FET's and process of repatriating funds

I have recently made the decision to do a little hedging of my bets with regard to my assets.

I decided I was going to send some money back to the US in order to buy condo, as an investment, and as a potential bolt hole if things turned ugly here.

I was fully aware of the FET form when utilized for condo purchases and had dutifully obtained them when I transferred money in for my condo's. What I wasn't aware of was the fact that I should have gone and picked up FET's from the bank for any large transfers I had made here, even if the stated purpose was living expenses. My other revelation was that I had made an inbound transfer last year, since I was planning to buy another condo, then got cold feet. That one I never picked up either since I decided against the purchase, so the money sat in the bank.

Fast forward to couple of weeks ago when I made the decision to get cash out. Well this lack of the darn forms, in my hands has proven a pain.

For one large transfer I made back in 2012, I need to go to the local cops to get some declaration that I have 'lost' the FET, even though I never actually had it. The 2015 transfer which I had stated was for a condo purchase needs to be reclassified and reissued, all taking 3 - 4 weeks

I've rather grateful to my local SCB branch, since even for them its a huge amount of work basically having to go through reams of my account statements, identifying eligible inbound transactions.

I never knew that I needed these and indeed Foreign Exchange office of SCB in BBK when they would call me fror the reason code never bothered to tell me I should have collected them regardless.

Maybe I 'should' have understood this, but it's been a painful and time consuming learning process