The Two Country Expat Solution

[PeaceBlondie]

Perhaps we could turn this thread into one of suggestions for the highest Immigration officials, those generals in uniform who actually make policy.

Sir, how many Thais with your level of personal wealth would move to a foreign country where they had to prostrate themselves before some minor officer every year, and beg for the privilege of remaining in this country where you'd settled, bought property, spent ten times the wages of the average citizen, and perhaps made some babies?

Sir, when you retire in comfort with your govt. pension (as I did with my pension), do you want the rest of your elderly life dependent on the capricious whims of somebody whom you can't even talk to? Are your bags packed even now, so that you can take the next flight out of this Kingdom?

Sir, you may have found a way to reduce your workload. Soon there may not be farang in Thailand, and your department will be out of a job.

Sir or Madam, would it threaten national security and Thainess and Thai culture and Thai language to simply let well-mannered farang to receive five year visas? I'd also like to ask you to reconsider land and home ownership in fee simple to foreigners, but perhaps that is far too threatening to everything that your ancestors did to make Thailand Thai.

Thank you for listening. Otherwise, many of us are leaving Thailand and taking as much of our hard earned currency with us.

[Lite Beer]

....Hey guys I don't like to be a "I told you so",....but...I .........., .....!

No problem. And now more of us are telling others so. The cycle continues ...

Even I`m telling others, and I would never have thought that.

[jts-khorat]

....Hey guys I don't like to be a "I told you so",....but...I .........., .....!

No problem. And now more of us are telling others so. The cycle continues ...

Cambodia does not seem to get many points here, but a number of people I knwo, who were made really uncomfortable already with last years rule changes do this thing already between Phnom Penh and Phuket. I myself have not been to Cambodia, so it is not firsthand.

Getting a visa and place there seems easy, and keeping an apartment rented here for their tourist stints back gives them enough anchor to come back to (and maybe have their girlfriend live there, as far as such an unstable arrangement passes the test of time) while it can be abandoned without much pain by simply never showing up again.

[Lite Beer]

Perhaps we could turn this thread into one of suggestions for the highest Immigration officials, those generals in uniform who actually make policy.

Sir, how many Thais with your level of personal wealth would move to a foreign country where they had to prostrate themselves before some minor officer every year, and beg for the privilege of remaining in this country where you'd settled, bought property, spent ten times the wages of the average citizen, and perhaps made some babies?

Sir, when you retire in comfort with your govt. pension (as I did with my pension), do you want the rest of your elderly life dependent on the capricious whims of somebody whom you can't even talk to? Are your bags packed even now, so that you can take the next flight out of this Kingdom?

Sir, you may have found a way to reduce your workload. Soon there may not be farang in Thailand, and your department will be out of a job.

Sir or Madam, would it threaten national security and Thainess and Thai culture and Thai language to simply let well-mannered farang to receive five year visas? I'd also like to ask you to reconsider land and home ownership in fee simple to foreigners, but perhaps that is far too threatening to everything that your ancestors did to make Thailand Thai.

Thank you for listening. Otherwise, many of us are leaving Thailand and taking as much of our hard earned currency with us.

Well put PB. There must be someone out there.

[Briggsy]

I was really asking for feedback on whether this would WORK visa-wise.

I can't see why it wouldn't work given the current system but therein lies the rub, who knows what changes lie ahead? What I suggested for myself about a 50/50 split between Chiang Mai and Penang could even be made to work without visas if one was willing to shuffle back-and-forth every month or so which in all honesty, would be just fine for me. I rarely stay home for longer than a month at a time as it is.

Why don't the two of you work something out together. i.e. 2 apartments and just alternate between the 2. So when ovenman is in Penang, Jingthing is Chiang Mai and vice versa. Bugger me, we could be on to something here. This could be bigger than the time share explosion. All you need do is change the sheets before you go!

[Lite Beer]

I was really asking for feedback on whether this would WORK visa-wise.

I can't see why it wouldn't work given the current system but therein lies the rub, who knows what changes lie ahead? What I suggested for myself about a 50/50 split between Chiang Mai and Penang could even be made to work without visas if one was willing to shuffle back-and-forth every month or so which in all honesty, would be just fine for me. I rarely stay home for longer than a month at a time as it is.

Why don't the two of you work something out together. i.e. 2 apartments and just alternate between the 2. So when ovenman is in Penang, Jingthing is Chiang Mai and vice versa. Bugger me, we could be on to something here. This could be bigger than the time share explosion. All you need do is change the sheets before you go!

Should the wife be told of this arangement?

[ovenman]

I was really asking for feedback on whether this would WORK visa-wise.

I can't see why it wouldn't work given the current system but therein lies the rub, who knows what changes lie ahead? What I suggested for myself about a 50/50 split between Chiang Mai and Penang could even be made to work without visas if one was willing to shuffle back-and-forth every month or so which in all honesty, would be just fine for me. I rarely stay home for longer than a month at a time as it is.

Why don't the two of you work something out together. i.e. 2 apartments and just alternate between the 2. So when ovenman is in Penang, Jingthing is Chiang Mai and vice versa. Bugger me, we could be on to something here. This could be bigger than the time share explosion. All you need do is change the sheets before you go!

Sheets?!

While what is being suggested by the OP is certainly not for everybody, I don't really see it as being all that different than what a number of retirees do where my father lives in the States (New England). A good number of people head south to Florida for the winter months and return to New England during the summer when they wouldn't be caught dead in the Florida summer heat.

[gregchambers]

Guess swapping homes would depend on how well u know the other person, but quite a good idea to come out of the ether.

The other thing to think about is having a place somewhere cool in the asian hot season, also as an escape route if it all turns sour. There are still plenty of Euro countries with cheap property not to mention say New Zealand (studios for 2.5-3 million baht in Auckland), all fine from a visa point of view if you stay less than six months in a tax year.

Being British, ideally I'd spent six months there in my house and six months in Thailand in a condo (currently 6k a month studio rental in Bkk but if prices hit rock bottom I would prob buy a condo), but I would be ruined by the amount of tax on investments I'd have to pay the UK government. So an alternative country is needed.

Bear in mind, if you can't stay with your Thai tilac hundred percent of the time then it is certain that she would not be faithful to you, so visas for Thais would also play an important role in all this, I would think.

If you just want to monger, though, then six months in Thailand and the rest around the region would be kinda fun and unlikely to ever have a real problem with visas.

But people over fifty generally like to have a fixed abode...

[VBF]

Being British, ideally I'd spent six months there in my house and six months in Thailand in a condo (currently 6k a month studio rental in Bkk but if prices hit rock bottom I would prob buy a condo), but I would be ruined by the amount of tax on investments I'd have to pay the UK government. So an alternative country is needed.

That would be my big problem - I either need to sell/rent out the house or lose out on Non-Resident Tax status - VBF

But people over fifty generally like to have a fixed abode... That too, or at least a "base" in which to spend the majority of your time - VBF

[Sophon]

I agree 100 percent. Which is why I am exploring this Plan B and others. Thailand just doesn't offer that relaxation and security that retirees want. It would be very easy for them to offer it, so many ways. For example, a path towards retirement permanent residence after 5 years of annual extensions, so that after that, no more annual extensions. Just one way, there are many others. I think they are bright enough to know they aren't offering this security, so I have to conclude they don't intend to offer it.

As long as the number of people retiring here is still growing I don't see much chance of the requirements being relaxed or a more permanent and secure solution being offered.

I'm a firm believer that the authorities don't mind for some foreigners to come here and retire, if they didn't it would be very easy for them to stop offering retirement extensions completely. But no matter what the potential benefits to the economy might be of easing the requirements, it's more important for them to keep immigration at a reasonable (by their reckoning) level. They simply don't want Thailand to be "overrun" by foreigners.

So as long as the number of people coming is still growing the tightening will continue.

Just my opinion.

Sophon

Edited September 3, 2007 by Sophon

[peekint]

Although I appreciate the light-hearted tone of this topic, I want to add some weight.

I did I brief visit to three retired couples who live on my Soi in Chiang Mai. All are in their seventies - one couple here for 20 years, 2 for over 10 years. All three are busy making plans for their leaving Thailand before the end of the year, because NONE of the three can meet the new cash or income requirements. All are shocked and tearful.

I agree with the concept that ENTRY rules for a retirement visa may change over time. I am not aware of ANY country in which the CONTINUATION rules change for people already granted their first visa. Many retirees need to dismantle their home country life physically and financially in order to move to a new country to retire. They burn their bridges believing they are crossing the river to the final adventure.

The implied contract between a country inviting retirees and the retirees is that the country has invited them to come and part with their life savings, in return for a promise that those retirees can do so until they make the ultimate retirement step - death.

A "retirement" visa which does not grant any level of security will attract only those who are least likely to make a positive and continuing contribution to the host nation - the very mobile, or the unscrupulous.

I think we should see this as what it is - the first step in the dismantling of the retirement visa system in Thailand.

I agree with a previous poster that the government could have just terminated the whole program. But, there are vested interests (like the real estate tycoons) who have influence in the government and must be appeased, making a drastic dissolution of the whole system impossible.

A stepwise abolition of the retirement system allows the vested interests time to make plans and cover their assets in other ways.

I think it's time for foreign residents to read the writing on the wall and do the same.