New rules to get married in Thailand

[laislica]

I can confirm this. Friends plan to marry in February here in New Zealand through the Thai Embassy; under Thai law rather than New Zealand law. They have been told to bring 2 witnesses with them.

Will this marriage be recognised under New Zealand law? I believe that if this were done in Britain, the marriage would not be recognised in Britain. Embassy divorces definitely aren't recognised.

Married should be married - married under one law but not another is storing up trouble.

Do you need a translator if your wife/ girl friends speak English ?

I was told couple of months ago to take 2 witnesses when we go anyway

It makes sense if you don't read legal Thai.

May be his freind does not want to have to give his new wife his new zealand house or other assess he has in New Zealand ( smart) will she give her stuff to him in Thailand

Please check with the Amphor because in Bangkok last year, we were asked if there was any property to be noted in the marriage certificate.

There is a section in the cert about property. Check because I believe (could be wrong), in Thailand each party can declare property that is only theirs and at separation, will remain only theirs. What I am not sure about is, can this also include properties in countries other than Thailand. I also believe that everything bought after the marriage will be shared at separation.

We had gone to BKK to have my affirmation certified by the Brit Embassy. The translation company across the street asked if we wanted to marry that day. I paid him lotsa money and we went for lunch whilst he translated the doc and took it to the Min of Foreign Affairs.

His man collected us in a taxi and took us to the Amphor. The marriage cert noted him as our translator. We seemed to jump every queue and everything was done in a very short time. We gave our man one of the wedding certificates and the written paper part. This was translated into English, stamped by he Min of FA and we also got it seen by the Brit Embassy. For me it was money well spent. You can do it all yourself but it takes longer and if you live out of town, will need many tiring journeys to get the job done.

Although I am a Brit, I have been living in Spain since retirement and have residency and a tax number.

To get my wife into Spain, we needed other translations but once in Spain, to get residency for her, the FO needed our Spanish translation of the marriage cert to be "Recognised" by the Brit Consul in Malaga. That involved submitting lotsa paperwork via the internet, then a personal visit to the Consul where we both swore oaths that we were married and living together.

Note that your wife may have religious objections to swearing on a Bible, check first!

My wife now has a Spanish ID and tax number and we travel in and out between countries with total ease.

The English translation allowed me to get her full NHS cover which translated into a Spanish NHS card.

It took a few months to achieve this but our marriage is recognised everywhere.

Congratulations and best of luck for the future

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I got married at Bangrak on Friday so very up to date information. They did ask about witnesses but 100 bhat into a collection fund for a 'temple' solved that problem. They were only interested in the paperwork. One thing I would mention is that they wanted 4 copies of some documents. Never did work out which ones but probably best to have 4 copies of everything although there is a (very small) copy shop next door).

The temple donation in lieu of witnesses is exactly the same procedure we had with Bangrak back in June, as I mentioned above. So doesn't sound like anything has changed there...

[Mencken]

I did believe that the "Thai Marriage" at the Amphur is actually only registering an existing relationship eg. Village ceremony?

Mine, some couple of years ago, - - No witness except Office Assistant witnessing signature also Thumb Print. Papers required, Passports, Tabien Bahn, wife's previous divorce Certificate and translation to Thai of my late wife's death Certificate. No fee other than 40Baht for plastic cover for two copies of Thai "Marriage" certificate.

Seems as with other Thai Govt. agencies it is best to check at the actual venue you will be attending. "Local" rules abound.

You believe wrong.

Amphur wedding is all that counts.

Village wedding is meaningless money wasting,

As a previous poster stated, best to ask Amphur office what they want in advance.

They are happy to tell you in advance.

Officially, you must have two adult witnesses (no rules specified), and both the spouses must understand fully what they are agreeing (some could say wife translating for husband was a conflict of interests)

Why is it a waste of money and who are you to judge how I spend my money?! I had a very simple marriage with my wife, the only daughter that was ever going to be wed out of her family. Mom was happy, wife was happy -so I was happy.

Is all money dpentba waste or just on Thai brides? With such lack of respect for women/Thai why are you even here? Please go hime and wave that flag in someone elses face. Your avatar is wholly appropriate. Enjoy Murica so much, please, go enjoy it back in Arkansas. You must be a firmer cop, I swear. I'm so tired of reading your do it by the book or leave posts.

In retrospect I'm very happy we had this small wedding. I never thought Id marry and its a real milestone in our lives. Better to toss 100k to the wind then remember that fateful day as rockin' up to some Thai office and signing some crappy papers. Its almost laughable imo too look back on this as "the wedding day". Its the day you officiated an agreement and that is precisely how your lady will remember it.

100k paid for the entire wedding, platinum ring, 15k to parents (she chipped in another 15k). Money to assit those driving ling distances. Our photographer was free and we had her friend made sn absolutely rockin' video of the event.

...the value of nothing and all that.

Now, go ahead and tell me what a dumbass I am for even having married.

All your posts have a distinct smugness to them. Getting old.

[billd766]

They make you jump trough all those hoops just to get divorced/brake up a few months, or couple of

years later..

Nobody "makes" you jump through a hoop and not everybody gets divorced or breaks up in a few months.

What they seem to be doing is enforcing the existing laws.

If you don't want to do that then don't get married, then of course the break up a few months later is not so painful and divorce is not a problem.

[billd766]

I can confirm this. Friends plan to marry in February here in New Zealand through the Thai Embassy; under Thai law rather than New Zealand law. They have been told to bring 2 witnesses with them.

Will this marriage be recognised under New Zealand law? I believe that if this were done in Britain, the marriage would not be recognised in Britain. Embassy divorces definitely aren't recognised.

Married should be married - married under one law but not another is storing up trouble.

Do you need a translator if your wife/ girl friends speak English ?

I was told couple of months ago to take 2 witnesses when we go anyway

It makes sense if you don't read legal Thai.

May be his freind does not want to have to give his new wife his new zealand house or other assess he has in New Zealand ( smart) will she give her stuff to him in Thailand

I gave my house in the UK to my ex wife so where is the difference.

[billd766]

RULE NUMBER 1 - DON'T !

Are you suffering from a bad marriage?

Your rule number 1 may apply to you but to many others such as myself it looks like self indulgent rubbish.

However that is only my personal opinion.

[JohnThailandJohn]

The real problem here, as should be apparent from the various posts, is that the marriage rules/procedures followed by different Amphur offices around Thailand have ALWAYS varied from place to place.

In the past and up until the present, like so many other things here, the rules are one thing in one place and a different thing in a different place, depending on where you go.

Bangrak has long has the reputation of one of the easier amphurs to deal with for Thai-farang marriages. But IF lately, they've now begun requiring two witnesses, that would be a change of policy for them... but still.... only something a lot of other amphurs already had been requiring previously.

I was married 4 years ago and they required witnesses then and suspect they always have as it is part of the official paperwork but I think they may rent you witnesses if you don't bring your own.

[andrewrooney]

I got married in Bang Kapi last year. At first they said we needed two witnesses and a translator (the translator would be allowed to sign as a witness also). I talked to the people working there for a few minutes and once they were convinced I could speak Thai sufficiently well, they said I didn't need a translator. We got two old ladies waiting for their ID cards to sign as witnesses for us.

[ThaiLawOnline]

Funny. People still think all law firms are crooks and blablabla. We tell clients that they DO NOT NEED A LAWYER TO GET MARRIED.

Law is a business like most of you work for the government, are teacher, have worked before, we all got a salary if we work.

If you are fortunate enough to be rich and do volunteer work all your life, great. I would love it. Do you believe we say that we don't need a lawyer to get married? Check here:

http://www.thailawonline.com/en/family/marriage-in-thailand/legal-marriage.html

All these KNOWLEDGEABLE people, that know more than us because they do marriage every month (If they do it, they must be competitors?) that posted above should know that there are new instructions from the Family Court Chief Justice of 2 September 2014? You don't sorry. My post was 10 days after and I didn't know the new rules for Courts. These rules do not apply to Amphur but because of the military government, yes, things have changed.

My first sentence was something like THIS IS NOT NEW RULES... but they enforce them now.

Do whatever you want. This was just a warning and I was right. Enforcing the rules are not changing the rules...but now, they enforce them a LOT and no, never sen that so much in 8 years doing that.

The surrogacy scandal has something to do with it and there is a new family Court in Bangkok opening now.

This is why I don't come often on forums anymore. Half if misinformation from keyboard warriors that have nothing to do than blast other people under a nickname.

Thanks Mario2008. We never met but you are a reliable source and you help people.

There are also new rules to legalise father's rights that are not written. That is Thailand. We are told by Courts and we do that often.

I can't update all our website as we are very busy with many cases at the moment.

[zackattack]

Thanks I've been married 13 years now did the village way not to disrespect mom and then went on to the county register office took the house book with us and registered it and made the stamp and nothing else to do and we have been married like regular people ups and downs but all in all a good day

[zackattack]

Oh yeah sorry about that and we have two beautiful children Alexander the great and Zack Attack

Those are just their little nick names daddy calls them