A good friend of mine has come back to live in our town after taking early retirement in the UK.

He has been married to his Thai wife for over 3 years and lived with her in the UK.

He has come here on a single entry non 'O' immigrant visa, thinking that he will be granted his one year extension on basis of marriage to Thai national.

Unfortunatley he was not aware of the 40,000 baht month income requirement.

He is only 48 with no pension until age 60 when a company pension starts., however he has sold his UK house, and has received a large payout for taking early retirement. When age 52 he also receives another redundancy payout. He has invested about half his money in some savings scheme in the UK and sent over the balance to his Thai bank account.

My questions are: will he be able to satisfy the British consulate with his financial situation regards being able to support himself/Thai wife? re - the 40,000 baht per month? (proof of income/funds letter)

How long an extension would he get for being married to a Thai national? once his single entry expires. He has been here over 30 days now.

What is his best option for staying here in Thailand? - He is 2 years away from age 50 for the retirement extension.

Finally, he has just gone off to Samui with wife to think things over for a few weeks and I know he is one of these chaps, if it all gets just too difficult, he will end up in the hands of a visa consultant.

I know, because he paid big bucks to get his Thai wife a visa for UK.

He can obtain a 60 day extension of stay from Immigration to be with wife one time. He can probably obtain a multi entry non immigrant O visa from Penang or Kuala Lumpur with his marriage/wife ID and proof of funds and that allows stays of 90 days before a border runs is required so would not be bad until he can meet the retirement extension of stay (if his Consulate will not certify income of 40k to get family extension).

He can obtain a 60 day extension of stay from Immigration to be with wife one time. He can probably obtain a multi entry non immigrant O visa from Penang or Kuala Lumpur with his marriage/wife ID and proof of funds and that allows stays of 90 days before a border runs is required so would not be bad until he can meet the retirement extension of stay (if his Consulate will not certify income of 40k to get family extension).

Yes. The Non O Multi will get him up to 15 months stay. Plus the 60 day extension from Immigration.

This should take him pretty close to his retirement option. When he will need 800,000 Baht in the bank.