32 minutes ago, Mulambana said:

He may have legitimate claim to a marriage extension but if goes to the immigration office for a retirement extension, his application will be treated as retriement extension. 

He would need to fill out a fresh application form for that type of extension, and include the additional documents for this type - a marriage-cert (copy and show original), recent Kor Ror 2, and pictures with wife at the shared home.  His wife would also need to be present to apply. 

 

Then, he would likely be told about more undocumented requirements, which that particular office adds to the "official" list.  In my experience, they refuse to write these down, so they can add more with each attempt to apply.  Whether this office will engage in that behavior or not is not certain, but the statement by the IO that he "could only apply" using a lump sum, does not bode well for this process.

On 5/29/2020 at 8:19 AM, Moonlover said:

 

There was a case reported on the forum, maybe 2 months ago, by a French guy. There was some anomaly is his extension request, I don't recall the exact details but the bottom line was that the was a shortfall of 15,000 THB. The IO offered to 'fix it' for for 15,000 under the table. If I recall correctly, he did in fact pay.

 

Back on 2016 the pound fell (thank you Cameron) and my income fell to 65,000 per month. My request for a retirement was refused on the grounds that my annual income was less than 800,000 THB. The IO 'suggested' a work around. But what he didn't know was that I was married and I rejected his 'kind offer' and went the marriage route, which probably peed him off a lot.

 

What's the connection? Both these incidents occurred at Udon Thani. Need I say any more?

 

Are you reading this @Macclad?

 

Yes I,m reading it thanks. Maybe more common than we think. 

I,m sure for a fee I would be sorted but why should I pay extra when I have a legitimate claim. 

2 hours ago, Macclad said:

Yes I,m reading it thanks. Maybe more common than we think. 

I,m sure for a fee I would be sorted but why should I pay extra when I have a legitimate claim. 

I've got to agree with you. 

 

When I went to renew my marriage extension the first thing the IO said to my wife was that I should do a retirement extension because she could complete it in minutes but a marriage extension would take at least a month. To start with I pointed out that I didn't qualify for the higher financial requirements for a retirement extension, to which she replied 'for 15k baht' she would 'organise' that for me, no problem. I replied that I thought that might be illegal plus I qualify legally for a marriage extension so why should I pay an extra 15k for something I qualify for anyway? I then 'thanked' her for her offer but said, with Immigration changing/modifying the visa/extension rules regularly' I didn't want to be caught out in the future with a questionable extension in my passport so I would prefer to go down the legal route. To cut a very long story very short, her boss agreed with me and instructed the IO to proceed with my marriage extension application. Thirty days later it was stamped in my passport.

On 5/29/2020 at 8:19 AM, Moonlover said:

Back on 2016 the pound fell (thank you Cameron) and my income fell to 65,000 per month. My request for a retirement was refused on the grounds that my annual income was less than 800,000 THB. The IO 'suggested' a work around. But what he didn't know was that I was married and I rejected his 'kind offer' and went the marriage route, which probably peed him off a lot.

 

On 5/29/2020 at 9:37 PM, JackThompson said:

In my experience, they back the play of the jr-officer insisting on the made-up rule - probably because they, or their superior, invented it. 

The front line IOs are primarily "just following orders" - but some have been fed some awful propaganda in their training, which is where the bad attitudes towards us and/or our Thai wives originate.

In this particular incident above, my regular IO had granted me a retirement extension. She had even placed the stamp in my passport. It was rejected by the supervisor when it was passed to him for approval. It was the IO who quietly mouthed to me, 'marriage, do marriage'.  You can never be quite sure who the rogue really is.

 

Thankfully, We have now moved to Sakon Nakhon, where going for an extension is like going to a friendly coffee morning. (pre new-normal!)

5 hours ago, Moonlover said:

 

In this particular incident above, my regular IO had granted me a retirement extension. She had even placed the stamp in my passport. It was rejected by the supervisor when it was passed to him for approval. It was the IO who quietly mouthed to me, 'marriage, do marriage'.  You can never be quite sure who the rogue really is.

 

Thankfully, We have now moved to Sakon Nakhon, where going for an extension is like going to a friendly coffee morning. (pre new-normal!)

Cant Win. Ours is friendly, so Mrs Pine natters on with nice Lady about Handbags, Kids etc whilst i go searching for a Cold One.

Fortunately i have had no big problems with Udon Thani immigration up to now with my marriage extensions. I did this year change to the 400,000 baht in the bank method as there is less chance of some 'inconsistency' being found in your monthly transfers (real or imagined). 

 

I would have thought most people married here would have at least 10,000 GBP in cash or easily liquified assets. If you haven't, your living on a knife edge anyway. As i maintain UK bank accounts and address, i just borrowed mine last year - did online from one of my banks at a really low interest rate. Given the further decline of UK interest rates in the last 6 months, i would have just transferred cash now, but i like to have some available to cover any large credit card expenditures.

1 hour ago, rickudon said:

Fortunately i have had no big problems with Udon Thani immigration up to now with my marriage extensions. I did this year change to the 400,000 baht in the bank method as there is less chance of some 'inconsistency' being found in your monthly transfers (real or imagined). 

 

I would have thought most people married here would have at least 10,000 GBP in cash or easily liquified assets. If you haven't, your living on a knife edge anyway. As i maintain UK bank accounts and address, i just borrowed mine last year - did online from one of my banks at a really low interest rate. Given the further decline of UK interest rates in the last 6 months, i would have just transferred cash now, but i like to have some available to cover any large credit card expenditures.

Im sure that helped.!.

On 5/27/2020 at 2:15 PM, Upnotover said:

Got a UK bank account?  Get your pension paid into that and send it over yourself.  You may lose a few baht but might get your extension.

Alternatively open a Borderless account with TransferWise in the UK. Get your State pension paid directly to them and then do a monthly transfer to your Thai account. I opened an account at Bangkok bank several years ago and I find it is easy to transfer from TW to my Thai bank. TW partner banks in Thailand are Bangkok bank, Kasikorn bank and one other which I think is the SCB but don't quote me on that.

 

TW also send a message to your email account telling you when and how much your funds were deposited with them and another telling that the funds will be in your account that day. For me the messages come in around 2 pm. Bangkok banl also send an SMS telling me that the transfer is in my account.

 

Using TW before the money is transferred they state the cost of the transfer, the forex rate that you will get and that figure is guaranteed until the transfer is completed and when it should arrive in your Thai bank. In addition they offer a higher exchange rate than you would get from a normal transaction UK to Thai bank.

 

I hope that this is of use to you.

23 hours ago, Macclad said:

Yes I,m reading it thanks. Maybe more common than we think. 

I,m sure for a fee I would be sorted but why should I pay extra when I have a legitimate claim. 

I use the Khampaeng Phet office and last year due to the forex rate falling I went from a retirement on income to a marriage extension based on income again. The biggest problem was the amount of paperwork required x 2 as KPP has to send a copy to Chiang Mai as well.

 

Last year was my first year but this year should be easier as I have more experience of what they want than last year.

1 hour ago, billd766 said:

Alternatively open a Borderless account with TransferWise in the UK. Get your State pension paid directly to them and then do a monthly transfer to your Thai account. I opened an account at Bangkok bank several years ago and I find it is easy to transfer from TW to my Thai bank. TW partner banks in Thailand are Bangkok bank, Kasikorn bank and one other which I think is the SCB but don't quote me on that.

 

TW also send a message to your email account telling you when and how much your funds were deposited with them and another telling that the funds will be in your account that day. For me the messages come in around 2 pm. Bangkok banl also send an SMS telling me that the transfer is in my account.

 

Using TW before the money is transferred they state the cost of the transfer, the forex rate that you will get and that figure is guaranteed until the transfer is completed and when it should arrive in your Thai bank. In addition they offer a higher exchange rate than you would get from a normal transaction UK to Thai bank.

 

I hope that this is of use to you.

I'm not sure its that easy to open a GBP TW account with UK account details unless you have a UK bank account to start with.  Before you can find out your TW sort code and account number to need to open a GBP balance by making a payment of £20 or more from a bank account in your own name.  At least that is what I had to do 2 weeks ago.

16 hours ago, Upnotover said:

I'm not sure its that easy to open a GBP TW account with UK account details unless you have a UK bank account to start with.  Before you can find out your TW sort code and account number to need to open a GBP balance by making a payment of £20 or more from a bank account in your own name.  At least that is what I had to do 2 weeks ago.

I haven't had a UK bank account for many years and I opened one with TW in November 2018 and the main problem I had was that they needed a scanned photo of me holding my passport. The reason was that my camera is a low resolution cheapo but we got around that.

 

Once I had opened my TW account I called my pension providers with the details and they sent the money straight to TW. I also opened a Bangkok back account and sent the details to TW and we set it up.

 

After that no problems, emails to tell me when my pension arrives, I log into my TW account to make a transfer and before I complete the transfer TW tells me how much I will transfer, the cost of the transfer (deducted from the amount I transfer), the forex rate guaranteed for the transaction, the amount I will receive in baht and the day it will be paid to Bangkok bank.