Eneukman

The Residence Garden has reduced rates if you stay for a month. I stayed for about a month last week and was charged around 30,000 baht, which is still over your budgeted figure. It may be worth checking out their monthly rate as they have everything else you're looking for. ALan

The validity runs from date of issue. As far as I can recall, you must enter Thailand within 90 days of the visa being issued. You can then stay in Thailand for 90 days after which you must leave the country. You can come back in again immediately and you will get a further 90 days. If you time your visa runs so that you are able to come back into the country on the day before the visa expires you will be given a further 90 days, which can be extended at Immigration by up to 30 days giving you a total stay of 15 to 16 months. Alan

My water is charged at 24 baht per cubic metre PLUS a 50 baht standing charge for each room (i.e. a total of 100 baht per month) I'm in the condo a lot of the time with the television on virtually all of that time. As well, my laptop is on for several hours per day. Alan

I did a post fairly recently where I detailed my expenditure for May but I'm damned if I can find it at the moment. Some comments on your figures from my own experience - House rental - should be fine and in fact you may be able to rent a house for less than that. I ony use baht buses. In May, I spent about 1,100 baht though this does vary from month to month depending on whether or not I charter a bus on a rainy night or in the early hours of the morning. Depending on where you plan on staying, you may have no option but to charter. Household sundries - should be OK. Contents insurance - I pay around 500 baht per month for 2,000,000 baht's worth of cover. I also have travel insurance, which also costs around 500 baht per month. Cable tv should be around 250 baht per month. Satellite is around 1,600 to 2,000 or so depending on which package you choose. Electricity and water. I seldom pay more than 1,500 baht per month. I use the aircon as little as possible. My bedroom only has a ceiling fan, which is far better and costs less than 1 baht an hour to run. View Talay don't allow you to use gas in their condos for safety reasons (or so I've been told). Also, I don't do any cooking at home, which helps keep my costs down. Food - if this includes alcohol probably OK though likely to be on the high side. Health insurance - should be less than 4,000 baht at your age - unless you're going to insure your tirak as well Tirak allowance - quite generous. One point to bear in mind are all these one-off costs such as buying a printer for your laptop or PC, side trips to other parts of Thailand or holidays outwith Thailand. I usually manage to keep my routine monthly outlays to around 80,000 baht though I suspect that I may fail this month. I think once you've lived here for a while, you could find that you're spending a bit less than you're allowing for but it's always better to under estimate your income and over estimate your expenditure. Good luck with your move, Alan

I have an account with both Nationwide and Nationwide Isle of Man. I opened my account in the Isle of Man whilst I was still living in the UK and in fact picked up an application form from my local branch. As an existing customer, they certified a copy of my passport etc for me. When I moved, I changed the correspondence address to my brother's address. Nationwide in the Isle of Man offer you accounts in sterling, US dollars or euros. They also have internet and telephone banking and once I had opened an account here, I completed a form to enable them to transfer funds direct to my Bangkok Bank. I can also transfer funds to my account from my ordinary Nationwide account over the internet. The account I have is a 60 day notice account though I can instruct one notice free transfer of up to £10,000 per tax year. An alternative, if the funds have been in the account for more than 60 days is to accept 60 days loss of interest and have funds transferred immediately. If you live outwith the EU, you can complete a form and Nationwide Isle of Man will then pay your interest WITHOUT deducting tax. The form allows you to keep a seperate correspondence address in the UK. I don't have an ATM card for my account and don't think they would issue one in any event. I still have my Nationwide account in the UK into which dividends, pension etc are paid. Re accessing your account in an internet cafe, someone suggested typing a load of shit onto Word Pad (including your account reference no) and then copying and pasting the correct bit. Nationwide and Nationwide Isle of Man both have a bit where you have to select 3 digits from a number by selcting them from drop down list by using your mouse. Loggers can't do anything about this .............. yet Alan

It's been reported that the military will return power to a civilian government within the next 2 weeks. This government will apparently remain in place for 1 year after which presumably new elections will be held. Everything is going on as normal in Pattaya today. Alan

Sounds complicated - so I hope I never have to do this. My connection has been fine for the last few days though the speed hasn't been particularly great. Alan

At the moment, until you attain the age of 50, the only way you can stay in Thailand full time is to obtain a multiple-entry non-Immigrant O visa from a consulate in your own country. You would still have to leave Thailand every 90 days though and would have have to go back home when the visa expired. There would be no gurantee that you would be issued with a back to back visa though. The position should become clearer over the course of the next few months. Alan

This was suggested in a post elsewhere either here or on another board. Someone replied to the effect that condo prices, especially those in a farang name could rise due to the authorities enforcing rules on company ownership of houses etc. Alan

Be wary when using version 1.0.0 as that will almost certainly have not been properly tested. Alan

If this lack of service continues, I'll need to ask my landlord if it's OK for me to change my broadband provider (he arranged for it to be installed). Maxnet has also been recommended to me as being pretty reliable. Alan

One other point to bear in mind is to ensure that the condo is already in or can be transferred into a farang's OWN name. I'm uncertain how the new visa regulations will affect prices but would not be surprised if they were to go down. There again, many are bought specifically to rent out. Alan

Well, my broadband came back up at 3.30 this afternoon, about 24 hours after it went down. So far, it's working well but .................... it's only been back 6 1/2 hours. Alan

Large numbers of photos is fine IF you have a broadband connection - even then though a number of them don't open. It reached the stage that I tended to open a post with photos, close it after a couple of minutes and then go back to it some time later. Either that or I just skipped it all together. Even with broadband, replying to a post can take some time. Alan

There has been the odd occasion since the board software was upgraded that I've had a similar problem when replying to a post when using my laptop in my condo or the page has just timed out. That wasn't a problem with the old software. Someone on Secrets suggested that it could be to do with cookies, but the only time I have this problem is when replying to posts - not when viewing a new page or using the back button on the browser. Alan

There appears to be a major flaw in the software when people try to reply to topics whilst in an internet cafe. As my broadband service is down, I'm having to use the internet cafe in the condo. I logged on and when I tried to repy to a post I was immediately logged out. I was properly logged in as the post I was replying to was in the Members' Area. This also happened to me on the Secrets Board so it would seem to be something to do with InVision as opposed specifically this board. Any thoughts on why this is happening? I've reported it on the Secrets Board as well. My broadband connection finally came back on line after having been down for 24 hours. Bloody TOT. They're worse than AOL, which is hard to believe! Alan

I have been experiencing similar problems with TOT - their service is a bloody disgrace. It has failed on almost a daily basis for the last 10 days or so and went down yet again yesterday afternoon and as far as I know hasn't been back up since. The office at View Talay has given me a number to try but it's engaged (038-425553). Jack, anyone, do you have another number that I can phone? Alan

I'm not sure of the answer to this but I do know that there is a limit on how far back arrears of benefit can be claimed. I would therefore strongly recommend the widow to contact the authorites herself. There is also a minimum age a widow has to be to claim a state widow's pension. I'm not sure of the age but believe it is either 40 or 45. Also, some company pension schemes will reduce the amount of a widow's pension if the widow there is a large age difference between the two parties - possibly 15 years. Alan

As I mentioned above, I dealt with the administration of estates for 25 years. The first comment I would make is that the more Wills you have, the greater the chance of something going wrong due to a mistake being made. It really depends on how substantial the assets you have in each country. If it's just a bank account, then I wouldn't bee too concerned. Having said that, if you want different people to benefit from the assets in a particular country, then I would do a seperate Will for that country from an administrative point of view if nothing else. One point you should do is to ensure that each Will states precisely what assets are covered by it (e.g. "solely within Thailand" etc. Also one Will should deal with your assets worldwide but specifically exclude your assets in, say, Thailand. Also, never, ever, revoke ALL previous Wills. Yes, revoke all previous Wills dealing with your estate within (or outwith) Thailand. A statement revoking ALL previous Wills will do just that - even if it was only intended to revoke previous Thai Wills. If a beneficiary lives in a country where you have no assets, it would be pointless preparing a Will in that country. If you have assets in the UK, the authorities there (Probate Registry in England or Commissary Office in Scotland) will want to see the ORIGINALS of ALL valid Wills as well as satisfying themselves that all these Wills are validly executed in accordance with the laws of the country in which you are domiciled. (NOT the laws of the country where the assets are situated). Probate granted in that country will remove the need for an original Will to be produced). This area can be bloody complicated though one way to get round the "valid under the laws of the country in which you are domiciled" is to ensure that the Will is validly executed in the country in which it is signed. It would not do any harm to get proper advice from a solicitor in each country you hold assets though the chances of your average small town family solicitor having the required experience is not high. I have had to tell qualified solicitors that they were talking shite on more than one occasion. (I have a banking qualification) Alan

Agreed. When I was returning to Thailand from Vietnam, I was asked at Check In whether I had an onward ticket from Thaland. I just pointed to the visa in my passport and had no problems after that. Alan

The link explains things better than I could. Just a note - the intestacy laws are different in Scotland but I won't go into those here as they would seem to be irrelevant to the original question. On to the subject of Wills, which I know a lot quite a bit about having spent 25 years dealing with estates of people who have died. It's not essential to have seperate Wills dealing with your estate in your home country and your estate in Thailand BUT it makes life a hell of a lot easier especially if you want different people to benefit. If you do make sepereate Wills, it is NOT sufficient to make your solicitors in each country know about the existence of the other Will. SEND THEM A COPY OF THE OTHER WILL AND ASK THEM TO CONFIRM IN WRITING THAT IT DOES ONE WILL DOES NOT INADVERTENTLY REVOKE THE OTHER. Sorry to shout BUT I did come across a case where a Will dealing with a guy's estate outwith the UK revoked his UK Will. It wasn't intended and he later signed a Codicil to his UK Will, which saved the day though it caused me one hell of a lot of problems and dare I say it two people signed an affidavit where I very much doubt that they in all reality could be totally certain that what they were swearing was the absolute truth. I wasn't bothered as it was correcting what in all reality was a mistake. One other point, especially if the UK is your home country, the UK Courts will want to see evidence that ALL valid Wills you have signed are valid in the country in which you are domiciled. Here, please note that domicile is NOT the same as residence. I am resident in Thailand but I am still domiciled in Scotland - though it is my aim to become domiciled in Thailand. Alan

Was the marriage formally registered or was it just a Buddhist ceremony? Was the husband English or Scottish? Rights of the widow are different in Scotland and England. I assume no Will had been made (if English any existing Will would have been rendered void by the marriage but not so if Scottish). Did the husband have children from a previous relationship (or children from this relationship)? In Scotland, a widow can claim a certain percentage of the husband's moveable (excluding house if owned in his own name) estate. In England, a widow can only make a claim where she was entirely dependent on the husband - though I have no idea of how this works in practice. The laws governing the distribution of an estate where there is no Will are also quite different in Scotland and England. If you can provide some more information, I may be able to give you a more definitive answer. Alan

Ah - I didn't see the button marked "Correct" Alan

I have Sophon cable in my condo, which I suspect is what most hotels will have. I think if you want to watch American Football whilst over here your best bet would be to find a bar that's willing to show it. Alan

I've never seen an HSBC ATM in Pattaya either. My account is with Bangkok Bank but their ATM's seem to be few and far between in Pattaya so I tend to get charged 20 or 23 baht each time I use another bank's ATM. It's either that or take a baht bus to and from Bangkok Bank's nearest office - at a cost of 20 baht. I choose convenience! Alan