thaitanic

So I went to Samut Prakan immigration today and spoke to 2 different officials. They said that the reason that my report was rejected with the reason "Incorrect entry date upon entry into the kingdom/ Incorrect visa expiration date." was not in fact for those reasons but because I had left it too late (2 days before 90-day deadline). They also said it was nothing to do with it being my first report after leaving the country. The first official, who had loads of stripes down her arms, said submitting a 90 day report online must be done exactly 15 days before the 90-day deadline, no sooner, no later, even if that's a weekend. The second official was a bit more relaxed about the exact day but said that the system is not working well and is automatically rejecting lots of applications. He said the sooner you do it before the deadline (up to 15 days before), the better. He said next time, if it gets rejected, call him on 0631871178 to see if he can get it approved without me having to go there in person. I guess that's a Samut Prakan number so probably no use calling it if you're in another province.

Thanks @howerdw and @transam. I did leave the country since my last report, and returned in November. I do recall a similar issue that affected me in 2021 (with a different rejection message), but hoped it was fixed by now, or at least the rejection message corrected to make sense. And I did make the same trip overseas last year and was able to submit my first 90-day report afterwards successfully online 🤷‍♂️. Anyway, I'll go in person tomorrow. Cheers.

Submitted online yesterday. Rejected today with the reason, "Incorrect entry date upon entry into the kingdom/ Incorrect visa expiration date." But these were not incorrect. I've run out of time to try again as the deadline is tomorrow, so I'll go to Samut Prakan and do in person, and try to find out the real reason for rejection.

How about a flowchart version? It might not be correct. I'm trying to get my head around this myself. I'm sure I'll be told if it isn't. Obviously it doesn't make reference to dual tax treaties at all.

Well, the visa was granted and collected today exactly 2 weeks after my girlfriend's appointment, not 6 weeks as we were lead to expect. She does have a history of going to the UK and returning, so that is in her favour, and we were extremely careful with the documentation, but nonetheless it is surprising. Perhaps they've made some changes to the approval process to try and clear the backlog.

Thank you @mnomad. We paid for the visa application today and were forwarded to the VFS site to make the appointment. The first free appointment was 19 days away on 18th May. However we could get an appointment on 5th May by paying 3400 Baht for the "Priority Lounge" service, or we could have got an appointment as early as 4th by paying 3450 Baht for a "Prime Time" (after working hours) service. So we went for 5th May and paid 3600 Baht for the "Gold Premium" service, which includes document scanning on top of the other Premium Lounge services. We can't face doing self-upload of so many documents after the traumatic failures in previous years.

Does anyone know how soon UK visa appointments are currently available at VFS in Bangkok? It seems there is no way to see available appointment slots until we've completed the application and paid the fee, but we really need to know how soon the appointment is likely to be so we can plan the trip. Thanks for any insights.

My immigration office is Samut Prakan. I was not able to do an online 90-day report since August 2020 because of the dreaded "please contact the Immigration Office" bug, but using the new system at https://tm47.immigration.go.th/tm47/#/login I am now able to. For background, I last did a 90-day report in person in October, immediately after applying for a year's extension of stay (non-O retirement visa). That worried me, as it seemed to be what threw a spanner in the works for me the year before. When I registered, everything went smoothly. The necessary registration emails came immediately. When filling out the online TM47 form, where I had any doubt, I did this: "Stay Visa Expire" - Poor, ambiguous wording. I put the "extension of stay permitted up to" date after my latest extension of stay (not the date on the original visa). "Phone No." - I put my phone number (not the building's). "Contact Person Surname/Given Name/Contact Phone" - I put my landlady's details (i.e. my girlfriend's) to match the TM30s that she submits for me. I used Chrome, but Firefox seems to work too. As others have said, if the CAPTCHA is difficult to read, just hit the circular arrow on the right to get a new one. If you delay for a lengthy period, you will be timed out and get a red "Unauthorized Access" notice. I submitted on 3rd January (which I think was a non-working day). It was approved (email received) the next morning, which made me very happy.

In which case, in my limited experience, it's 3x more than necessary.

As it stands, a finished condo with Thai owner. I've found a place I like and I've gone off the land/house leasing/ownership model and I like swimming pools etc.. Thanks to your and others' helpful replies on this thread, my main question now is whether it is normal/essential to have a sales contract with the seller before visiting the land office? I assume a deposit would be expected to accompany such a contract, but I don't have the funds here at the moment for even a 1% deposit until I have made the full transfer, so I'm hoping to avoid a deposit if possible and just get on with it.

Thank you. I did ask for recommendations on another thread but unfortunately did not get any. So I have little to judge "good, reliable and trustworthy" by. My experience of lawyers so far in Thailand (1 small time lawyer in Phuket and 1 big western name in Bangkok, neither on property issues) has been absolutely terrible.

Thank you. And does that cheque bear the seller's name? If we don't have a written agreement, what happens to that money if the seller pulls out at the last minute and doesn't accept the cheque? Or is it normal/essential to have a written agreement in advance of visiting the Land Office?

Yes I'm naive because I have never bought a condo here before. It would be more naive to just wade into a purchase, trusting everyone, without doing my research into the process (I'm sure it wouldn't really be a case of carrying a suitcase of cash and doing a countdown). So please educate me.

Thanks again for the replies. A 1st follow-up question... Am I right to think that the funds have to be transferred in the foreign currency, which means I will have to use my overseas bank and not a currency exchange service such as Wise etc.? A 2nd follow-up question... After the funds have arrived in my Thai bank and I have my FET, what is the usual method of actually transferring the cash from my Thai bank account to the seller's bank account? An electronic transfer? A cheque from my bank with the seller's name on it? A cash cheque from my bank with no name on it? A suitcase full of notes? And at what exact point does that actually happen? As a condo-purchasing virgin I have visions of a) a scary, paranoid journey from the bank to the land office with a cash cheque in my underpants, and b) a comical 3-2-1 countdown at the land office before exchanging cash/paperwork/keys.

This caught me out today. Wish I had read the home page of http://www.samutprakanimmigration.go.th/ when I visited it, instead of jumping straight to the visa information pages. My taxi from Pak Nam to Thipnimitra was about 150 Baht. The staff told us they plan to be at Thipnimitra Market for 2 years, but they look very well entrenched there already, and no work has started on Pak Nam, so I expect it will be at least that long.

Thank you all very much for your replies. That's really helpful. Not too keen on trusting a developer "returning me all the balance" if I can avoid it. I think I'll try and avoid paying a deposit and just pay in one go, unless I feel a place has a lot of competition for it or I find my ultimate, unique, dream home that I can't afford to lose. I should be able to get the funds over here in a week or so. What is "S & P" (apart from a restaurant chain that does nice salmon over rice)?

I am struggling to understand how to comply with the rule, as I understand it, that funds for a condominium apartment purchase by a foreigner must be transferred in a single payment from overseas. Scenario A: Imagine I find an apartment in a condominium for 10 million Baht. I make arrangements to have the money sent from overseas IN ONE 10 million Baht TRANSFER, to comply with the rules. The transfer will take one week to reach my Thailand account and be available. But the seller wants a 10% deposit sooner than that and I have enough cash for that already in my Thailand account. How can I pay the deposit and still be within the rules of transferring/paying in one payment? Would I still have to transfer the full 10 million despite paying the 1 million deposit? Or would I get a refund of the deposit? What is the normal procedure? Scenario B: I transfer 10 million Baht to buy an apartment in a condominium but it turns out the apartment I want is 11 million. Do I have to send the money back and bring it in as a single 11 million Baht transfer?

Thank you for the replies. Thank you for stating the relative simplicity of buying a condo. Sounds like that option would be straightforward for me, with assistance of my Thai partner, without requiring a lawyer. "Wills are done at a local ampher level of government, some may have a standard template." Do you mean to register a will that has already been drawn up, or to actually get a will drawn up? I would like to at least make an agreement for a new 30-year option, accepting that it may not be legally binding. Or perhaps a usufruct. In any case I'm going to need some legal assistance for that option. I could approach one of the big, western-owned legal companies, but my experience with them so far (on non-property issues) has been poor. Would prefer to find a no-nonsense Thai lawyer.

I'm a retired ex-pat currently looking to buy a condo in central Bangkok or house/land in east Bangkok. Can anyone recommend a conveyancer (real estate lawyer) to assist me with the legal requirements? If I buy a house/land then I will need help with a 30-year-lease-plus-extension(s) as the land will be in my partner's name. Would be a bonus if such lawyer could also help me draw up a Thailand will. Also interested if anyone knows of a source for good templates (standard documents) for Thailand wills and perhaps even some of the documentation required in property purchase. Could be a good reference even if I don't end up using them.