Jomtien marriage extension, monthly income method: patchy deposits

[manchesterlalala]

I am a 38-year-old British male married to my Thai wife living here in the Pattaya area. I am preparing for my third extension of stay based on marriage, and have always used the letter from the UK embassy to certify my income from abroad. I regularly send myself money via TransferWise from my UK bank account. I am familiar with the issues regarding the FTT coding and the apparent lottery as to whether incoming transactions are coded correctly, and I am dealing with that separately, but I have a different question/problem.

 

Today I received a statement from my Bank (BBL) and it showed all the transactions sent from the UK since July 2018.

 

 

My questions are as follows…

 

1.) There are gaps for January 2019 and April 2019. My plan all along has been to argue that December's payments also covered January, and March's payment covered April, were an IO to scrutinise this. Is there leeway for "spreading" these payments, or do these gaps constitute grounds for rejection?

 

2.) July 2019 does not contain a single transaction from abroad of over B40k, however, there are two separate transactions totalling much more than that. Could they also reject this as a discrepancy, too?

 

The total from August 2018 to July 2019 is B879,038.39. The minimum requirement would work out at B480,000 over the calendar year prior to application for a new extension. I have made a massive elementary mistake in applying logic to this and thinking that I could easily demonstrate ample finances from abroad to support my wife and I over the course of the year. I was also buoyed by threads and news items I read from Thai immigration stating that they would go easy on us this year given the uncertainty caused over the sudden change of rules for proof of income.

 

Last week I went to Jomtien and asked them specifically about this. The lady right at the back who usually deals with these extensions was there and responded to my questions. She was very unclear. When I tried to pin her down on specifics she kept on repeating bland, general answers. She got up and asked her boss for assistance at one point. She also kept on stating I required "guarantee from bank"; I presume she was referring to the cover letter to the statements from the bank confirming all transactions came from abroad.

Any actual experiences or genuine reports from others (linked) would be much appreciated. Especially from Jomtien.

 

[ubonjoe]

Not sure what Jomtien will accept.

Your list of transfers is a little hard to follow since they are not in a monthly order. Or is the first few that show 2019 really 2018.

The 2 transfers under 40k baht for this year might be a problem unless they follow the written rules and allow the average for a year.

The missing months may be the biggest problem. 

All you can do is try. In the worst case you may have to go out for a single entry non-o visa and apply using the first extension rule that allows for only a 1 or 2 transfers to be shown.

[manchesterlalala]

The first few entries should indeed be 2018. Thank you for spotting this.

 

The gaps are also intended to highlight that for January and April 2019 there were no inward transactions.

 

I am unfamiliar with "the first extension rule that allows for only 1 or 2 transfers to be shown". I am guessing that first-time extenders would only have the B400k route if they did not have years of living here to draw evidence from in terms of monthly income from abroad. So does that mean if you get a single-entry and immediately start doing the B40k minimum per month and apply for a year-long extension in the last 30 days of that 90-day visa that they would consider that evidence of foreign income for a limited time frame?

 

[ubonjoe]

The rules state the first extension only requires 1 or 2 months.

The wording is not clear in the police order but the above is what it means.

 

[BoBoTheClown]

What is a personal income tax letter with a payment slip?

[ubonjoe]

18 minutes ago, BoBoTheClown said:

What is a personal income tax letter with a payment slip?

That is for when a person is working here with a work permit. That is how the 40k baht income is proved.

[soisanuk]

I just received the following information by email from someone just renewing their retirement extension at Jomtien:

 

Quote

Retiree Visa Renewal

 

Hello,

 

I just renewed using the B65,000 / month method.  I only had four months of direct deposits into my Bangkok Bank account (commencing in April). I gave them:  copies of bank books, copy of letter from the bank and (this was new to me) a guarantee letter from the bank which reflected by open and current account status as of that day. I also provided them with an English language letter from my USA based source of income which attested to the fact that I was entitled to that income (amount included) for life.  That English language source letter seemed to be of interest and value and was examined at length.

Retiree Visa Renewal

 

Hello,

 

I just renewed using the B65,000 / month method.  I only had four months of direct deposits into my Bangkok Bank account (commencing in April). I gave them:  copies of bank books, copy of letter from the bank and (this was new to me) a guarantee letter from the bank which reflected by open and current account status as of that day. I also provided them with an English language letter from my USA based source of income which attested to the fact that I was entitled to that income (amount included) for life.  That English language source letter seemed to be of interest and value and was examined at length.

It appears Jomtien may be lenient this year as recommended by Immigration HQ.  You will need a letter from Bangkok Bank listing all of the foreign source deposits to your account for the period -- I renewed my retirement extension in June - although I had Bangkok Bank certified "statements" showing all transaction for the preceding 12 months & a bank letter verifying the account (same letter as required for those using 800k (or 400k if based on marriage)), I still had to get a specific letter listing the deposits (IMO they don't want to wade through all the transactions in certified "statements" to identify foreign deposits).

 

Start 30 days before your renewal date to give yourself time in case of hitches.  As mentioned, if they will not accept your documentation, you can leave, get a Non-O Visa, return and extend it as a "new" application OR from reports I have rec'd - pay an agent, who seem to never have a problem getting an extension for their customers.

[manchesterlalala]

REPORT

 

I went in to Jomtien immigration today to submit my application. None of the issues I highlighted in the OP above presented a problem. Common sense prevailed.

 

tl;dr

 

• Not having a foreign-sourced credit transaction in each and every month was not a problem (I was missing 2/3 months).
• Having some months with 2x credit transactions below B40k was not a problem, the total from all the credit transactions for the month is satisfactory.
• Corroborating the report from soisanuk above, It appears they just take the total for the year and divide it by 12.
• The IO accepted a letter from the intermediary bank (in my case Kasikorn) itemising foreign-sourced credit transactions with corresponding TransferWise transaction PDF receipts.

 

Detail

 

Non-FTT-coded foreign-sourced credit transactions

As per the OP, I had three non-FTT-coded foreign-sourced credit transactions show up on my Bangkok Bank statement. The TransferWise transaction PDF receipts cited Kasikorn as the intermediary bank. I went to Kasikorn on Pattaya Glahng to get credit advice notes proving the monies originated from abroad. Kasikorn provided me with a single sheet of A4 listing the foreign-sourced transactions. This sheet of paper only contained my name: no passport number or address. I was concerned this would be insufficient, but immigration did not seem to care about this.

 

A word of warning: each queried transaction is charged for at B200 per transaction. I had 3, and so ended up paying B600 for that piece of paper. I called up Kasikorn headquarters in Bangkok to check this price was right, and they confirmed that is the standard price. If, over the course of a year, you have more than 10 transactions to query, your credit advice letter from Kasikorn will end up costing more than the fee for your extension.

 

Bank letter

I did not keep up to date with my passbook, so I had to order a 12-month statement from my branch of Bangkok Bank on Jomtien second road. That cost B200. Upon receiving the first one, I realised that it contained my old address. Worried that this would be rejected by the IO, I had the bank branch change my address on their system and ordered another 12-month statement. When this new statement arrived, it still had the old address. As I was running out of time to get the application submitted, I took the risk and used it anyway. This address discrepancy was not mentioned at all by the IO.

 

The bank produced for me

• a cover letter including all the FTT-coded credit transactions over the 12-month period referenced in the 12-month bank statement with a total cited for the year of around B900,000. This also only had my name on it: no passport number and no address, so this appears to be standard.
• a sheet of A4 for each foreign-sourced credit transaction providing detail on all those transactions over the period mentioned.
• a statement of the current balance on today's date.
• an up-to-date / latest transactions list covering the last 6 weeks or so.

All of that cost B200.

 

There was a misunderstanding on my part. I thought Bangkok Bank when creating the cover letter would include the SMT-coded transactions in the total sum of foreign-sourced credit transactions for the year. However, they will not and cannot do that. They cannot accept responsibility for evidence which the intermediary bank is supposed to supply. So, the Kasikorn bank letter I received is a stand-alone document separate from the Bangkok Bank documents. The IO should then add the figures up to get at the total. This may be obvious to other people, but it was a new thing for me. A misunderstanding on my part.

 

Extension-of-stay application submission

Having lived here for a good few years, I had an inkling based on past experience that the thing I worried about the most would end up not being a problem, and a new, unforeseen surprise would instead await us. And so it proved…

 

We had brought along a witness, because we had been told on the past two occasions that the first ever extension-of-stay application requires a house visit, and then all subsequent ones require a witness (if you don't have children). The IO said there was no need for a witness today because there would be a house visit instead, whereupon a witness must also be present at the house. The lady said it is "a change of law" rather than merely a personal whim of hers for stipulating a house visit. This is a problem for us, because we don't know the neighbours and the guard is very old and slow and I don't want to mither him.

 

Not a major issue by any stretch, but a surprise for me. Perhaps everybody else dealing with Jomtien knows about this already? Having been consumed by the proof of foreign income issue, it had probably passed me by. Anyway, the IO stated that in future we can always pop in to the immigration office before application submission and check what is required. Our witness, whose day off is today, was therefore unnecessarily burdened. I am still treating her to a meal out as agreed.

 

I worried beforehand that I had not updated my TM30 after coming back from England in May. This was not an issue and there was no mention of this.

 

In terms of the bank documents, there was no issue with the fact that I did not show credits coming in once every month. I think the IO just took the overall figure and saw it averaged over B40,000 per month. When we got passed over to the second lady IO, for me to sign a few documents affirming my acknowledgement of the penalties for failing to report / overstaying, etc., I could see that the lady had entered on the sheet of paper that I had a monthly income in the range of B40,000 to B80,000. This probably results from a cursory inspection of the transactions, meaning they are happy with seeing an overall figure for the year. I did not ask either lady to confirm this. They do not volunteer much information and when they do reply to queries their responses are of acute brevity. Concerned that any query my highlight an issue with my supporting documentation, I resisted the urge to satisfy my curiosity on the ins and outs of the new process and kept schtum.

 

When checking the banking documents, the lady IO started to ask a couple of questions, that I could barely make out. I think she asked: “Do you only have this account”? I immediately became worried that the Bangkok Bank monies were not enough, as if she was expecting details from another bank account to make up the difference because the entries were not for a full 12 months. I explained to her that there was a Kasikorn document as well to bump up the figures. I think she wanted to know how many bank accounts I had. I explained just one and that the Kasikorn sheet was for extra transactions that were not coded correctly. My wife later told me that the lady IO was complaining that banks other than Bangkok Bank do not supply sufficient paperwork, or that their paperwork did not contain enough detail. I mentioned this very fact in this post above regarding the brief Kasikorn sheet of paper I received from Kasikorn. Bangkok Bank did a good job, and it appears the IOs much prefer the heftier, detail-rich paperwork that Bangkok Bank supply. The next lady IO also asked about the Kasikorn documents. She wanted to know what they were for. I explained. Again, I think she just wanted to know which one was my main bank account. Once more, it was a quick question and done. She was satisfied.

 

I also supplemented the Kasikorn sheet with TransferWise PDF receipts for the corresponding foreign-sourced credit transactions. The IO lady returned several documents in my application pack deemed unnecessary – these TransferWise documents were not returned, so clearly they are welcome. Based on the suggestion of a contributor in another thread, I used XendPay for one transaction, as he said their transactions are always coded FTT. That one transaction came in as SMT. Worse still, Xendpay do not provide an immediate PDF receipt with details of the intermediary bank, if any. I contacted them to enquire to get the necessary code to give to Kasikorn, or whichever the intermediary bank was, to get a credit advice note.  Xendpay never got back to me. I included the detail-light Xendpay transaction statement together with the other banking documents. It was not returned.

 

As soon as she asked for the B1,900 I was relieved. The paperwork was satisfactory.

 

[sumrit]

Thanks for the very comprehensive report. Hopefully it's answered a lot of the queries from some of the more pessimistic posters have raised on various threads on this forum.

[soisanuk]

Manchesterlalala -- did you also have a document from your pension source showing amount of monthly pension?  I had one when I applied in June.  I have rec'd some reports from folks that didn't have a full year of monthly deposits, but said their extensions were renewed at Pattaya Immigration, but noted that they did have such a source document.

[manchesterlalala]

4 hours ago, soisanuk said:

Manchesterlalala -- did you also have a document from your pension source showing amount of monthly pension?  I had one when I applied in June.  I have rec'd some reports from folks that didn't have a full year of monthly deposits, but said their extensions were renewed at Pattaya Immigration, but noted that they did have such a source document.

 

As per the first line of the OP, I am 38 years old. My income is not pension-based. I am on a marriage extension, not retirement. As a result, I had only had to prove an average monthly foreign-sourced income of B40,000.