Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Retirement Visas and so-called grandfather rights. We have done a number of videos on the topic of grandfathering with regard to the Retirement Visa. What are we talking about here with regard to "grandfathering"? Well grandfathering if you will is the notion that if they were to change a rule, it would only apply to those moving forward and those that were already in the system could continue to operate under the old rules.

There is some precedent for this in the space of Retirement Visas here in Thailand, because during the 90s when they change the financial thresholds associated with the Retirement Visa, they did effectively grandfather in those that had been in the system prior to those changes, and I've done videos about that in the past discussing that. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent comment on one of our prior videos regarding Retirement Visas, specifically the issue of whether or not insurance would become a mandatory component of the Retirement Visa in the future. Quoting directly: "If they brought in Compulsory Insurance for O Retirement, then there would need to be grandfather rights otherwise there would be a massive exodus which means a loss to Thailand." Well first of all I think if they did something like that, they would be aware of the possible ramifications. Secondly, again as I have stated in other videos and as we have seen from the historical record, there is some precedent for the notion that folks that came into the Retirement Visa system under prior rules would remain under those prior rules. We saw this again when they changed the thresholds from, eventually it came up to 800,000 Baht in a bank account but there were actually two times that that changed. I think it went from 250,000 in a bank account up to 600 and then went up to 800 finally but they grandfathered in the people that came in under those prior two rounds. So if you came in, had a Retirement Visa and were maintaining 250,000 Baht in a bank account, when the later changes came, you were still allowed to maintain that. Same thing for 600; if you came in on 600, you were allowed to remain. Now that was back in the 90s. Most of those folks that were in their 50s then, there are some still around, I know a few people, but they are getting up there. Not all of them are around anymore so it's kind of becoming a moot point but it remains to be seen if they change the insurance components associated with the Thai Retirement Visa how they would deal with that but one way they could deal with it is grandfathering. I suspect it's not outside the realm of possibility that that would in fact occur, again because we have seen in the past, there is historical precedent to do that.