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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawThailand Immigration LawThai O Visas: Income Affidavits Revisited

Thai O Visas: Income Affidavits Revisited

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai visas. 

It recently came to my attention that the Income Affidavit, this was an issue that I had thought was sort of put to bed some years at this point ago, definitely months ago, it recently sort of came back to the forefront. 

In a recent article from the Phuket News, that is thephuketnews.com. The article is titled: Phuket Immigration Reconfirms Embassy Income Verification Letters not Required after American Expat Given 30 Days to Leave Thailand. Quoting further: "The news follows an American expat contacting the Phuket News late last week to explain that he been refused a 12 month permit to stay on the basis of being married to a Thai because he could not provide an income verification letter from the Embassy." This article goes on. I urge those who are watching this video check that out.  Ultimately Phuket Immigration said that was incorrect; that this was not required and as those who view this channel know that that has been a defunct document, that Income Affidavit, especially for those from the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. Those Income Affidavit letters are effectively a thing of the past. 

This is an example of an officer who basically stated that this was required and they were making an erroneous finding. That was not correct. People are human. Nobody is perfect. Mistakes get made and providing mistaken or incorrect information can happen. It does happen, clearly.  

I think that this is interesting because there was a video we did earlier and some commentary I made on the overall channel that then got picked up over on thaivisa.com where some folks made some remarks with respect to, they thought I was misleading people by saying that I had dealt with some cases involving those who had Retirement Visas who had been extending them in O Retirement status and that they were told that if they didn't get Medical Insurance they wouldn't be allowed to re-extend.  I did deal with some of those cases. I do think that the finding in that particular situation was not the correct one. Ultimately we dealt with it and got it solved to the satisfaction of those concerned.  

That being said, this does happen. There are times when officers will make findings that are contrary to either the law, the regulations in play or the customs of that particular moment and sometimes you just have to deal with it accordingly. In this situation the Immigration Office noted that they had been incorrect in stating that this Income Affidavit was necessary and they went ahead and dealt with things after that. They stood corrected basically and moved on. 

So I mean these things do happen. It is something to note and although it can be rather frustrating at times, it is just something that does happen with respect to Immigration apparatus.  I deal with this in the context of the United States sometimes. You get an Officer, they make an incorrect call, it does happen and you just have to sort of deal with it accordingly.