Hi I am looking for advice on what is the best way and fastest way for me to get my Thai wife and daugher into the U.K. for the long term.

I will give you a little details so you know where I am upto lol.

I am a British citizen and I have been staying in Thailand since nov 3rd 2003 and I am returning to the u.k. may 30th 2005. We registered the Thai marriage and have the wedding certificate ( even though we didn't have a wedding ceremony), she has also taken my last name and had it changed through the proper local thai council. I have not yet registered the marriage in the U.K. as I would like to have a wedding ceremony there. We have an 8 month old daughter born after the date of the Thai wedding certificate, I am named on the birth cerificate and my daughter also has my last name. I was planning to stay in Thailand but due to changes in business I now need to return to the U.K. I am a partner in a u.k. owned company importing products from Thailand to the U.K. that was the reason for me being in Thailand to begin with, I don't know if this will help.

Any advice you can give me would be much appreciated, like I say everything I had been looking into was to do with me staying in Thailand and not my wife and daughter going to England. I hope to see some replies very soon as I would like as much info for my return so I can get started straight away. Thanks in advance...

Hi Lazell,

From the information you've posted it would appear that your daughter is British and can, therefore, obtain a British passport. Your wife will need a settlement visa for which there may be a hiatus of up to 3 months between the application and interview, although it can be shorter if they decide to issue the visa on papers alone.

For further guidance see this topic. You can also do a search of the board which should give you an indication of what supporting documents you will require.

Best of luck,

Scouse.

From the information you've posted it would appear that your daughter is British and can, therefore, obtain a British passport.

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Scouse is, as ever, correct, assuming you were born in the UK, your daughter would be able to simply apply for a British Passport. (which is a lot cheaper than a settlement visa!!!)

Nothing to add to Scouse and bkk mike's comments, except:-

You say

I have not yet registered the marriage in the U.K. as I would like to have a wedding ceremony there.

If you have had an official Ampur wedding in Thailand then you cannot marry again in the UK. The UK recognises Thai marriage, and you cannot marry twice (unless you divorce each other first!). You can, of course, have a church blessing or similar.

You can register your marriage at the embassy, but this is a complete waste of time and effort as your Thai marriage certificate (with translation) is all you will ever need in the UK.

Thanks for the comments so far. I have already now got my daughters Thai passport, as I have only had a few days warning that I needed to go back to England. Can I get my daughter a British passport while I am in England and she is still in Thailand? I am looking at getting them to follow me to england in about 8 weeks. Can I get the wifes settlement visa sorted out from England or will she have to do it herself from Bangkok. Thanks ...

Hi Lazell,

You can direct the process from the UK, but your wife's going to have to do the leg work in terms of going to the embassy. I'm not 100% sure whether you could get your daughter a passport in the UK whilst she's in Thailand, but my gut instinct is that you couldn't.

Cheers,

Scouse.