Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Marriage Visas. I thought of making this video after reading a recent comment on a prior video. We were doing a video talking about insurance and the possibility of insurance mandates as it pertains to foreigners in Thailand because there are issues that have come up in the past regarding unpaid hospital bills on foreigners here in Thailand, and that they are sort of formulating policies to sort of mitigate the issue of unpaid hospital bills. 

There was this comment, quoting directly: "Marriage Visas are slightly different because your Thai spouse signs forms at Immigration to take full responsibility for you when you renew your extension of stay. Hospitals would have someone else that they can legally go after in the event of an unpaid bill." No, Immigration forms pertaining to witnessing and attesting to being married to a foreign national for purposes of extending ones Thai O Marriage Visa is not the same thing as becoming fully locked into that person for liability purposes. 

Not to get too overwrought on this, but I have discussed this many times in many other videos. Folks really, if you don't know what you are talking about maybe just don't say anything, because this can lead to the kind of misinformation that people then come to rely on and think is the case and then they make bad decisions based on relying on inaccurate information. So yeah, when you go and witness and act as the evidence if you will of the marriage that is the platform for a Marriage Visa, yeah you are saying, "hey we are really married, we really have a relationship, this isn't a sham marriage." As we have discussed in other videos, especially as it pertains to O Marriage Visas, Thai Immigration Authorities put on heightened scrutiny due to a scandal that occurred some years back where they were marrying people fake; they were doing fake marriages on paper between - I believe it was Indian nationals and Thai nationals - and they were basically saying they were married, but they weren't really married, then these Thais didn't even know that they were on paper being married and it blew up into a huge scandal. The upshot was they really do scrutinize this now, so it is not at all surprising that a spouse will be called to Immigration to sign documentation that says yes, we are in fact married. That does not automatically mean that you are liable for everything that other person; if that other spouse has a bunch of credit card debt that pre-exists the marriage or something, just because you have signed some immigration document, doesn't mean you are now liable for that, okay? 

So the point of this video is to understand legal liability, and maybe in a general sense I should just point this out, Immigration matters, they are sort of mutually exclusive if you will from legal matters. So, it is not exactly "ne'er the twain shall meet"; depending on circumstances, Immigration things can have an impact in the legal world and vice versa, but simply attesting to being married, does not sign a Thai spouse on to all sorts of unencumbered liability with respect to their other spouse. They are just signing on to attesting to yeah, I am married to this person for purposes of Immigration. 

I think it is very important to understand that when you are looking at getting a Visa of any kind of but specifically a Marriage Visa here in the Kingdom of Thailand.