Unoficial custody of children, implications of migration to Australia

[tekNique]

Hello, my ku man and I are planning to apply for a PMV visa to australia. A complacation has a risen pertaining to her 2 children aged under 8. When she divorced to her husband she granted custody of the children to her ex as he is quite well of financially and thought he could take care of them best. To keep a lomy story short she basically takes care of them now and he is ok with them going to live in Aus.

My question is for the purpose of migration to Aus will she have to go to Thai court and get them to grant official custody? Or is there another quicker easier way such as him signing a legal document of some sort? An affidavit or the sort.

My fiancee thinks going to court will take abit of time and it's hard for me to find information on this on the net. If anyone has any experience of this or an idea what's required that would be great.

Just another quick question we also talked about getting married before applying for a visa, but this would be a marriage at the amphur only. No wedding ceremony as such, if we did this would that look bad in the eyes of immigration? As we would have no photos of a ceremony ect. I was happy to do that but worried immigration might think we were in a sham marriage if we just did the amphur documents.

/ cheers Paul

Edited April 20, 2015 by tekNique

[Thanyaburi Mac]

I can't speak to the subject of immigration to Australia, bu:

-- I'd think taking this to a Thai Family Court for a change in custody wouldn't take more than three (3) months, need to hire a local lawyer to process the paperwork, of course. That too long a time?

A Q, tho: was the divorce mutually agreeable and done at the local Amphur, just two people signing off on the divorce documents with mutual agreement on division of assets and the kids? If so, it might just be possible to have this amended at the amphur level, should be easy enough to trot down and ask.

-- "... marriage at the amphur only. No wedding ceremony as such..." Marriage at the amphur IS the marriage, a separate wedding ceremony is just fluff.

Mac

[bigyin]

Just to add to the above we got married at Bang Rak in Bangkok and they took pictures with our camera which we then supplied for the purposes of a settlement visa to the UK. We only married about 5 months before the visa application but we had lived together for over 3 years so lots of family pictures. As Mac said above this is the only marriage which counts. I don't know whether you have been living together or not but if not then if Australia is anything like the UK a full explanation of your reasons for getting married should be OK.