I went some years ago to get a yellow house book and ID from my local office. Got started with name, address, passport, proof that house existed in the form of landlady's TB and her ID, with her and and a Phu Chuay in attendance. They asked for my parents' names (which I typed out in Google Translate and then showed the translation to clerk) but she didn't ask for proof of their names. Then... where are your Legalized translations of you passport and your Embassy?...where is your wedding certificate? Ah! Small issue there. Neither married nor had anything translated. All fell over in a heap. My primary reason to get my own book was that then my landlady didn't have to come with me every 90 days to Immigration. "Do it online"? Local immigration won't allow it. Yes, even after "the first one after you re-enter the country". I don't have an official rental agreement or lease - although I cold easily knock one up if I had to. [side note, nor do they allow "income method" for O and O-A visas] My secondary reason was going to the bank and requesting changes to, well, anything. Then, I had to take my passport, LL's TB, and her. To update passport details. To update my photo so I could move more money. To have the app recognize a new phone. Still do. It was bad enough opening the account in the first place, because I had an O-A but I didn't look as "old" as they expected - I was 50 - but timing is everything! Serendipitously, a 70+ year-old German-speaking man walked in with his wife. I usually see a foreigner maybe once every two months up here. So...Providence! "I have same visa as him." I said. And then the clerk I was trying to open an account with literally took my passport to the the clerk dealing with the German-speaking guy and checked the stamps in his passport and spoke to his wife about Visa requirements, which the man answered through her. Farce. [Obviously I got the account opened. They still can't manage the "new phone who dis?" bit, though] My tertiary reason was not needing to take my passport everywhere for hotel and domestic flight check-ins. I had used my TDL quite effectively for severl years but there's always one . And my future TDL renewals to avoid having to get a COR. Which is free. Except for the 90km drive each way to get the bass turd printed and new photos. And not needing to have the COR translated to English 30km away, and for then the Dept Land Transport (20km away) to take the English-translated document and file it away in any case, as they had done before. And did again. Then they gave me my second(?) two-year licence. I have since got a five-year (well, closer to six due to my birthday and the previous two two-year renewals) but still having to go through the COR/translation palaver again. But, to be fair. While my distances are great and the local departmental offices (and banks) generally don't know ow to deal with foreigners, I have my own car so public transport management and timing isn't an issue, and it's only once every 90 days, or five years for the TDL or passport update. In itself, it's not an issue, but the interminable bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake is painful for an ex-bureaucrat that spent around 20 years employed by bureaucrats to streamline bureaucracy. I spend less time driving up to Immigration and back that some people that waste half a day standing or waiting in a queue in Bangkok or Pattaya.
Create an account or sign in to comment