Marriage

[joseph73]

hi, i am going to marry a thai girl in april, she is with me in the U.K at the mo on a 6 month marriage visa. we have decided to return to thailand to live and marry overthere will this affect her chances of visiting the u.k as i am not sure if this is a breach of her visa, we also need to know if it would be advisible to have any children born in the u.k rather than thailand as i would like them to have a uk passport.

confused!

[the scouser]

Joseph,

When you say marriage visa, is it a settlement visa or a visit visa which allows your girlfriend to marry?

On the assumption that it is a fiancée settlement visa, that you have changed your mind and decided to settle in Thailand will not adversely effect your wife-to-be's chances of getting visit visas in the future. With regard to children born in Thailand, if you are British "otherwise than by descent" and are either married or named on any child's birth certificate, he/she will automatically be British.

Scouse.

[Mahout Angrit]

hi, i am going to marry a thai girl in april, she is with me in the U.K at the mo on a 6 month marriage visa. we have decided to return to thailand to live and marry overthere will this affect her chances of visiting the u.k as i am not sure if this is a breach of her visa,

Hi scouse, I think the OP means he has a Visit for marriage visa and no longer wishes to marry in UK but to return to Thailand and marry and stay there, how would you view that option? I'm leaving it to the expert

[the scouser]

I see where you're coming from.

If the OP's girlfriend is on a marriage visit visa, I don't see their change of mind, and their decision to marry in Thailand, as being a factor in future visit applications. The crux of the matter is whether their change of plan means that the girlfriend is any less likely to leave the UK at the end of any future visit, and I would argue that she isn't. Likewise, it doesn't really impact upon her general credibility as, I presume, she will have otherwise abided by the conditions of her current stay.

The primary issue with any future visit visa application will be the OP's and his girlfriend's circumstances in Thailand at the time of application.

Scouse.

[joseph73]

hi, i am going to marry a thai girl in april, she is with me in the U.K at the mo on a 6 month marriage visa. we have decided to return to thailand to live and marry overthere will this affect her chances of visiting the u.k as i am not sure if this is a breach of her visa, we also need to know if it would be advisible to have any children born in the u.k rather than thailand as i would like them to have a uk passport.

confused!

thanks all for the info, she is on a 6 month marriage visa but we have decided to relocate to thailand and marry there. the only reason we will be comimg back to the u.k is to visit family. i would very much appreciate any other info that you feel may be relevent, Oh also do i need a visa or once we are married does that give me the freedom of thailand???

thanks again

[the scouser]

Joseph,

With regard to your status in Thailand, being married to a Thai doesn't really give you any privileges. Once you are married, you can seek to obtain a one-year extension based on your marriage and, in order to get this, you will need to demonstrate a family income of at least 40,000 baht per month. You then have to renew the extension every year.

If you want more detailed information about visas and extensions for Thailand, you'll get more well-informed responses in the Thai residency sub-forum.

Scouse.

[joseph73]

Joseph,

With regard to your status in Thailand, being married to a Thai doesn't really give you any privileges. Once you are married, you can seek to obtain a one-year extension based on your marriage and, in order to get this, you will need to demonstrate a family income of at least 40,000 baht per month. You then have to renew the extension every year.

If you want more detailed information about visas and extensions for Thailand, you'll get more well-informed responses in the Thai residency sub-forum.

Scouse.

thanks Scouse you have been very helpfull i think i am starting to get the jist of things now.

Now i know where to come next time i'm stumped.

all the best Joseph

[Lancashirelad]

Whilst we're on the subject of marriage... though changing the tack slightly:

What are the legal differences between marriage in the UK & in Thailand?

If married in Thailand & further down the line it goes wrong, can the girl claim 1/2 of your assets that are in England? (obviously, given current uk property values, this could be a considerable sum in Thai terms).

Are there 2 types of marriage in Thailand? One being just a ceremony, the other being a legal union?

If married in Thailand, is it possible to draw up a legal pre-nuptial agreement?

My lady most unfortunately, and before i came into her life, has a string of failed visa applications. Once married, would this adversely affect her ability to visit England with me?

Does England now share information with the shengen countries or not?

Some of these questions apply to me, others to a friend.

[Arkady]

Whilst we're on the subject of marriage... though changing the tack slightly:

What are the legal differences between marriage in the UK & in Thailand?

If married in Thailand & further down the line it goes wrong, can the girl claim 1/2 of your assets that are in England? (obviously, given current uk property values, this could be a considerable sum in Thai terms).

Are there 2 types of marriage in Thailand? One being just a ceremony, the other being a legal union?

If married in Thailand, is it possible to draw up a legal pre-nuptial agreement?

My lady most unfortunately, and before i came into her life, has a string of failed visa applications. Once married, would this adversely affect her ability to visit England with me?

Does England now share information with the shengen countries or not?

Some of these questions apply to me, others to a friend.

I am not a lawyer but my understanding on some of these questions:

There is not much difference between legal marriages in Thailand and the UK. A UK marriage certificate is valid in Thailand and vice versa with the appropriate certified translations of course.

Unlike church weddings in the UK a Buddhist wedding ceremony cannot be registered as a legal marriage in Thailand. You have to register it separately at a district office. The fact is that perhaps as many as half of the Thai couples who are regarded as married have not registered their marriages for various reasons. This seems to be considered as optional by many as their families are satisfied with the Buddhist ceremony. However, there is no clear legal recognition of common law marriage status even for those married under Buddhist ceremony.

If you are married under Buddist ceremony only, your spouse will have no legal right to any alimony or assets in the event of a divorce. Many farangs do take this route. If she are her family are satisfied with this, your only real downside is that you will not qualify for a marriage visa in Thailand and will make UK visas for your spouse harder to obtain. A lot of the farangs who do this do not need to worry about visas, if they have work permits and their spouse has a reasonable job.

A Thai lawyer friend used to practice family law and regularly drew up standard pre-nuptial agreements for farangs getting married to Thai women. My understanding is that these are legal under Thai law and a lot of wealthy families insist on them before their kids get married in order to keep family assets separate that they may in future transfer to their kids. However, I believe that pre-nups are not recognised by the UK courts, unless they give the less wealthy party more than they would otherwise get. The UK divorce courts want to retain the right to decide who gets what. My friend, a female lawyer who eventually married a farang herself, told me that most of her clients' fiancee's didn't have much education and signed the pre-nups without reading them carefully or bothering to pay attention to her attempts to explain the agreements. For them it was just another piece of paper to sign in order to marry their farang. Needless to say my friend didn't sign a pre-nup before getting married herself and moving to the US, where pre-nups are recognised, with her hubbie!

In fact Thai divorce law is relatively benign. It requires a 50:50 division of assets that were acquired after the marriage and Thai courts don't attempt to make their judgements enforcable in other jurisdictions and won't enforce rulings from courts in other jurisdictions in Thailand. Alimony and child support can be awarded by Thai courts but are not as rigorously enforced as they are in most Western countries. Most people believe that divorce cases have to be heard in the country you were married in. This is not the case. If you were married in Thailand but lived in the UK with your wife, the UK courts would definitely hear your case under UK law. Basically it depends on where you live and where your assets are. I have heard of a US divorce court ordering an American company in Japan to garner the salary of an American divorce working in Japan to enforce alimony payments but nothing like this will happen to you, if you live in Thailand and get divorced here. You ex-wife would have to file a separate case in a UK court to get her hands on half your assets there. This would be expensive and complicated for most Thais and it may even be difficult to get the UK court to accept the case, if neither of you are living there and a Thai court has anyway not ruled for a division of the UK assets.

Jurisdictions like Switzerland do not give consideration to foreign courts' divorce rulings (or foreign tax authorities' for payment of inheritance tax) and having a Swiss bank account may make sense for some.

Realistically, if you are thinking of living with your wife in the UK in future but getting married in Thailand a Thai pre-nup is still probably a good idea and would not cost much as there are standard agreements. If the marriage breaks up and she wants to go back to Thailand, she may be happy with whatever lump sum is agreed in pre-nup and might not bother to try to take you to the cleaners in the UK, particularly if she doesn't realise that where she got married is irrelevant. Of course, if she wants to stay in the UK and has access to good legal advice, it would not help you. Also to be fair a pre-nup has to make provision for some sort of payment to the less wealthy party in the event of a divorce and, if you are in Thailand and have few assets there, this might end up being more than you would otherwise pay, although it make for a cleaner break.

For most farangs who are not likely to acquire substantial assets in Thailand after marriage, registering a marriage would not present too much financial risk. The old objection that your wife would lose her right to own land no longer applies but you will have make a declaration of no claim over any land she buys at the Land Office, if she buys land after marrying a foreigner. This a formality but you have to go the Land Office in person, even though she can arrange a proxy for her signature.

I would think that any failed visa applications to Western countries would attract extra scrutiny in applying for a UK visa. This is the topic of another thread but I doubt that the British Embassy would deny a visa to a qualified candidate whose circumstance had subsequently changed to meet their criteria.

I doubt that the UK shares info on visa applications with Schengen countries on a routine basis but as they are all EU countries they do have channels of communication. Most Western embassies will stamp a passport with something like visa fee received in the event of a denial, so it is easy to see that no visa was issued. This a polite equivalent of stamping "visa denied". They ask to see expired passports, so the only way around this is to "lose" a passport with evidence of denials in it. This would certainly raise suspicions in the case of a borderline candidate and they are entitled to deny a visa without further explanation, if they find out that any information on the form which asks about previous visa applications to other countries is false.

[vinny]

If married in Thailand, is it possible to draw up a legal pre-nuptial agreement?

See also Love isn’t negotiable, but assets are.

[Lancashirelad]

Arkady,

thank you very much for your indepth reply. You may indeed not be a lawyer, but i can see your comments have some foundation.

Thank you for taking the time. :-)