Camerata's Guide To The Permanent Residence Process

[Arkady]

5 hours ago, scorecard said:

Strange. Anything is possible, of course. Seems to me that if the officers concerned decided to try for 'tea money', they would more likely target lawyers rather then actual applicants.

 

Why, overall the ethics of Thai lawyers is way less than .clean', therefore is there a case to say officers would appraoch lawyers looking for a 'partnership' to gather 'tea money'. 

 

As said, anything is possible.

 

I got PR more than 2 decades back, I used an agent who I personally knew very well (he's not a lawyer) there was no suggestion whatever at any stage from my agent or from the offficer when I had the interview of 'smoothing the wheels'.

 

 

 Likewise, I did it in the late 90s and got significant help from a Pol Maj Gen at Immigration and the Deputy Director of the NIA to overcome the handicap of working for a foreign rep office that was in a grey area of the regulations, not being a Thai registered company and not being able to pay Thai tax. Neither of these gentlemen made so much of a hint that they wanted a gift for their significant help, nor did any of the front desk NCOs that process applications or the two junior commissioned officers that interviewed me and told me the bad news that I was unqualified according to Immigration's undisclosed internal regulations.  The latter just told me that if I knew any puu yai, they might be able to help which turned out to be the case.  Call it a type of corruption, if you will, and it was certainly unfair to anyone unable to get help from puuyais, but no one was looking for money or gifts.

[beeper]

On 1/21/2020 at 4:10 AM, beeper said:

I know of several cases where applicants not using lawyer where asked for”tang duang” to facililitate/accelerate the process. They settled at around 30k each.

The 5 cases cited were all in the last 3 years. To avoid this it seems to help to be accompanied by your Thai spouse/partner when going to CW, especially if they are able to keep the IO “honest” and on their toes throughout the application process. In this specific case, the topic of Tang Duan was never raised. 

[scorecard]

20 minutes ago, beeper said:

The 5 cases cited were all in the last 3 years. To avoid this it seems to help to be accompanied by your Thai spouse/partner when going to CW, especially if they are able to keep the IO “honest” and on their toes throughout the application process. In this specific case, the topic of Tang Duan was never raised. 

So, have other recent applicants and/or folks recently approved been asked for 'tea money'?

[Arkady]

6 hours ago, beeper said:

The 5 cases cited were all in the last 3 years. To avoid this it seems to help to be accompanied by your Thai spouse/partner when going to CW, especially if they are able to keep the IO “honest” and on their toes throughout the application process. In this specific case, the topic of Tang Duan was never raised. 

I would have thought that being accompanied by any Thai person would make them more brazen, since they know that Thais accept bribery as a normal part of life and don't normally make a fuss, if asked for one by a government official. 

 

However, I think they may be skating on pretty thin ice.  A couple of years ago a Thai women made a big fuss with her senior government contacts claiming that Special Branch had told her farang husband that some sort of unrcecipted application fee for citizenship would have to be paid to SB officers.  There was a big stink but SB was allowed to conduct its own investigation and exonerated the officer.  It was a bit strange because it turned out that the farang never went to the office himself but just sent a messenger to pick up documents. Anyway despite the fact that the allegation lacked proper substance and no further action was taken following the investigation, a cloud hung over that office for many weeks and stress levels amongst officers who usually spend most of the day happily chatting on LINE rose palpably.

[smutcakes]

I submitted documents and had 1st interview in late November. Had an initial interview with the IO, and took finger prints etc. The pile of documents prepared by my lawyer was ridiculous, i could not ever imagine trying to do this process by myself, even if i had time on my hands.

 

Went back to see the IO again just before Christmas to provide them a little gift....which was passed directly to them. According to my lawyer the gift was the same as the previous year. In my lawyers experience in 10 years of doing this he said he has only seen one person get the PR without giving a little gift and that was a lady who worked for an NGO, spoke perfect Thai and was endlessly messed around but she stuck at it and eventually did it. When waiting outside the room, an Indian Gentleman in the room before me had delivered a load of large boxes from Central with what looked like TV's, microwave etc. with little bows on them lol, no idea if these were accepted.

 

Waiting for the official interview in May now.

 

I am using a lawyer with staged payments up to final award of PR status, possibly over a 3-4 year period, but once you account for lawyers fees, official payments, unofficial payments, translation, notarization, police reports in home country), notarization in home country, i don't think i will see much change from 400-500K.

[onthemoon]

23 minutes ago, smutcakes said:

I submitted documents and had 1st interview in late November. Had an initial interview with the IO, and took finger prints etc. The pile of documents prepared by my lawyer was ridiculous, i could not ever imagine trying to do this process by myself, even if i had time on my hands.

 

Went back to see the IO again just before Christmas to provide them a little gift....which was passed directly to them. According to my lawyer the gift was the same as the previous year. In my lawyers experience in 10 years of doing this he said he has only seen one person get the PR without giving a little gift and that was a lady who worked for an NGO, spoke perfect Thai and was endlessly messed around but she stuck at it and eventually did it. When waiting outside the room, an Indian Gentleman in the room before me had delivered a load of large boxes from Central with what looked like TV's, microwave etc. with little bows on them lol, no idea if these were accepted.

 

Waiting for the official interview in May now.

 

I am using a lawyer with staged payments up to final award of PR status, possibly over a 3-4 year period, but once you account for lawyers fees, official payments, unofficial payments, translation, notarization, police reports in home country), notarization in home country, i don't think i will see much change from 400-500K.

FWIW, I did it without lawyer, never gave any gifts and paid only fees with receipt. Less than THB 200,000 (Not married to a Thai). That was about 6 years ago. I don't think I was an exception. Think what you want about your lawyer's stories (and his fees).

[smutcakes]

9 minutes ago, onthemoon said:

FWIW, I did it without lawyer, never gave any gifts and paid only fees with receipt. Less than THB 200,000 (Not married to a Thai). That was about 6 years ago. I don't think I was an exception. Think what you want about your lawyer's stories (and his fees).

It is what it is, nothing i can do now and if it all resolves at the end with my PR residency its money well spent as far as I am concerned. Happy to pay for a lawyer rather than trying to do it myself, the not having the stress alone is worth the fees!

 

Which route did you go down to get it out of interest?

[jayboy]

1 hour ago, smutcakes said:

In my lawyers experience in 10 years of doing this he said he has only seen one person get the PR without giving a little gift and that was a lady who worked for an NGO, spoke perfect Thai and was endlessly messed around but she stuck at it and eventually did it

1 hour ago, smutcakes said:

I submitted documents and had 1st interview in late November. Had an initial interview with the IO, and took finger prints etc. The pile of documents prepared by my lawyer was ridiculous, i could not ever imagine trying to do this process by myself, even if i had time on my hands.

 

Went back to see the IO again just before Christmas to provide them a little gift....which was passed directly to them. According to my lawyer the gift was the same as the previous year. In my lawyers experience in 10 years of doing this he said he has only seen one person get the PR without giving a little gift and that was a lady who worked for an NGO, spoke perfect Thai and was endlessly messed around but she stuck at it and eventually did it. When waiting outside the room, an Indian Gentleman in the room before me had delivered a load of large boxes from Central with what looked like TV's, microwave etc. with little bows on them lol, no idea if these were accepted.

 

Waiting for the official interview in May now.

 

I am using a lawyer with staged payments up to final award of PR status, possibly over a 3-4 year period, but once you account for lawyers fees, official payments, unofficial payments, translation, notarization, police reports in home country), notarization in home country, i don't think i will see much change from 400-500K.

He is either completely inexperienced or a liar. In either case he should be fired.

 

Neither I, nor any of my friends who have PR have ever provided a "little gift".

[smutcakes]

1 minute ago, jayboy said:

He is either completely inexperienced or a liar. In either case he should be fired.

 

Neither I, nor any of my friends who have PR have ever provided a "little gift".

Out of interest what did you pay for the whole process?

[onthemoon]

38 minutes ago, smutcakes said:

It is what it is, nothing i can do now and if it all resolves at the end with my PR residency its money well spent as far as I am concerned. Happy to pay for a lawyer rather than trying to do it myself, the not having the stress alone is worth the fees!

 

Which route did you go down to get it out of interest?

I followed the easy-to-read itemised list in English that I got from the immigration department. Not difficult to follow.

[smutcakes]

2 minutes ago, onthemoon said:

I followed the easy-to-read itemised list in English that I got from the immigration department. Not difficult to follow.

I mean which route, working/Business, Investment?

[jayboy]

9 minutes ago, smutcakes said:

Out of interest what did you pay for the whole process?

Can't remember precisely but - apart from the fee - it would have been about Bt 100,000 (upper estimate) representing lawyer's fees and all incidental expenses such as notarisations, taxi fares for visits to Immigration etc.

 

I used a lawyer but some of my friends did not.To be honest I think our office secretaries did most of the work.

 

My advice would be don't use a lawyer unless you are absolutely sure of his credentials.

 

P.S  To be fair I should have said that in the last couple of years when getting my multiple re-entry, the Thai factotum who accompanies me said that there is now petty corruption in that department which was certainly not the case before.

Edited January 22, 2020 by jayboy
Subsequent reflection

[onthemoon]

1 minute ago, smutcakes said:

I mean which route, working/Business, Investment?

Working/business.

[scorecard]

3 minutes ago, jayboy said:

Can't remember precisely but - apart from the fee - it would have been about Bt 100,000 (upper estimate) representing lawyer's fees and all incidental expenses such as notarisations, taxi fares for visits to Immigration etc.

 

I used a lawyer but some of my friends did not.To be honest I think our office secretaries did most of the work.

 

My advice would be don't use a lawyer unless you are absolutely sure of his credentials.

".... My advice would be don't use a lawyer unless you are absolutely sure of his credentials...."

Totally agree.

 

[smutcakes]

2 minutes ago, jayboy said:

Can't remember precisely but - apart from the fee - it would have been about Bt 100,000 (upper estimate) representing lawyer's fees and all incidental expenses such as notarisations, taxi fares for visits to Immigration etc.

 

I used a lawyer but some of my friends did not.To be honest I think our office secretaries did most of the work.

 

My advice would be don't use a lawyer unless you are absolutely sure of his credentials.

To late now, but anyway so far they have been great. Hopefully they continue to the end in the same vain and i get my PR.

 

Seems little consistency as the other poster 'onthemoon' is saying he spent 200K without using a lawyer and doing it all himself. If i took out lawyer fees and unofficial fees i would expect it would be closer to 50K. Lots of discrepancies in costs.

[Michael Hare]

3 minutes ago, onthemoon said:

I followed the easy-to-read itemised list in English that I got from the immigration department. Not difficult to follow.

I also followed the list in English which a friend sent to me from the Immigration Department. Easy to follow. This was back in 2001. The route I took was the then the cheapest route in being married to a Thai. Price in 2001 was I think about 25,000 baht. During the waiting period, Taksin came into office, and the price went up to 96,000 baht! I did everything myself. No gifts. I live in Ubon Ratchathani and flew down on day trips four times. The only mistake I made was in submitting copies of all documents, the copies were not signed and stamped. The Immigration Department was very particular about the income tax documents. I even had to show I had paid my income tax in the last month prior to my getting PR. 

[jayboy]

Just now, smutcakes said:

To late now, but anyway so far they have been great. Hopefully they continue to the end in the same vain and i get my PR.

 

Seems little consistency as the other poster 'onthemoon' is saying he spent 200K without using a lawyer and doing it all himself. If i took out lawyer fees and unofficial fees i would expect it would be closer to 50K. Lots of discrepancies in costs.

Good luck.One thing needs to be said which is not pointed out often enough on this topic.If you meet the criteria, you will get PR.There's something very mechanical about the process.

[onthemoon]

8 minutes ago, smutcakes said:

To late now, but anyway so far they have been great. Hopefully they continue to the end in the same vain and i get my PR.

 

Seems little consistency as the other poster 'onthemoon' is saying he spent 200K without using a lawyer and doing it all himself. If i took out lawyer fees and unofficial fees i would expect it would be closer to 50K. Lots of discrepancies in costs.

I applied after the fees were doubled, and I am not married to a Thai, which doubles it again. Official fee is THB 170,000 or so, and there are a number of small amounts, all with receipt.

 

Oh, and by the way, for that profit margin it can well be expected that he gives you best service! 

Edited January 22, 2020 by onthemoon

[scorecard]

1 hour ago, smutcakes said:

I submitted documents and had 1st interview in late November. Had an initial interview with the IO, and took finger prints etc. The pile of documents prepared by my lawyer was ridiculous, i could not ever imagine trying to do this process by myself, even if i had time on my hands.

 

Went back to see the IO again just before Christmas to provide them a little gift....which was passed directly to them. According to my lawyer the gift was the same as the previous year. In my lawyers experience in 10 years of doing this he said he has only seen one person get the PR without giving a little gift and that was a lady who worked for an NGO, spoke perfect Thai and was endlessly messed around but she stuck at it and eventually did it. When waiting outside the room, an Indian Gentleman in the room before me had delivered a load of large boxes from Central with what looked like TV's, microwave etc. with little bows on them lol, no idea if these were accepted.

 

Waiting for the official interview in May now.

 

I am using a lawyer with staged payments up to final award of PR status, possibly over a 3-4 year period, but once you account for lawyers fees, official payments, unofficial payments, translation, notarization, police reports in home country), notarization in home country, i don't think i will see much change from 400-500K.

"...When waiting outside the room, an Indian Gentleman in the room before me had delivered a load of large boxes from Central with what looked like TV's, microwave etc. with little bows on them lol, no idea if these were accepted..."

 

So there's a load of large boxes from Central with what looked like TVs, microwaves etc., sitting around, then I assume some open process, attracting many officers to the area, to distribute the 'load' to individual officers, and probably meaning some didn't get a box. Strange.

 

Just wondering if the officers would be happy at such an open display, all totally obvious to anybody walking throught the same area, senior or junior officers, business people, customers, etc.

 

Also, my guess is that many lawyers would be concerned about such an open display and more relaxed at wrapped / enveloped cash being handed discretely when no other folks around.   

[smutcakes]

3 minutes ago, onthemoon said:

I applied after the fees were doubled, and I am not married to a Thai, which doubles it again. Official fee is THB 170,000 or so, and there are a number of small amounts, all with receipt.

 

Oh, and by the way, for that profit margin it can well be expected that he gives you best service! 

So how if the official fee is 170K, did Jayboy who apparently also did business route manage to do it for sub 100K with a lawyer?

[scorecard]

Just now, smutcakes said:

So how if the official fee is 170K, did Jayboy who apparently also did business route manage to do it for sub 100K with a lawyer?

Perhaps Jayboy completed the whole process, as I did, before the official fees did the massive jump.

 

 

 

[smutcakes]

1 minute ago, scorecard said:

"...When waiting outside the room, an Indian Gentleman in the room before me had delivered a load of large boxes from Central with what looked like TV's, microwave etc. with little bows on them lol, no idea if these were accepted..."

 

So there's a load of large boxes from Central with what looked like TVs, microwaves etc., sitting around, then I assume some open process, attracting many officers to the area, to distribute the 'load' to individual officers, and probably meaning some didn't get a box. Strange.

 

Just wondering if the officers would be happy at such an open display, all totally obvious to anybody walking throught the same area, senior or junior officers, business people, customers, etc.

 

Also, my guess is that many lawyers would be concerned about such an open display and more relaxed at wrapped / enveloped cash being handed discretely when no other folks around.   

Strange but that is what happened. No officers were attracted to the area as where they do the PR is tucked away from the other areas which handles other IO issues.

 

They did not open them, they just took them into the room where the Indian Family and the IO was. Did not sit there long enough to see how it transpired, but there was no open alarm/concern by any of the people working there.

[scorecard]

4 minutes ago, smutcakes said:

Strange but that is what happened. No officers were attracted to the area as where they do the PR is tucked away from the other areas which handles other IO issues.

 

They did not open them, they just took them into the room where the Indian Family and the IO was. Did not sit there long enough to see how it transpired, but there was no open alarm/concern by any of the people working there.

All confirming that corruption and bribery are both alive and well, and supported / encouraged by large gifts.

[jayboy]

6 minutes ago, scorecard said:

Perhaps Jayboy completed the whole process, as I did, before the official fees did the massive jump.

 

 

 

I said "apart from the fee" when I quoted my Bt 100,000 estimate.

[GarryP]

2 hours ago, Arkady said:

I would have thought that being accompanied by any Thai person would make them more brazen, since they know that Thais accept bribery as a normal part of life and don't normally make a fuss, if asked for one by a government official. 

 

However, I think they may be skating on pretty thin ice.  A couple of years ago a Thai women made a big fuss with her senior government contacts claiming that Special Branch had told her farang husband that some sort of unrcecipted application fee for citizenship would have to be paid to SB officers.  There was a big stink but SB was allowed to conduct its own investigation and exonerated the officer.  It was a bit strange because it turned out that the farang never went to the office himself but just sent a messenger to pick up documents. Anyway despite the fact that the allegation lacked proper substance and no further action was taken following the investigation, a cloud hung over that office for many weeks and stress levels amongst officers who usually spend most of the day happily chatting on LINE rose palpably.

I remember that incident. It certainly was an interesting event. I was asked if I would agree to being interviewed and giving a statement on my dealings with the officer concerned. I did agree and went through the interview. Two or three other citizenship applicants were also asked to do the same. Obviously, they were selective in who they asked to assist with the investigation. 

[tomazbodner]

2 hours ago, smutcakes said:

In my lawyers experience in 10 years of doing this he said he has only seen one person get the PR without giving a little gift and that was a lady who worked for an NGO, spoke perfect Thai and was endlessly messed around but she stuck at it and eventually did it.

I never gifted them anything, did it without a lawyer, and received it in 2015.

[samran]

2 hours ago, GarryP said:

I remember that incident. It certainly was an interesting event. I was asked if I would agree to being interviewed and giving a statement on my dealings with the officer concerned. I did agree and went through the interview. Two or three other citizenship applicants were also asked to do the same. Obviously, they were selective in who they asked to assist with the investigation. 

To be honest I’m hearing some stories very recently of ‘requests’ being made by SB of both male and female applicants...

[beeper]

On 1/22/2020 at 5:09 AM, scorecard said:

So, have other recent applicants and/or folks recently approved been asked for 'tea money'?

One of them applied last month. Often it seems that insufficient Thai language skill of the candidate play a role 

[Arkady]

5 hours ago, beeper said:

One of them applied last month. Often it seems that insufficient Thai language skill of the candidate play a role 

Why would this make a difference, unless their Thai is so poor that that they think a request for copies of their passport and work permit is actually a request for a bribe? Whatever deal the NCOs on the front desk might be able to do for relatively small bucks is not going to influence the outcome of the panel interview with senior officers, including, I believe some from outside Immigration. If you can't understand and answer the questions asked by the panel which require a decent intermediate knowledge of Thai, you are likely to fail. I went through the process before they introduced a Thai language requirement or the interview panel but friends who have been before the panel have been asked questions like "What do you feel is your contribution to Thai society" and "Do you interact with Thai society and have Thai friends.  Yes.  Then please give the panel the full names of 3 of your Thai friends."  Applicants with only a little broken Thai cannot get through such an interview.  Another friend went in and after the simple stuff like "What is your name?" he was asked a question he couldn't understand.  The panel just brought the interview to a close immediately.  He wasn't told his results in the interview because he was advised to withdraw his application for having a second job not on his WP that they uncovered by cross checking his tax returns. He never reapplied.  If the whole system is now going to the dogs, applicants who cannot speak Thai will find themselves facing a bill into the hundreds of thousands or more, not mere tens.

[jayboy]

On the advice of UbonJoe I'm reposting a question here.

 

 I will be obtaining a new passport in London next month through the one day quick service.When returning to Bangkok is it just a matter of showing the Airport Immigration Officer the old passport with the multiple re-entry? Presumably he/she will stamp the white book as well as the new passport ? Then I presume a trip to CW is needed to transfer the multiple re-entry to the new passport and amend the white book/red book as necessary? Is there a time limit to get all this done?

 

All pretty obvious I suppose but forewarned is forearmed.If some kind person could advise that would be most helpful.