retirement visa

[karonbeach]

is it legal to get a retirement visa from a lawyer firm without the 800.000 baht in my bank account.They do it for me.When i go 90 days report ,everything is fine

[Lite Beer]

Nope. Illegal

It will be you that gets into trouble not them.

[BaldPlumber]

There are companies who seed your bank A/C with the required 800K for a fee.

[Lite Beer]

Which is illegal

[ubonjoe]

The money has to be your own money. If not then it is considered a fraudulent application for an extension of stay.

[Delight]

A friend of mine uses this 'service' every year.

No seeding of his bank account.

The only document used in the process is his passport.

His visa is just as good as mine . I take the legal route.

Over the years the price for this 'service' has come down

Suspect that immigration prefer this 'non legal service' approach

Edited March 22, 2014 by Delight

[Jingthing]

I am not making moral judgments about this, but it is a fact that people obtaining retirement extensions this way are legally vulnerable in the event of one of Thailand's famous crackdowns.

[thepool]

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A friend of mine uses this 'service' every year.

No seeding of his bank account.

The only document used in the process is his passport.

His visa is just as good as mine . I take the legal route.

Over the years the price for this 'service' has come down

Suspect that immigration prefer this non legal 'service' approach

i find it interesting that someone who cannot show a monthly income of 65,000 Baht, which is all that is required for a legal extension of stay, can afford to use an illegal process.

What do these people live on ?

[Jingthing]

Many people (including me) live in Thailand quite well for MUCH less than 65K per month. Especially those of us who own condos and have no rental costs.

Many early retirees are self funded.

Of course nobody lives on nothing. Those people will be shaken out quickly enough anyway.

[thepool]

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Many people (including me) live in Thailand quite well for MUCH less than 65K per month. Especially those of us who own condos and have no rental costs.

Many early retirees are self funded.

Of course nobody lives on nothing. Those people will be shaken out quickly enough anyway.

Living on less than 65k is very different from not having the resource necessary to support the acquisition of LEGAL extensions of stay !

[Jingthing]

Of course it isn't. Never said it was.

But I really don't get your mystery.

Many people use the bank account method and CAN afford to live here.

The fees for a lawyer for such schemes being discussed here aren't all that high.

Lots of people have issues with meeting the MECHANICAL rules of the bank account method for many, many reasons.

Some examples,

Maybe they can easily fund it at 500K and spend 300K to live here.

Maybe they have mechanical/legal issues with transferring in 800K to a Thai bank account

100 other variations ...

I reject the idea that everyone who uses this lawyer scheme (which I don't approve of and I do agree is ILLEGAL) actually can't afford to live here, at least for the ONE YEAR they are asking for every time. Some, yes.

[Langsuan Man]

Once again discussion of illegal activity is supposed to be forbidden here at TV, but for some reason scams to get around the visa laws are allowed ????

[NancyL]

Everyone I know who utilizes these services is indeed living on the edge, living month-to-month on pension checks of 25,000 - 40,000 baht/month.

Amazingly those on the high end of that range never seem to save anything, even though with a little diligence they could set aside 10,000 baht/month and get themselves "legal" by doing the combo method for their retirement visa within a few years. But no, year after year, they squander everything and pay a visa agent to take care of their retirement visa. That way they only have to cut back for one month or two months of the year (to pay the visa agent) rather than for several years, to save enough to do the combo method for their visa.

Within my circle of acquaintance where these people "get caught" is when they have a medical emergency, often a fall that results in a hip fracture. That's 130,000 - 150,000 baht bill, even at the gov't hospital. They plead poverty and no savings. Of course, the hospital asks questions about why they can't afford to pay if they're on a retirement visa.

Edited March 24, 2014 by NancyL

[Jingthing]

NancyL, I highly respect you, really I do, but you are still only providing anecdotal stories. You tend to see the hard luck cases and see less of the people that haven't had any problems. So your view of this world is SKEWED in a similar way that a policeman's view of the world is skewed (seeing an unbalanced excess of the darker side). What you describe is a more general problem anyway. Someone with a legit 65K baht pension would still be in deep trouble with a severe medical situation without insurance and as you know not everyone can even get decent insurance even if they can afford it. That said, no, I do not advocate or approve of people using these schemes to obtain their extensions. I agree that they are illegal and being in such a vulnerable legal situation in Thailand does not seem recommendable to me.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Jingthing

[OMGImInPattaya]

A friend of mine uses this 'service' every year.

No seeding of his bank account.

The only document used in the process is his passport.

His visa is just as good as mine . I take the legal route.

Over the years the price for this 'service' has come down

Suspect that immigration prefer this 'non legal service' approach

How do you know your friend's visa extension stamp is a good as yours? Does he do his 90-day reports without incident and has he traveled out/in country without any problems?

Is there any way to know the extension stamps are actually processed at an immigration office and not by the lawyers secretary using forges rubber stamps available at any stationary store?

[Jingthing]

That's a fair question, OMG, but my long standing impression is that these schemes do actually obtain actual extensions from immigration. Don't even ask how that happens ... most of us can figure it out.

The main legal concern, in my view, is if there is a shakeup/crackdown/change of management at either the local or national level of immigration where such situations could be (and arguably SHOULD be) targeted. In that case, the foreigner will not be an innocent!

People considering indulging in such schemes (and the consensus on this forum will always be DON'T!) should be clear that in doing so they are most definitely on the wrong side of Thai law.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Jingthing

[OMGImInPattaya]

That's a fair question, OMG, but my long standing impression is that these schemes do actually obtain actual extensions from immigration. Don't even ask how that happens ... most of us can figure it out.

The main legal concern, in my view, is if there is a shakeup/crackdown/change of management at either the local or national level of immigration where such situations could be (and arguably SHOULD be) targeted. In that case, the foreigner will not be an innocent!

People considering indulging in such schemes (and the consensus on this forum will always be DON'T!) should be clear that in doing so they are most definitely on the wrong side of Thai law.

I agree that one should not use these visa services and we all know why these services charge B 20k or so for an extension that costs only B 1900 if procured properly. However, if the extension stamps are in fact being processed at Jomtien immigration let's say, then they would look/are the same as yours or mine. They may even provide the 1900 baht official receipt. In such case, if there ever was a crackdown, there would be no way to tell which stamps were obtained legally and which not. The crackdown would have to be internal to immigration office itself and be forward looking only. I am assuming they don't go after the lawyers and agents too and the records of the people they have procured extensions for. If they did, and there were such records kept, then all bets would be off.

In the past, when they had crxkdowns on people letting their passports do their visa runs while they stayed at home in Thailand, sometimes the visa stamps obtained were fake or the exit/entry stamps for Thailand/Malaysia were fake or missing, which gacw up the jig, and people were caught out. The retirement extensions aren't as logistically complex for the corrupt (sorry, underpaid civil servants) to process so I don't think easy to catch them. There is actually the issue that Thai law required the visa-runners to physically leave and return to Thailand, whereas this is obviously not required for extensions so may not be seen as such a big deal.

Edited March 24, 2014 by OMGImInPattaya

[Jingthing]

That's a different issue, the fake stamps, and a VERY SERIOUS legal issue if you've got in your passport.

As far an any potential crackdown on the schemes we are talking about, with REAL stamps, just use your imagination.

It's possible.

Perhaps going after the visa shops offering these dodgy services. Look at their files of clients and VOILA you're on the sheit list.

Cheers.

[NancyL]

It's my impression that the "crackdowns" can occur in two ways. One is if there's a change in management at a local immigration office and the new head cheese discovers that one of the immigration officers has been cooperating with one of these shady visa agents too much and then all the visa extensions that specific agent granted are looked at very, very closely the next time an application is presented for another extension from the same applicant.

Another way a "crackdown" can occur is if someone has a history of claiming poverty at a hospital. The private hospital will hold someone's passport when they work out a payment plan and the hospital takes care of doing the 90 day reports. Believe me, the hospital staff talks to immigration about the size of the bill, terms of repayment, if the patient is keeping to the terms, etc. If nothing else, it's just something for gossip while they're doing the 90-day reports. The government hospitals don't hold passports, but will allow patients to pay bills on contract. They also notify immigration if bills aren't paid -- but only if it's a very flagrant non-payment situation.

You're right, Jingthing, I do have a skewed view. I suppose some people do use these visa agents when they don't have a 800,000 baht Thai bank account or 65,000 baht monthly income just because they don't want to move funds from their Swiss bank account or cash in their mutual funds, but I sure don't run into those folks!

[Jingthing]

I think your observations are valuable and it's logical as a generalization that many people using the schemes are not as financially healthy as those who do not. But not all of them, and nobody has done (or could do as it's an underground activity) a detailed study of this objectively. I know many people who could easily do the 800K bank method just don't want to keep that much in a Thai bank account, so the fixers fees make sense to them that way. I agree with your thoughts about how crackdowns can occur. There is still the general lesson about retiring in Thailand, it's more than can you qualify for extensions (however) but ultimately about whether you can really afford it. Also keep in mind many of those who own their housing here, don't indulge in nightlife, are happy with modest accommodation, etc. really can live here more cheaply than many can imagine. The medical cover issue again is an issue for all us retirees, scammers and not.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Jingthing

[IMA_FARANG]

There are companies who seed your bank A/C with the required 800K for a fee.

That is also illegal and a violation of the rules which explicitly states the money is your income and tax exempt in Thailand because it was brought from outside of Thailand.

In many cases such a thing is NOT illegal for the Thais who do it for you ..... but if YOU get caught in such a scam, YOU are the one who will be regarded as the guilty party.

It's a suckers bet, because it's a big bet for only a small payoff.

And it puts you in the place where you can easily be blackmailed if they want t do that to you.

[thepool]

Jingthing

Sorry but you consistently miss (or refuse to acknowledge) the point.

Immigration do not care how cheaply one can live here maybe yo do indeed manage on a 10,000 ht or less monthly budget but that is not the point.

To Qualify for an extension of stay certain financial bars must be met !

Choosing to follow an illegal path to obtain an extension is illegal and there is no way of covering up the illegality of the behavior.

As Nancy observes there are a number of ways in which these illegally obtained extensions are uncovered/discovered.

Deportation is the minimum penalty which can be expected when discovered and a nice long sojourn in the monkey house if there is not the resource to buy a ticket home

Do not support or attempt to excuse illegal behavior

[Jingthing]

Don't put words in my mouth. I have consistently discouraged using such illegal schemes!

Sent from my Lenovo S820_ROW using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[phuketrichard]

if u have a pension check, u do not need 800,000 in bank. only enough to make up the difference and the money does not need to be seasoned.

quite easy to do.

also, as an American, i do not want over $10,000 in my account here so i never have to FBAR.

[larsjohnsson]

if u have a pension check, u do not need 800,000 in bank. only enough to make up the difference and the money does not need to be seasoned.

quite easy to do.

also, as an American, i do not want over $10,000 in my account here so i never have to FBAR.

Agree

Anyone that have been working and have a pension, should not have much problem with the combo method.

[JayBangkok]

Hi,

My retirement visa expires next month.

My problem is that at the moment I cannot walk far due to blockages in the arteries in my legs.

At Chang Wattana they have wheelchairs available but I am told that Lad Phroa does not.

Does anyone have any ideaswhat my best options are

Thanks

[NancyL]

There are reports that some of the smaller offices require the money to be seasoned even for the combo method, but yes, there is nothing in the rules that require funds to be seasoned for combo.

I agree, for someone with a pension of less than 65,000 baht per month it would be a good goal of setting aside funds each month with a view to doing the combo method for the retirement visa. Not only do you avoid having to pay one of those dodgy visa agents but you have the security of knowing you have a nest egg in Thailand that could be used for a medical emergency.

Yes, there are good reasons to have your money outside Thailand, but in case of a medical emergency, it's often helpful to be able for someone to show the hospital you have a Thai bankbook with a healthy balance. Could make the difference between being admitted for treatment vs. being sent to a substandard district hospital as a destitute charity case.

Actually, it's my belief that ALL resident expats should have a local bank balance of at least 100,000 baht for this reason even if they don't need it to support a visa, but that discussion is beyond the scope of this thread.

Edited March 26, 2014 by NancyL

[larsjohnsson]

I suppose you talk about the people without any kind of insurence? Even 100k is a rather small sum then.

[chubby]

sorry, could you explain or reference for me "the combo method" thanks

[ubonjoe]

sorry, could you explain or reference for me "the combo method" thanks

It is combination of income and money in a Thai bank tor reach a total of 800k baht.

For example if you had a monthly income of 50K baht that would be an annual income of 600K baht. You would then need to have at least 200k baht in the bank to qualify for the extension. The rules do not require the money to be in the bank for any period of other than on the date of application. But there have been reports of a very few offices wanting the money to be in the bank for 90 days (60 for first extension).