Work Permit Refused For Not Having Hotel Licence

[simon43]

Recently, my lawyer enquired about obtaining a work permit for me to be employed as General/Marketing Manager at the guesthouse that is owned by my Thai ex. The labour office here in Phuket will not issue this WP until we provide them with the hotel licence. But, according to Thai law definitions, the business is not a hotel. It has 10 guestrooms and is legally defined as a guesthouse, even though the word 'hotel' does appear in the trading name. The business is a registered business, with all correct restaurant/alcohol licences, and there are no issues/problems with the local OrBorTor office who approved the construction of this business more than 2 years ago. Even if we tried to apply for a hotel licence this would be refused because the business does not require this licence.

What to do? Surely this labour office must have previous cases of farangs applying for WPs to work in small guesthouses?

Any advice appreciated

Simon

[NotNew2You]

I assume the x has explained all this in Thai to the officials at the labour office. If this is the case and they still insist that the hotel license is required (when they know it is not), I would assume this is their way indirect way of saying a little money for some tea and cakes would be appreciated before issuing the wp

[monty]

Most probably there was a bit to much detail in the WP application regarding your position.

Indeed if you state that your qualifications are in running and operating a hotel, they will want to see the hotel license.

My guess is that a broader description of your functions, i.e. general management of the Co.,Ltd. will get you a better chance.

Not sure about Phuket Labor department, but in Chonburi the staff were quite helpful in indicating what was needed for a successful application, little things like the pictures of the workplace, job description etc.

[simon43]

Hi Monty, I think the problem is that the company registered name is 'xxxx yyyy Hotel', even though the business is actually a guesthouse by legal definition. and no, we can't change the company name....

I suppose one possible solution could be for my ex to register a new sole proprietorship business - the existing guesthouse business is a sole-trader business, so very cheap for a Thai to register. So she could register a new business called 'xxxx yyyy accomodation service' or whatever, with place of trading at the same address of our guesthouse. I could then be employed in that new business. She would also have to move our Thai staff employment under that new business name, since there needs to be 4 Thai employees for a sole-trader business to employ a 'farang'

Editing this post again, the new sole-trader business could be a staff-supply business, providing staff to work for tourists businesses. So this new company is providing me and the other Thai staff to work for xxx yyy Hotel.

Simon

[PoorSucker]

Same name problem occurred for a friend of mine when applying for visa.

But in this case it was that the company had guesthouse as on of the business and it was not in his WP.