Fontane

50 minutes ago, thaiscot said:

Try transferwise , if you dont know about it google it , gives better exchange rate & you only get charged once ( some banks charge you at both ends) and also quick and easy

I also use TranferWise which is the Best for Rate & Quickness when I send money to my Thai Bank from the U.K. 

Download the App & is easy to set up an Account. Much better Rate than Forex & WorldRemit by comparison which I’ve used in the past until I discovered TransferWise & have recommended to Family & Friends. 

Congratulations in putting into perspective the things that need to be implemented in Thailand ???? to start the return of tourists. Lived there for over 5 yrs and I shall return again soon .... Your comments & observations are one of the best I've read on a Thai Forum ????

Illegal immigrants is what Europe is faced at the moment but the media so conveniently calls "asylum seekers".

In all fairness, these three kids might have not noticed the expiry stamp in their passports. This is wrong and, according to the local law, punishable with said fines. All OK so far. They outstayed their welcome and

will never come back again - same for their friends and friends of friends - trust the vitality of the social networks on this one.

But what is it an airline's job on a domestic flight to scare them to death. It is the immigration (under the police and ultimately under the Ministry of Interior) to sort things out and not an airline (under the DCA and ultimately under the Ministry of Transportation).

The story will go viral and the TAT will have to use more flood pumps to blow up their fantastic figures of theirs.

Apply common sense - a commodity which is in complete absence in this country; regretfully!

A slap on the wrist with a smile would have done (thank- and grateful) wonders; now it seems that Thailand came in second - again, despite being on the(ir) correct side. How pathetic - considering the completely empty hotels and restaurants in Pattaya, Koh Chang and other Eastern seaboard tourism spots!

???? Only 1 Thai involved a little unusual

In the busier tourist Resorts of Phuket and particularly Karon ... The only time you see RTPolice is at the Police Box stopping motorbikes & cars to check driving licences & not wearing crash helmets for fines ... If they were visibly present it would make tourists feel safer & also deter crime .... If only they would do their job .... If there is money involved see how quickly they get involved. They love our money but sadly not us which shows more often than not now in Thailand :-(

The British Police will Rip this case wide apart & show the World these 2 Mayanmar men are scapegoats just with the evidence alone .... The Son of the High So Thai Mafia man only needs to supply 1 strand of hair from his ( He thinks his untouchable High So HEAD ) for his Son to be proved Innocent ... He doesn't need to be around for him to be implicated & proved guilty as there's just so much evidence against him & that's why he's gone AWOL ... The RTP thought it was all going to go AWAY ... Well it hasn't & it won't as too many innocent & good people have been victims in the past & now Good People are coming together to show the RTP that we've all had enough ..... About Time to :-)

The DNA is safe in our British Police hands which is a true match to the Killers & hasn't been messed with like it obviously has been by the RTP .... If the Son of the influential Thai Mafia won't give a sample then take one from his father who offered the 1 Million Bht for any proof his family was not involved ... Case solved & everyone knows it & the money will go to the innocent Mayanmar Family's ... Or so it should .... :-)

was it difficult for the parents to get a visa to travel to Thailand?

and what happened to the "indisputable " dna evidence ?

Many good points I have read not only here but on other sites & now our British Police is involved it won't take them long to find the cover up that has been orchestrated by the RTP . If they refuse their findings our Government should & will impose a Travel warning to all of its Citizens & also to impliment trade restrictions for them to finally realise people have had enough of extortion, Mafia, Murder, lies ect ect ... The people have spoken so Thailand has to listen otherwise their saving face system will bring misery & no riches to them .... Som Nun Na Muk ....

Thankyou Wackybacky for your indepth reply & your concerns from your part on me understanding the implications of understanding it's importance ..... For all newcomers to this thread & topic I just mentioned the basics of .... When all good people come together to right wrongs & point our reasons for justice Back to the people who are in their position to say otherwise .... It's always a good thing . Thankyou for all your points Wackybacky & I hope my grammar is all appropriate .....

If Saving Face means more to Thai Culture than their own peoples survival & existence accompanied by visiting tourists paying into the Thai economy ..... Then convict these obviously innocent Mayamar men & let the real suspect go free because of his connections to his Mafia Family .... Then you will all see how much damage & cost will be involved .. I lived & worked in Thailand in Phuket for nearly 6 yrs & know how the system works there ..... If Thai people & the RTP along with the new General Priminister know what's good for their country they will find the Mayamar men innocent ......

:DThe Islander is great for British and Thai food and Nickys Handlebar Bikers Restaurant is also excellent with a great selection and Bangla Steak House for superb steaks and Thai food also off Bangla Road .

Hi Thai Forum,

Please could you advise me on whether my Thai girlfriend would need a passport to fly in Thailand or would her ID Card be surficient as i

have Pre-Booked her flight to Phuket from BKK. Regards Fontane

Is that a lot? 35 tonnes?? Sounds like it.

1/2 a tank possibly...

With the obvious incompetence of the issue of the Visa, maybe if she changed her name by deed then maybe she might have got back in.Why she

wanted to go back is beyond belief...

Hi Members,

please could a Forum member explain please the process of the best Visa run to do and also form TM.47 (could i download this) to fill in and pay the relevant

fees.I shall either be in Kalasin or Pattaya. Sorry about specifics but not sure til nearer the time. I would be very grateful for your help as i've never stayed longer than 3 weeks .

Cynics, all!

You asked for information, not opinions.

I have transfered money from the US to myself and others, and it was easy, and cost us$45.00

I used Bank of america, but other large banks do the same service.

You have to provide a name, the bank name, bank branch address, the bank SWIFT code and the recipient's account number. This assumes the recipient has an bank account with a major bank.

If she doesn't have an account, just send me the money and I will personally deliver it to her. (mai jing)

Two classes of falang owners here IMO.

One is int'l. business like hotels, factories etc. They invest big money and create jobs. Thailand must be competitive to attract and keep them so they aren't going to do anything to intentionally alienate them.

Second owner group are individual falangs. Thailand doesn't really give a <deleted> and likely regards them as being mainly drunks who require adult supervision. Take their pennies but don't let them have much that is substantial. Don't look for any improvement to land laws there.

Thankyou for putting that down in laymans terms and exactly my sentiments to a T.

Have a long and healthy life. Happy Birthday to the King of Thailand.

When you enter the country your Visa is dead.

You stay in Thailand on a permission to stay.

If you leave after a few days your permission to stay is finished.

You can get a Re Entry Permit from Immigration. 1,000 Baht. This will keep your permission to stay alive. It does not add any days.

Just in the process of getting a 1 year visa and when you say get a Re-Entry permit from immigration are they situated at the Airport?

or do you have to go to an office in Town? Thanks for your help in anticipation of this matter...

It's been done before to set up a company to buy property. However, Thailand has become wise to this and the government or a court can invalidate any company set up solely to buy property. Not advisable.

So Wise one what is the correct way to start a buisiness and to have xxxx amount of partners and what percentage do you own ....

IN BAR MANS TALK PLEASE... And can you sleep at night after you've paid your money. Numbers of some good legal people would be of help..

* previous discussions in thaivisa and elsewhere that concluded (in my mind at least) that purely by a very strict 'letter of the law' interpretation of current laws, property purchases by the wives of foreigners could be further discouraged or even prevented

Thai wives can not be prevented from owning land due to the fact that the previous law which prevented Thai wives (with foreign husbands) from owning land was repealed because it was proven to be unconstitutional. This was not an interpretation, it is law, and can not be rescinded.

However, most land departments will still ask the foreign husband to waive all future claim on the property by signing a affidavit at the land department office upon transfer stating that all money used to buy the property is hers. That might discourage those who do not have much faith in their wives perhaps, but a marriage without trust is hardly a marriage at all.

The Land Code makes no mention of the rights of Thais married to foreigners and technically the pre-1999 and current regulations relating to purchase of land by Thais married to foreigners are neither statutory law nor interpretations. They are ministerial regulations pursuant to the Land Code. These have the force of law but can be amended by the Interior Ministry without the need for parliamentary approval. The current regulation can therefore be amended at the discretion of the Minister in the same way as the pre-1999 regulation was amended. I think it is unlikely to be changed, despite all the current houhaa because the constitutional issue remains and it is viewed as impractical to check the funding of Thai spouses, as specifically mentioned in the ministerial regulation. The very worst case possible would probably be that Thai spouses would in fact have to produce evidence of funding from their own resources for future purchases, while past purchases with signed affidavits would remain legal. Even if they tried this, there would probably be a legal challenge that a gift from a foreign spouse with the affidavit does in fact represent funding from the resources of the Thai spouse.

There are cases where Land Offices don't bother to ask for the affidavit when they know the buyer is married to a foreigner or even refuse to provide it. However, it is a legal requirement according to the ministerial regulation that it should be signed by both spouses "whether they are married in accordance with the law or married not in accordance with the law" to give a direct translation of the wording. This torturous wording effectively extends to cover the cases of unmarried couples cohabiting, couples married under local custom but not registered and couples married overseas who have not registered their marriages Thailand and have not provided evidence of their marriage to the Thai authorities (i.e. the wife has retained her Thai surname). The Interior Ministry gives examples of title deeds it claims to have cancelled because they were issued to Thai women who had Thai "husbands" to whom they were "married but not legally married". Interestingly there is no concept of common law marriage in the Civil Commercial Code but it is clearly defined in the Land Code.

I also tend to agree with you that things will not get any easier for foreigners wanting to own land. In 1999 The Democrat Party tried to introduce an amendment to the Land Code to permit foreigners married to Thais to purchase a rai of land for residential purposes. This was virtually booed out of the house and created an uproar in the media. Virtually all that was left of the 1999 Land Code amendments in the end was the provision that allows foreigners to buy a rai of residential land, if they invest 40 million baht in approved investments, not including the investment in the property or construction. It was even a struggle to get this through parliament as many opposed it and some suggested the investment should be 400 million baht not 40, giving the usual moronic arguments about selling out Thailand to foreigners and Thais beooming beggars in their own country. The Interior Ministry made a point of dragging its heals in issuing the necessary ministerial regulations for several years and I imagine it still remains extremely difficult or even impossible for a foreigner to buy land this way, even though the right is enshrined in statutory law. I have never heard of anyone who did it. The explanatory notes to the law which explain superfluously that the new law was expected to increase foreign investment in Thailand to help get it out of the late 90s recession provide a good excuse for civil servants who are reluctant to enforce the law, as they can argue that Thailand is already out of that recession (and into another one).

Longer than 30 year leases may be more of a possibility in future. 50 year leases have been permitted for commercial property since 1999. Since there is already a precedent, perhaps 50 year residential land leases will eventually be mooted, probably with a raft of unattractive restrictions. Unfortunately there is not much of a lobby for longer leases. Most Thai property developers sell to Thais and companies like Jones Laing and Richard Ellis that are vocal on this are viewed as foreign mouth pieces.

One thing I have always thought odd is that no land ownership rights have ever been suggested for permanent residents. They would seem a much better case than foreigners married to Thais as proposed by the Dems in 1999. The PR process now takes several years and requires a great deal of onerous vetting, which should help satisfy any national security concerns, whereas anyone, even a terrorist, can marry a Thai. The toughness of the process also means that there aren't that many PRs, apart from the large number of now elderly Chinese who got it when it was a formalilty but citizenship still required a large under the counter police contribution.

If there are ever any real witch hunts I would think that companies with nominee Thai shareholders would be the first targets. Many are very easy to detect (e.g. a company with no business that owns a villa with an infinity pool in Phuket and all the Thai shareholders are lawyers);they have been on notice to restructure since 2006; and they are in breach of both the Land Code and the Foreign Business Act. The auditors often also conveniently place a red flag in the auditor's statement to cover themselves in the form of a qualification saying that they could not verify any of the information in the accounts because management failed to provide requested documentation. The Thai accountants rarely provide their farang clients with a translation of this page which those without a financial background don't realise is important. Since Thai politics have now become so messy that tourism and foreign investment numbers are things that can be readily sacrificed for short term political gains, don't count out this possibility. It would provide a major chance for nationalistic grandstanding by underachieving politicians and create huge opportunities for Thais to benefit from picking up cheap property, plus restructuring fees for lawyers and accountants, fees for the Land Dept, not to mention the opportunities for extortion and blackmail by police and other civil servants. In somewhat different circumstances Spain had no qualms in bulldozing foreigners' villas that were built without planning permission and Mexico has happily reclaimed land in coastal areas where foreigners are not allowed to buy, even though the developers and lawyers assured them the structures were completely legal. Spain and Mexico still get foreign tourists and investment, even though short term damage must have been done. If they are smart enough to find them, these precedents might provide encouragement to Thai politicians looking for glory and a quick buck.