Changing from Marriage Visa based on Work Permit to Marriage Visa without work permit

[thaisail]

I just went to Chiang Khan immigration office and I was told that I must return to Phuket and go to the labor office with my employer's lawyer and stop my work permit before Chiang Khan immigration will give me an extension on marriage visa which is due on March 5 for renewal. In fact he told me that I must cancel my marriage visa in Phuket and obtain a 2 month marriage visa to visit my wife in Chiang Khan and once the money has been in the bank, for two months, I can apply all over again for a new marriage visa. I just transferred 15,000 USD from my US IRA account to my Thai Kasikorn bank account in Loei in preparation for the transition from work permit based to normal marriage visa renewal. CK immigration told me that as soon as I stop my work permit at the labor office, that my marriage visa will end that day and that I would be charged 500 baht per day for overstay. Much of this conversation was in Thai with my wife so I may not have gotten the story correct but I really need some help from some one who can explain how I can make this transition once I give up my work permit. 

[foreverlomsak]

13 minutes ago, thaisail said:

CK immigration told me that as soon as I stop my work permit at the labor office, that my marriage visa will end that day

I would say that is incorrect as you can have a marriage visa (extension) without a work permit, but a marriage visa (extension) will allow you to obtain a work permit, cancelling your work permit should not cancel your marriage visa.

Which came first your work permit on a non-B and then marriage or your marriage on non-O and then a work permit.

I've had personal problems in the past with CK Immigrations interpretation of the regulations.

[foreverlomsak]

28 minutes ago, thaisail said:

I really need some help from some one who can explain how I can make this transition once I give up my work permit. 

I was on a non-O retirement extension and had been for years, at the request of my daughters school I obtained a non-B to get a work permit, on the last day of the contract the schools representative (owners son) took me to the Labour Office to "kill" the work permit, even though it would have died the next day anyway, and then escorted me to Immigration to exchange the non-B to a retirement extension again, very little hassle, hardest problem was explaining why I wanted to remain in Thailand, easy as I have a wife and 2 school age children.

[FritsSikkink]

Sounds like BS to me, you are on a marriage extension which has nothing to do with you working here.

[thaisail]

1 hour ago, foreverlomsak said:

I would say that is incorrect as you can have a marriage visa (extension) without a work permit, but a marriage visa (extension) will allow you to obtain a work permit, cancelling your work permit should not cancel your marriage visa.

Which came first your work permit on a non-B and then marriage or your marriage on non-O and then a work permit.

I've had personal problems in the past with CK Immigrations interpretation of the regulations.

I had a marriage visa for the past 14 years. My last visa was issued in Savannakhet in July 2016. I went to work in Phuket in March 2017 and I told my employer and his lawyer that I wanted to stay on the marriage visa for that very reason I am now having to deal with. Every year for three years, I got my marriage visa renewed through my boss's lawyer. I tried to explain this to the people at Chiang Khan immigration but they insist that my visa is tied to my work permit. My plan is to drive to Phuket and go to the labor office next week and give up my work permit and then wait until my marriage visa comes up for renewal and then provide all the documents that are on the list that I just got from Chiang Khan immigration and bring them in two weeks before March 5 along with the letter from the bank and the bank  book with more than 400,000 baht and apply for the marriage visa. I do not plan on doing anything with Phuket immigration since I no longer live in Phuket. I just hope that things don't turn sour because of CK loosing face and try to charge me 500 baht per day for overstay from the time I turn in my work permit. Please let me know if you are all in agreement.

[ubonjoe]

Your extension of stay (it is not a visa) based upon marriage is not tied to your job. The only reason a extension of stay based upon marriage can be canaled it if you get divorced. Phuket immigration will certainly not cancel it.

Canceling your work permit dose not cancel you extension.

You local immigration office is completely wrong. I have never heard of a office putting out such false info. Call the 1178 immigration help line about it.

[foreverlomsak]

8 hours ago, thaisail said:

but they insist that my visa is tied to my work permit

If you were on a non-B yes that is the case, however your on a non-O, which it sounds like, then the work permit is tied to your "Permission to Stay extension based on Marriage" not the other way round.

 

[foreverlomsak]

1 hour ago, ubonjoe said:

You local immigration office is completely wrong. I have never heard of a office putting out such false info.

I have had direct experience of that exact thing

1. From Chiang Khan office - We do not accept that your married even though you have produced both the Khor Ror 2 and Khor Ror 3 documents and your wife is with you, You need to produce a copy of the MFA approved "Affirmation of Freedom to Marry" or move to a retirement extension.

2. Phitsanulok office stated yes you have in excess of 1,600,000 Baht in a Thai bank account for the required time but you still need an Embassy letter to prove your income. If I'd gone to the Embassy, instead of sticking to my guns and asking for proof of that statement, the letter would have been blank as I was not in receipt of any pension or other income at that moment in time.

[thaisail]

4 hours ago, foreverlomsak said:

I have had direct experience of that exact thing

1. From Chiang Khan office - We do not accept that your married even though you have produced both the Khor Ror 2 and Khor Ror 3 documents and your wife is with you, You need to produce a copy of the MFA approved "Affirmation of Freedom to Marry" or move to a retirement extension.

2. Phitsanulok office stated yes you have in excess of 1,600,000 Baht in a Thai bank account for the required time but you still need an Embassy letter to prove your income. If I'd gone to the Embassy, instead of sticking to my guns and asking for proof of that statement, the letter would have been blank as I was not in receipt of any pension or other income at that moment in time.

Two days before I got married, I went to the US Consulate in Bangkok and I filled out a form and signed the form to declare under oath that I was divorced from my first wife a year earlier. This form was then translated and sent to the MFA for certification. Is this the document that you describe as Affirmation of Freedom to Marry?

 

I have transferred $15,000 US (approx. 450.000 baht) from my US bank IRA account to my Kasikorn bank account in Loei. My extension of stay expired on March 5 so there should be time to have the money in the bank for 2 months before going to CK immigration for my next extension of stay. I have been told that the US Embassy will no longer issue a letter to prove income. I do receive 45,000 baht per month from US social security and my Thai wife receives 30,000 for our daughter as designated payee. I can prove this with our US bank statements if required. It appears that  CK will only issue marriage visa if there is 400,000 baht in the bank for two months before the extension is due and about one month after once the extension is approved. I have talked to Kasikorn Bank in CK and they have promised me that they will provide the letter proving the funds are in my savings account by 0830 am on the day of the immigration application for extension. At the same time, the bank book can be updated so both can be provided together the same day by 9am.  

 

 

[thaisail]

8 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

Your extension of stay (it is not a visa) based upon marriage is not tied to your job. The only reason a extension of stay based upon marriage can be canaled it if you get divorced. Phuket immigration will certainly not cancel it.

Canceling your work permit dose not cancel you extension.

You local immigration office is completely wrong. I have never heard of a office putting out such false info. Call the 1178 immigration help line about it.

Thanks for your help Joe. I may have found the smoking gun! If you look at my second attachment it appears that on March 12, 2018 on Page 14 in my new passport, I was applying for an extension based on marriage and work and that extension expired on March 13, 2019. You can see my wife's name clearly written by hand in Thai in the upper left corner of the extension. However the next extension was on Page 20 in my passport was applied for on March 6, 2019 and that one expired on March 5, 2020. That is where my wife noticed that hand written in the top left corner of the extension, was written in Thai that the extension was based on employment and my wife's name no longer appeared and instead the name of my company. Then again on Page 24 in my passport my last extension was applied for on 5 March, 2020 and it seems that some one wrote in Thai again in the left corner of the page that the extension was based on employment and listed the name of my company instead of marriage with my wife's name again missing.

 

All this was done without my knowledge and consent. I could not read Thai so I did not catch this until after close examination. I don't even think my boss saw this change but the lawyer appears to have made this change on his own and each time, he returned my passport, I would ask him if the extension was based on marriage and each time he confirmed to me that the extension was based on marriage and not employment. 

 

Please after looking at the attached scanned photos, please let me know if this could be the thing that the immigration officer in CK picked up on when looking at my passport yesterday. I noticed during my interview, he typed in my name on his data base and my entire history appeared on his computer screen. In any case, I cannot see how they can change the reason for the extension as nothing had changed with my job or my marriage.  My boss appears willing to allow me to keep the work permit until the time runs out on March 16 which is after my extension runs out on March 5. But I do not want to renew my work permit since I now live in CK and Phuket is too far away plus I really don't want to work anymore. I will be 65 this month and it is time to let the younger ones have the jobs. 

 

I just want to know what I should do when I get to Phuket next week. Should I wait until March and return to Phuket to cancel the work permit and then fly back to Udon Thani and rush over to immigration to apply for the marriage visa in CK. In this case, I may have one or two days of overstay if they cancel my extension for stopping my work permit. Or should I apply for a temporary visa just get from Phuket to CK?

 

Edited December 10, 2020 by ubonjoe
removed files containing personal info

[ubonjoe]

13 minutes ago, thaisail said:

Thanks for your help Joe. I may have found the smoking gun!

You did find the problem. When dealing with agents and lawyers doing thing for you have to careful.

About all you do is have your extension canceled now. If you work permit has not be cancelled the lawyer should be able to get the extension canceled by presenting a termination letter dated now.

If the date on the letter was a few days after the day they go to immigration you could then apply for the 60 day extension in CK.

You might ever be able to send your passport to him by EMS to get it done for you and back to you again the same way.

 

[jackdd]

You can do the cancelation of your extension in advance.

So let's say you would go to Phuket in January, get a letter from your employer that your job ends in February and take this to immigration there, then they would cancel your extension to February. Then you have some time to fly back to CK and apply for the extension based on marriage there.

[thaisail]

17 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

You did find the problem. When dealing with agents and lawyers doing thing for you have to careful.

About all you do is have your extension canceled now. If you work permit has not be cancelled the lawyer should be able to get the extension canceled by presenting a termination letter dated now.

If the date on the letter was a few days after the day they go to immigration you could then apply for the 60 day extension in CK.

You might ever be able to send your passport to him by EMS to get it done for you and back to you again the same way.

 

I did show the extension each time to my wife but she did not catch this change after two years of employment. What is odd, is that the lawyer had us take all the photos of our family at home with the house numbers each year. We also had to provide all the documentation like Koror 2 and Koror 3. So it is not clear at all why this happened. So the good news is that CK immigration saw the problem and gave us two options to deal with it.

 

 

His first option was for me to go back to Phuket and go with him to labor office to cancel the work permit which would also cancel the extension. Then the lawyer would go with me to immigration in Phuket where he has all his contacts and ask them to issue me a 2 month extension to visit my family in Chiang Khan. I guess I will loose my passport for about one week while this is done. I am OK with this option because I still have my sail boat in Phuket and I can go sailing. Then, I would go back to CK just before New Years and wait for 2 months to pass while my money sits in the bank at Kasikorn until it has been there also for two months and then go to immigration and apply for the one year marriage extension.

Option 2 was to continue with my work permit and my boss is OK with that option until the funds sit for two months in Kasikorn and then as you recommend, I can send my passport and work permit to him by EMS and he can cancel the work permit and the extension at immigration and send me the passport back by EMS. There could be an overstay unless he can find a creative way to avoid it.

 

I did not quite understand what your idea was about the following: 

 

"If the date on the letter was a few days after the day they go to immigration you could then apply for the 60 day extension in CK." 

 

If you could clarify this instruction, please let me know and I will discuss this my bosses lawyer. 

 

I am still on excellent terms with my boss and his lawyer. If this change was done in my marriage extension it was most likely caused by someone who was forcing this to be done at immigration or some other unknown reason. I am sure that my boss will take care of all this mess so that I don't get deported!

 

The way I understand you is that they must go to the labor office in Phuket with the work permit first to present the termination letter and return the work permit. Do they then have to go the same day to immigration to cancel the extension at immigration office in Phuket? After they cancel the extension in my passport, the lawyer would then send me my passport by EMS to CK and I would go straight to CK immigration and apply for the full marriage extension? Is this where the post dated termination letter would come into play? Could it be done this way if all the documents were prepared and approved by CK immigration in advance? This would avoid having to get a temporary extension. In the worst case, I would have to have to pay a couple of days of overstay if EMS is late. So far, in 15 years of living in Thailand I have never had an overstay and I don't like the idea of that being stamped into my passport. Again, which of these two options recommended by CK immigration officer would you recommend? I also don't mind being in Phuket when this takes place in February and then fly to Udon Thani and I can be in CK immigration the following morning. However, the airlines may not let me fly internally with an cancelled visa extension. 

 

 

[thaisail]

20 minutes ago, jackdd said:

You can do the cancelation of your extension in advance.

So let's say you would go to Phuket in January, get a letter from your employer that your job ends in February and take this to immigration there, then they would cancel your extension to February. Then you have some time to fly back to CK and apply for the extension based on marriage there.

Great idea! I will check with CK immigration to see if that will work! I think that you may have just solved the whole problem! I am still in CK now but I plan to drive down to Phuket next week and stay there until New Years. I can go see my boss and work out all the details with my boss and his lawyer while I am there. Meanwhile, my 450 K baht will sit in the bank for two months and will be planned for the date of the termination letter. I think in this case, my bosses lawyer can handle everything there and send me by passport back by EMS before the extension expires. Do you think that will work?

[ubonjoe]

9 minutes ago, thaisail said:

"If the date on the letter was a few days after the day they go to immigration you could then apply for the 60 day extension in CK." 

The date on the letter would be the day your current extension is cancelled if they post date it to that day.

 

11 minutes ago, thaisail said:

The way I understand you is that they must go to the labor office in Phuket with the work permit first to present the termination letter and return the work permit. Do they then have to go the same day to immigration to cancel the extension at immigration office in Phuket?

It does not have to done on the same day.

 

 

[foreverlomsak]

5 hours ago, thaisail said:

Is this the document that you describe as Affirmation of Freedom to Marry?

Yes. Probably the UK name, other countries will have their own variant.