation checks out also.

As this is a long-term move, we want to get off on the right foot, and ideally place the kids where they can stay for the whole of their schooling. Any advice or opinions would be gratefully received.