Thread: Retirement Extension changed to Married Extension.

Was wondering about this today since many retires hardly qualify with enought monthly retirement income to qualify for a retirement visa and the baht keeps appreciating. Is it possible to change from a retirement visa to a marriage visa? If it can be done, what is the procedure? I know many friends who just verily qualify as it is now and if the baht appreciates enought I might someday have the same problem. Has anyone ever done this?

You just wait until your Retirement extension finishes and then apply for a Marriage extension. This year I will get the Retirement extention as I find the Marriage extension a pain in the arse to obtain. In fact I'm better off calling it a cnut of an extension to get.

Why? What are the requirements that make it a pain to get the extension?

Essentially, it resolves to a tedious charade wherein a chicken head earning sweet fuck all gets to fuck with you until they decide to issue. Fairly normal procedure in immigration terms the world over but quite demeaning when a lower life form has to be cultivated in order to get it. Dealing with these monkeys is quite awful.
Thank God I can qualify for a retirement visa still.

I did it once.
The house visit is the invasion of privacy bit.
They arrived at our house mob handed and insisted on being allowed into the bedrooms and taking photos of the wife and I sitting on the bed.
To add insult to injury they wanted expenses for the visit.

The problem is cultural, not the rules which are reasonably transparent and easily met.

Thai immigration are really police who have got their job through patronage. They are poorly educated, generally stupid and run on tramlines. They have no discretion, no judgement and seldom have to think since everything they do is overseen and checked by the senior officer who in turn works by rote.

They rarely interact from my experience. I think it resolves to the nature of the transaction in which one sits down, proffers the paperwork and then waits. The officer is captured in a one to one situation in which unpleasantness may arise. Best not to establish any rapport which could be inconvenienced by a refusal in which case face will be jeopardised. So their default response is to be cvunts, quite rude and utterly indifferent.

I take my wife now. In the time I handover my documents etc, always met by averted eyes as if I'm not actually there, she waits and then talks about some silliness. The officer perks up and they have a nice chinwag and the job is done. Last time the officer actually asked my wife for the exchange rate, she was too lazy to get up off her fat arse, so she could calculate my pension etc.

They're rude, basically, and I can't abide that.

^I thought I was the only one that could see that?

Originally Posted by Ceburat1

What are the requirements that make it a pain to get the extension?

The fact that you're wife has to fill out a questionaire when in fact it is I who is applying for the extention. And why is the application sent to BKK before being issued a month after applying? What do they do in BKK that they can't do at your local office? After all a Retirement Extention is issued immediately.

One of my friends who is 74 years old and has lived here for 33 plus years is on a retirement visa and he cannot remember without checking his files how long he has been on a retirement visa. But he said for sure over 20 years. He only has a small pension and may have to change visa's this year.

As one poster said already "Thank God I still qualify for a retirement visa". From the information I got here I would only change if the baht got so low that I had to, around 13 baht to the dollar.

Thanks for all of the replys and information.

Quick question. Is it a requirement to draw a map for a Retirement Extension' ?

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

Quick question. Is it a requirement to draw a map for a Retirement Extension' ?

NO, it is not

I was in Thailand on the "O" marriage visa for my three years and only had to deal with the immigration dog and pony show the first year. Did it in Bangkok and they never came to visit the house in Phichit. Did two annual extensions ... But, they were done by the school I worked at as part of my employment deal in Pattaya.

Originally Posted by thegent

I take my wife now. In the time I handover my documents etc, always met by averted eyes as if I'm not actually there, she waits and then talks about some silliness. The officer perks up and they have a nice chinwag and the job is done.

Spot on, my mrs can usually sweet talk them if there is a problem-oh I like your hair, thats a nice watch etc etc so I leave it up to her. I cringe at some of the bum licking she does, but they fall for it. If that does not work and somebody gives us a hard time, usually a bloke, she switches to complaining in a loud voice then they usually get rid of us pretty quick.

The buggeration factor is a feature of any immigration culture. In Thailand the worst perpetrator is invariably some raddled old bitch who is " top dog " in the pecking order of the office given her status as the eldest. Even if others are well aware she is wrong, she is stupid and is a rude, useless bag of wrinkled old bones, they do nothing lest the politics of the office are destabilised.

But then, their angst is understandable. For years they have watched a steady stream of whores, farm girls, shop assistants, hotel skivvies and resturant/bar staff, all folk she regards as her social inferiors, accompanying the farang they have hooked and who enjoy a wealth and standard of living the old crone can only dream about. Day in, day out, the witch drags her weary carcass from some shitty little townhouse in a Godawful project sequestred in a part of the city no one gives a fuck about to work in an office for a comparative pittance and a paltry pension scarcely equivalent to a third of what the farang has in his bank account. Those beady little eyes scan daily the evidence of their wealth that is salt in the wound of her suppurating boil of resentment and bitterness and there is nothing she can do. Except of course to bugger someone about but it's a hollow victory soon relegated by the next farang with yet another whoopsie about whom she can do sweet fuck all.

I got one two years ago in Laksi. In the end I lost my patience and demanded to speak to the senior officer on duty. The extension was eventually granted but before leaving I returned to her booth and despite a determined attempt to ignore me she had to look up when I raised my voice and called her phee as sweetly as I could bring to bear and, with passport in hand, I wai'ed her giving her my very best " kawp khun kap " and exeunted blissfully away, swaddled in my new found smugness. Her beaten face riven with venomous hate and useless frustration was a joy to behold and had me chuckling all the way to the pub.

Originally Posted by peterpan

The bit that get has me baffled is the requirement ( in effect) to have yr wife with you.

Friend of mine applied for a retirement extension this year.
It should have been straight forward, all his paperwork was in order but he mentioned that he had a son with thai nationality living in Thailand.
Suddenly the extension was off until they have interviewed his son.
His son is at university and had to skip two days to travel to Nan immigration to be interviewed.

^
The Immigration interview should be the same as an IRS Audit. Don't volunteer anything but just answer the questions.

My mate went into to change his marriage extension to a retirement one as he was pissed off with all the photo nonsense and going back a month later. They told him he had to bring his wife in (what for?) She was living in Ubon so had to come all the way to Bkk and when she went with him they neither asked her anything nor was there anything for her to sign.

^^ I learned that one first off, I applied for a marriage ext, all was going swimmingly until me wife mentioned we had two girls, then they asked to see the girls.
This was when imm was at Nong kai, we explained that the girls were full time at school in Udon, but they insisted, despite the fact that having siblings wasn't a requirement of the visa.
Now Imm is at Udon and all the better for that.

Originally Posted by xanax

My mate went into to change his marriage extension to a retirement one as he was pissed off with all the photo nonsense and going back a month later. They told him he had to bring his wife in (what for?) She was living in Ubon so had to come all the way to Bkk and when she went with him they neither asked her anything nor was there anything for her to sign.

He should have asked to speak to the senior officer. I always go with a copy of the rules extracted from their website and attach a covering letter translated into Thai citing the salient requirements and how the evidence I have produced satisfies them.

They are not gods and should be held to account.

I have no experience switching from retirement to marriage, but when I mentioned it to Barry K when he was chang yai years ago he strongly recommended to stay with retirement because marriage leads to all sorts of hoops and hassles by, as others have mentioned, lower life forms that hate farangs and can't imagine why one of their own might entertain the thought of actually living with one.