Nong Khai Immigration Meeting

parrot wrote:TruBrit: "no one has cause to say"Hard luck mate, go home."

You're right! But anyone who comes over here on a shoestring budget and expects today's exchange rate to be tomorrow's exchange rate doesn't get my sympathy.

Like others, I also appreciate not only your attendance at these meetings, but your detailed notes from the meetings. Thanks

Re 2nd Para
Parrot I agree with you but I feel you may be overlooking certain aspects that do not have to do with coming here on a shoe string budget.

1) Many pensions do not keep up with RPI. What seemed good 15 years ago may not cope with ER changes, RPI and , emergencies, increased Visa thresholds. Not everybody has their thresholds grandfathered to lower levels.

2) Many over the years have to deal with emergencies and some are very costly and cannot be allowed for. One may have good medical insurance (even for all the family) but a serious costly illness well beyond its full scope would cause most of us to pay out of our saving reserves and many would be weakened. ER dramatically collapsing can tip the balance.

3) Unless well off how much should one hold back in savings. Who can guess emergencies, future Visa thresholds (and whether grandfathering will occur), Exchange rates, RPI, Savings interest rates. Even the bankers cannot work out the GBP rates forecasts over the short, medium and long term. They are all over the place (often out)

Now let us look at an example scenario:

Person on pension and savings to cover 800,000 Baht reqt. Visa extension due around 16th Feb

Savings in bank are say 100,000 baht and UK pension is 11000 GBP pm
On 27th November 2007 (and approx. for many months before) he sees Bangkok Bank ER of 69.8225 to 1 GBP so his pension equates to 768,047 Baht
Combined with savings = 868,047 plenty of reserve to meet 800,000 baht. He thinks that OK safety valve of 68,000 Baht.

He sees the ER out of the Blue start to collapse 10 days later (due to a BOE monthly meeting decision that causes a panic) and he gets worried. He would like to transfer monies from his pension income or UK savings to bolster up his Thai Bank savings BUT they will fail the 3 months deposited rule as he must renew around 16th Feb 2008 so he cannot do that.
What can he do??
He prays the ER will not totally collapse further
But it does down to 62.825 making his pension now worth only 691,075 Baht
Combined with savings total 791,075 Baht and under Visa threshold levels.
Imm. tell him the minimum Threshold cannot be breached no matter how close. His Retirement Extension application fails.

You can say this was an extreme case, but we have no idea what will be extreme (for the better or worse) and it was a reality.

I think with reasonableness that most would not imagine an ER would collapse THAT fast (11%) in under 3 months (from 69.8 to 62.8. By Feb 2009 and it had further collapsed (29%) to 49.63 in only 15 months. I do not think one can realistically guess this sort of happening and many hose with limited but previously adequate income and reserves will get burnt.

If one is reasonably well off one can protect against the totally unexpected but there are many of us not (or were not) on a shoestring and were reasonably careful, but have been drawn into a precarious situations due to any of the above (or other reasons) and the greatest Financial crisis since the Great Depression (I leave out the Asian Banking Crisis as I assume most Expat pensioners income was favoured rather than hurt).

Sorry for the lengthy piece but I would like to offer another scenario similar to that I found myself in (not exactly).


Sold only asset (house in Spain at a big loss due to the housing prices collapse in Spain 2 years before US and UK).
Contracted in Thailand to buy a new Toyota Pickup 700,000 baht
AND my wife and I contracted to buy land and have a house built on it.
We signed contracts for land (hers) and house for 4.65 million Baht (total for land, house, Pickup 5.35m Baht). On Nov 2007 ER this left me with pension after tax of 62,000 Baht a month and usable saving of 1.5m (and 187,000 Baht unusable as needed for Visa).

On the 26 Nov 2007 I would have needed to transfer 76,622 GBP to Thailand. These were the rates I did my calculations and commitments on. Rates has been stable for many months (even higher recently) so the ER seemed reasonable (I had to be careful I did not get caught up in the 30% Thai Bank holding rule at the time on transferred monies to Thailand).

I noticed the GBP suddenly start to collapse after a BOE meeting 6 or 7th Dec 2007.
I sought advice from many sources as to which direction the GBP was expected to go in JAN/FEB and when was likely to be best to transfer GBP to Thailand during that time (Xmas and New period caused a hold up). The info was mixed (except a middle or long term big drop was predicted).

By End Jan/mid Feb money needed to be transferred to Thailand. I decided to transfer the lot (got it correct that the GBP would collapse further and big time)

In mid Feb I would need to raise about 85,157 GBP (based on rates then). I had seen approx. 8500 GBP written off in about six weeks (on 27th Nov rates that equated to around 594,000 baht).

My wonderful (not) builder overshot on costs (mainly due to the Financial crisis and materials, such as steel prices nearly doubling, and partly due to bad costings) I had to find another 450,000 Baht about 9 months later at an even worse ER. No point in suing he had no money to give me if I won.

I think this demonstrates how an apparently safe (but not large) reserve of 1.5m Baht can be wiped out to 200,000 Baht.

I had not been careless and I had contracts I was committed to. I could have left the house 80% completed but where would we live (a rental and pay rental).

This scenario is close to what happened to me due to the unbelievable financial meltdown and very bad luck with timings. House up for sale 18 months in Spain, buyer stalled 2 months I sold 27th Nov . Sale proceeds paid into UK bank on a good rate for Euros. 6 Dec (before I was back in Thailand to sort out the 30% holding situation) the GBP had collapsed.

Had there not been a 30% holding rule in Thailand I would have transferred monies immediately to Thailand whilst still in Spain.

"C'est la vie", BUT this scenario does demonstrate how people like me can get caught out on holding reserves to deal with ER trashed pension income for Visa purposes.

I am OK just but losing 1.2m Baht this way has left me vulnerable and when on a pension and not permitted to work it is hard to build reserves again. (especially when this years UK RPI was zero when my pension increase was being calculated so level frozen for another year. My pension of 62,000 baht in Nov 2007 dropped to 43,500 baht early this year but has risen to around 49,500 Baht pm now (still well sort of value Nov 2007)

I am lucky as I am only 57 so I will get a UK state pension at 65 which will help a lot.
In the meantime I rely on my only reduced early private pension scheme pension income.

I am sure many other Visa holders in Thailand have had much more devastating stories which were mostly beyond their reasonable control.

My apologies for the length and if any of the maths are out but I am sure everybody gets the drift.

Kind regards to all (if still awake )
Dave

In other words ' Pull the ladder up jack - I'm alright

i always found NK ER a bit generous, so no complaints. have to agree, though, that if you didn't come here with a well thought out plan, than you may have made the wrong decision. the ER rate is the least of our worries, since last time i checked, not a whole lot of us where under 50 yrs old, and sh*t happens. no plans or that. if you were living check to check before, you surely didn't expect to do it in retirement on a fixed income. just my thoughts, and as pointed out, the financials are only for extended visas, many options abound.

I put 400,000 THB in the bank and don't worry about how immigration figures the exchange rate.

There are a few reasons I chose to do this:

My pension is in USD and I expect that the USD will depreciate in a couple of years. If I continued to use income, it is conceivable that I'd no longer qualify based on income. If the baht returned to its historical average of about 25 THB/USD, I'd still be OK, but I tend to be conservative in dealing with immigration as I'm in Thailand for the duration.

I get more THB per USD now than I figure I'll get in the future, so I thought it cheaper to stash the money here now than take it from US savings later when it would cost more in USD to accumulate 400,000. In fact, I've begun accumulating other assets in THB that immigration won't consider in granting a marriage visa extension. I want to have enough of a cushion that I don't have to ever touch the 400,000.

When I die my wife will have immediate funds to use while she waits for her survivor pension to kick in. That can take a few months.

I think this is the best approach for those who can afford to let that much, or the 800,000 for a retirement extension, sit and not be used.

Of course, another requirement is good health insurance to cover that unexpected crisis that nearly always comes with age.

Udon Expat,

The post of yours above, has got to be the most sensible solution I've seen posted.

Whilst I do appreciate the hardships that can arise due to the fluctuation of the exchange rates, I think a realistic attitude must be taken towards this problem.

I do not advocate (as some do) if you are now having difficulty meeting the financial criteria laid down by the immigration department, you should not have settled here, however, I do think that there is a need to have a plan B in the event of the currency markets going "tits up".

As far as the Immigration Dep't being unsympathetic as regards to the fluctuations in exchange rates, I can appreciate their stance, I do not think it would be feasible for them to alter the criteria on the altering exchange rates. IMHO, they have not raised the amounts required in line with inflation over the past 10 years!

The strength of the Baht against the dollar and the Pound, IMO are due to our government's lack of financial governance and utter greed by the hierarchy within the banking sector, along with the unofficial tying of the Thai Baht to the US $, and the manipulation of the currency market by the BOT

Developing the theme of putting one's 400K or 800K depending on type of visa, in a bank account here and leaving it untouched, (which is the route I am hoping to follow), I wonder whether Immigration would make (or try and make) any difficulties over it not having come into the country over the immediately preceding year. Presumably one would have to supply them with bank verification and copy pages showing that it originally came from outside Thailand. Would they then be happy with that, if it related to the funds having been transferred in several years previously?!

I have also thought of transferring the required lump sum into a separate higher interest account in a Thai bank, and leaving that untouched and "earmarked" to satisfy Immigration requirements on into the future, but again presumably one would somehow have to prove to them (each year) that it originally came from outside Thailand, (particularly as the source of those funds would show as coming from an existing account).

arjay wrote:
I have also thought of transferring the required lump sum into a separate higher interest account in a Thai bank, and leaving that untouched and "earmarked" to satisfy Immigration requirements on into the future, but again presumably one would somehow have to prove to them (each year) that it originally came from outside Thailand, (particularly as the source of those funds would show as coming from an existing account).

Arjay,when I renewed my visa based on marriage a couple of months ago,I asked the TW to ask the immigration officer(lady 3rd from right,Mr happy being in the corner) if they would accept a fixed savings account on a Thai bank and said to ask even it was for say 3 years,with the required minimum amount,and she said it was ok. So presumably the same would apply to someone on a retirement with higher minimum and because not touching the account,not many photocopies to be made of the passbook.I personally think they are more concerned that the minimum has met the criteria(amt and time money deposited before application) by which they are sanctioning the renewal as opposed to worrying if and where the money has come from.So in my case Arjay,was ok for me to tsf 400k from my existing account to a new fixed account and if chose 3 yr fixed acc,then that would be ok for the yearly renewals.

Negatives being savings rates here on fixed account are crap,immigration might say ok now but backtrack the next time,minimum balances may be increased over time.
Unknowns being that since most of us will now be reporting for our next renewal at the new office in Udon and no more at Nong Khai,what type of office and which immigration officers we might come across,all like the now Mr Happy or not!

Pompoi wrote; Unknowns being that since most of us will now be reporting for our next renewal at the new office in Udon and no more at Nong Khai,what type of office and which immigration officers we might come across,all like the now Mr Happy or not!

The only thing that is known at the present time, is that the "Boss" Major Joseph (Lady) is moving to take charge of Udon, which may prove to be helpful, since she took over, the attitude of the Nong Khai staff appears to have improved somewhat!!!

as I read some of the previous post there is mention of medical insurance to obtain a visa
if this is so that puts me out side the requirements since the cost would be untouchable for me
which does not scare me because it just ads one more reason to pack up & go. now the question is what about tourist visa say one want to come here for two months does the visitor need medical insurance to obtain a visa just another loop hole to look in to. on a question were is the new office located thank you for all the information

I've heard that the new Udon Immigration Office is to be located at the Udon Thani Police Station on Srisuk Road.....a bit of a disappointing location but dont know wether or not the likes of trubrit or Ralph can confirm ??
Its a shame that Udon expats will no longer have the option to use the Nong Khai Office.After doing the 90 day report I used to enjoy making a day of it looking around the Indo-China market and having a meal and a couple of beers in a restaurant overlooking the Mekhong.

Zidane don't let that stop you I will continue to go and visit with BKK/Stan now back to the topic
I am assuming it now open for business because I have to go there this month I renewed my marriage visa last month but they said I have to come back in September so i will return. BTW they told my wife she did excellent job on the paper work no need to correct any of her papers all in perfect order & completed
I guess she knows me better than I think this way I can not get angry and leave LOL

Ron,
I dont think the new Udon office is opening till around the end of November to early December so it will be Nong Khai as usual for you this month.
The rumour about the Police Station being the new location comes from a poster on Thai Visa who has been told that his next 90 day report due on 1st December will be made there....so we will have to wait and see.