Certifying Non-thai Marriage Cert At Mofa?

[my benny rai]

What a relief to hear that a 30 day stamp can be switched to a Non Immigrant O Visa (if there is more than 21 days left on it) and that October 1st is a start date for consideration of stay in Thailand.

My wife and I were married outside of Thailand and have not bothered to register our marriage here. What is the process or the steps we need to take to get our marriage certificate translated and registered or certified at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? Can anyone recommend a good place to do this? I don't even know where the MoFA is!

If we register our marriage at the MoFA, will that affect her right to own land or buy land in the future?

I would like to thank all those who have answered my questions (and questions that I did not ask but wanted to know). And thanks for any help you may provide with this new set of questions.

Edited September 19, 2006 by my benny rai

[lopburi3]

Any translation service near the major Embassies can do the translation and register it with the MFA for you. It will not have any effect on land registration (that ended years ago) so there is not reason to hide your marriage.

[my benny rai]

Thanks, Loburi3.

It is nice that I will not have to go down to the MoFA.

When did they change the law to allow Thais married to aliens to own land? I thought that law was still very much on the books. A mate of mine's wife was told to tell the land office that she was "Miss" when she bought their house.

[lopburi3]

There has never been any such law. The law says a foreigner can not own land. Because marriage is joint property in Thailand they used the no registration policy to prevent any later questions of ownership. They now get around this by having the Thai party say the money belongs to them and the foreign party sign that he understands it is not joint property. All done with a policy directive after the new constitution came into effect.